Sleep-like behavior has been studied in honeybees before, but the relationship between sleep and memory formation has not been explored. Here we describe a new approach to address the question if sleep in bees, like in other animals, improves memory consolidation. Restrained bees were observed by a web camera, and their antennal activities were…

Food-deprived rats in Experiment 1 responded to one of two tandem schedules that were, with equal probability, associated with a sample lever. The tandem schedules' initial links were different random-interval schedules. Their values were adjusted to approximate equality in time to completing each tandem schedule's response requirements. The…

The present research used pigeons in a three-key operant chamber and varied procedural features pertaining to both initial and terminal links of concurrent chains. The initial links randomly alternated on the side keys during a session, while the terminal links always appeared on the center key. Both equal and unequal initial-link schedules were…

Reinforcers contingent on response variability exert powerful and precise control over levels of variability, from stereotypy to stochasticity. This paper reviews how variability-contingent reinforcers interact with non-contingent, eliciting events to influence the variability of operant responses. Relationships to stimulus control, choice,…

A nonverbal false belief task was administered to children (mean age 5 years) and two great ape species: chimpanzees ("Pan troglodytes") and bonobos ("Pan paniscus"). Because apes typically perform poorly in cooperative contexts, our task was competitive. Two versions were run: in both, a human competitor witnessed an experimenter hide a reward in…

An issue of increasing theoretical interest in the study of learning is to compare the processes that follow an initial learning experience (such as learning an association between a context and a shock; memory consolidation processes) with those that follow retrieval of that learning experience (such as exposure to the context in the absence of…

FE65 is expressed predominantly in the brain and interacts with the C-terminal domain of [beta]-amyloid precursor protein (APP). We examined hippocampus-dependent memory and in vivo long-term potentiation (LTP) at the CA1 synapses with isoform-specific FE65 knockout (p97FE65[superscript -/-]) mice. When examined using the Morris water maze,…

Two neural systems, a hippocampal system and an extrahippocampal system compete for control over contextual fear, and the hippocampal system normally dominates. Our experiments reveal that output provided by the ventral subiculum is critical for the hippocampal system to win this competition. Bilateral electrolytic lesions of the ventral subiculum…

Rats were subjected to one or two cycles of fear conditioning and extinction, injected with a benzodiazepine, midazolam, before the first or second extinction, and tested for long-term inhibition of fear responses (freezing). In Experiment 1, inhibition of context-conditioned fear was spared when midazolam was injected before the second…

Past research has demonstrated a transformation of stimulus functions under similar conditions using gambling tasks and adults (e.g., Zlomke & Dixon, 2006), and the present study attempted to extend this research. Experimenters exposed 7 children (ages 7 to 10 years) to a simulated board game with concurrently available dice differing only by…

The central amygdala nucleus (CeA) plays a critical role in cognitive processes beyond fear conditioning. For example, intact CeA function is essential for enhancing attention to conditioned stimuli (CSs). Furthermore, this enhanced attention depends on the CeA's connections to the nigrostriatal system. In the current study, we examined the role…

Hippocampal-dependent tasks often involve specific associations among stimuli (including egocentric information), and such tasks are therefore prone to interference from irrelevant task strategies before a correct strategy is found. Using an object-place paired-associate task, we investigated changes in neural firing patterns in the hippocampus in…

The contradiction emerging between the lived experience of a minority of marginalised urban youth and the punitive operant conditioning of antisocial behaviour legislation is illustrative of the increasing gap between society's expectations of behaviour and the coming reality. In this paper, Loic Wacquant's sociology of advanced marginality is…

Psychologists have long been intrigued with the rationales that underlie our decisions. Similarly, the concept of conditioned reinforcement has a venerable history, particularly in accounting for behavior not obviously maintained by primary reinforcers. The studies of choice and of conditioned reinforcement have often developed in lockstep. Many…

The topic of stimulus control is too broad and complex to be traceable here. It would probably take a two-semester course to cover just the highlights of that field's evolution. The more restricted topic of equivalence relations has itself become so broad that even an introductory summary requires more time than we have available. An examination…