Reducing sensory experiences during the period that immediately follows learning improves long-term memory retention in healthy humans, and even preserves memory in patients with amnesia. To date, it is entirely unclear why this is the case, and identifying the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning this effect requires suitable animal models,…

Nonassociative learning is considered simple because it depends on presentation of a single stimulus, but it likely reflects complex molecular signaling. To advance understanding of the molecular mechanisms of one form of nonassociative learning, habituation, for ethologically relevant signals we examined song recognition learning in adult zebra…

Multiple hypotheses have been offered to explain the impaired face-processing behavior and the accompanying underlying disruptions in neural circuitry among individuals with autism. We explored the specificity of atypical face-processing activation and potential alterations to fusiform gyrus (FG) morphology as potential underlying mechanisms.…

One influential model of recognition posits two underlying memory processes: recollection, which is detailed but relatively slow, and familiarity, which is quick but lacks detail. Most of the evidence for this dual-process model in nonhumans has come from analyses of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves in rats, but whether ROC analyses…

Insects are the most abundant and diverse group of animals on Earth. Though as a group they do far more ecological good than harm, previous studies have shown that human attitudes toward insects are mainly negative. Attitudes have affective (emotions) and cognitive (beliefs, mental representations) components that interact to influence behavior.…

Receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) have been used extensively to study the processes underlying human recognition memory, and this method has recently been applied in studies of rats. However, the extent to which the results from human and animal studies converge is neither entirely clear, nor is it known how the different methods used to…

Rhesus monkeys were trained and tested in visual and auditory list-memory tasks with sequences of four travel pictures or four natural/environmental sounds followed by single test items. Acquisitions of the visual list-memory task are presented. Visual recency (last item) memory diminished with retention delay, and primacy (first item) memory…

We directly compared chimpanzee infants and human infants for categorical representations of three global-like categories (mammals, furniture and vehicles), using the familiarization-novelty preference technique. Neither species received any training during the experiments. We used the time that participants spent looking at the stimulus object…