Abstract
Rats sustaining either hippocampal lesions or sham operations were compared on maze activity and visual pattern discrimination in a Y-maze. On the discrimination problem, approximately one-half of the brain-damaged and sham-operated rats were trained with an irrelevant runway task interposed during the intertrial intervals. The rats with hippocampal lesions were found to be more active in the maze than the controls, but hippocampally damaged rats showed no evidence of a discrimination deficit, with or without distraction.
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This paper is based on a thesis submitted by Gay B. Alexander to East Carolina University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an MA. The research was supported in part by a grant from North Carolina Mental Health to Larry W. Means. The authors thank Patricia Willis and Henry Hooks for their assistance.
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Alexander, G.B., Broome, B. & Means, L.W. The effects of an irrelevant intertrial task on pattern discrimination in rats with hippocampal damage. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 3, 459–461 (1974). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333528
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333528