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Rats know when they remember: transfer of metacognitive responding across odor-based delayed match-to-sample tests.
Anim Cogn. 2017 Sep; 20(5):891-906.AC

Abstract

Metamemory entails cognitively assessing the strength of one's memories. We tested the ability of nine Long-Evans rats to distinguish between remembering and forgetting by presenting a decline option that allowed a four-choice odor-based delayed match to sample (DMTS) tests to be by-passed. Rats performed significantly better on tests they chose to take than on tests they were forced to take, indicating metacognitive responding. However, rather than control by internal mnemonic cues, one alternative explanation is that decline use is based on external test-specific cues that become associated with increased rewards overtime. To examine this possibility, we tested rats on three generalization tests in which external contingencies were inconsistent and therefore could not serve as discriminative cues. Rats transferred adaptive use of the decline response in tests that eliminated memory by presenting no sample, increased memory by presenting multiple samples, and both weakened and strengthened memory by varying the retention interval. Further, subjects chose to take or decline the test before encountering the memory test, providing evidence that rats based their metacognitive responding on internal cues rather than external ones. To our knowledge, this is the first robust evidence for metamemory in rats using the DMTS decline-test paradigm in which several possible sources of external stimulus control can be ruled out.

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Authors+Show Affiliations

Templer VL
Department of Psychology, Providence College, 1 Cunningham Square, Providence, RI, 02918, USA. vtempler@providence.edu.
Lee KA
Department of Psychology, Providence College, 1 Cunningham Square, Providence, RI, 02918, USA.
Preston AJ
Department of Psychology, Providence College, 1 Cunningham Square, Providence, RI, 02918, USA.

MeSH

AnimalsChoice BehaviorCuesMaleMemoryMetacognitionOdorantsRats, Long-EvansReward

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article

Language

eng

PubMed ID

28669115

Citation

Templer, Victoria L., et al. "Rats Know when They Remember: Transfer of Metacognitive Responding Across Odor-based Delayed Match-to-sample Tests." Animal Cognition, vol. 20, no. 5, 2017, pp. 891-906.
Templer VL, Lee KA, Preston AJ. Rats know when they remember: transfer of metacognitive responding across odor-based delayed match-to-sample tests. Anim Cogn. 2017;20(5):891-906.
Templer, V. L., Lee, K. A., & Preston, A. J. (2017). Rats know when they remember: transfer of metacognitive responding across odor-based delayed match-to-sample tests. Animal Cognition, 20(5), 891-906. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-017-1109-3
Templer VL, Lee KA, Preston AJ. Rats Know when They Remember: Transfer of Metacognitive Responding Across Odor-based Delayed Match-to-sample Tests. Anim Cogn. 2017;20(5):891-906. PubMed PMID: 28669115.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - Rats know when they remember: transfer of metacognitive responding across odor-based delayed match-to-sample tests. AU - Templer,Victoria L, AU - Lee,Keith A, AU - Preston,Aidan J, Y1 - 2017/07/01/ PY - 2016/12/16/received PY - 2017/06/23/accepted PY - 2017/06/15/revised PY - 2017/7/3/pubmed PY - 2018/8/17/medline PY - 2017/7/3/entrez KW - Declarative memory KW - Executive control KW - Explicit memory KW - Metacognition KW - Metamemory KW - Monitoring SP - 891 EP - 906 JF - Animal cognition JO - Anim Cogn VL - 20 IS - 5 N2 - Metamemory entails cognitively assessing the strength of one's memories. We tested the ability of nine Long-Evans rats to distinguish between remembering and forgetting by presenting a decline option that allowed a four-choice odor-based delayed match to sample (DMTS) tests to be by-passed. Rats performed significantly better on tests they chose to take than on tests they were forced to take, indicating metacognitive responding. However, rather than control by internal mnemonic cues, one alternative explanation is that decline use is based on external test-specific cues that become associated with increased rewards overtime. To examine this possibility, we tested rats on three generalization tests in which external contingencies were inconsistent and therefore could not serve as discriminative cues. Rats transferred adaptive use of the decline response in tests that eliminated memory by presenting no sample, increased memory by presenting multiple samples, and both weakened and strengthened memory by varying the retention interval. Further, subjects chose to take or decline the test before encountering the memory test, providing evidence that rats based their metacognitive responding on internal cues rather than external ones. To our knowledge, this is the first robust evidence for metamemory in rats using the DMTS decline-test paradigm in which several possible sources of external stimulus control can be ruled out. SN - 1435-9456 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/28669115/Rats_know_when_they_remember:_transfer_of_metacognitive_responding_across_odor_based_delayed_match_to_sample_tests_ L2 - https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-017-1109-3 DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -