Animal cognition 1

Answer 1

The lamination of our cortex is the reason we can perform all our behaviours.

Question 2

Prefrontal cortex

Answer 2

Essentially the bigger the prefrontal cortex the more intelligent a species is

Question 3

Working memory in monkeys

Answer 3

Monkeys were sat in front of 2 light bulbs, one would turn on and off then after 2 sections they would choose which one turned on. When the cue was presented there was a spike in neurons, then this increased during the delay. Showing that monkeys have working memory. In between the cue and the choice, monkeys held on to the information in their working memory.
However the spike could just be reward anticipation.
No manipulation of information- could just be short term memory

Question 4

Dopamine and classical conditioning

Answer 4

When monkeys are given orange juice their dopamine neurons spike. When a bell (CS) is continually rang before giving them oj, the dopamine spikes when they hear the bell, not when they get the oj. When they don’t get given oj, there is still a spike when they hear the bell, but a decrease when they are meant to have the oj

Question 5

Nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) (bird brain)

Answer 5

Argued to be similar in function to the prefrontal cortex in mammals.
Experiment
Remember- pigeons are presented with a target sample and peck when they have acknowledged it.
Then they are presented with an auditory cue telling them to remember the sample.
After a delay of 3 seconds they have to compare between 2 stimulus and select the correct one.

Forget- same trial but the auditory cue tells them to forget the sample

In the remember trials there is sustained activity in the NCL after the cue, during the delay stage, showing working memory.

in the forget trials there is a sharp decline of activity after the forget cue.

However could still be reward anticipation
Or preparation of motor responses

Question 6

Working memory in crows

Answer 6

Crows are presented with an image, 1000ms later there a 4 images including the first one they saw, they must select the original one.
- Disentangles working memory from motor preparation- the location of stimulus changes randomly.
- chance of reward was equal for all items- no reward expectations

Sample selective neurons- some pictures fire more neurons than others, proving cows are distinguishing between the 4 images.
In the error trials the firing rate of the neurons does not distinguish the different stimuli as well as in correct trials

Question 7

Advantages of animal studies

Answer 7

Allows direct recordings of action potentials
Invasive- not possible in humans
Spatial and temporal accuracy can’t get from EEG, fMRI

Question 8

Disadvantages

Answer 8

Invasive- can be stressful for animals
Animals can’t self report
Have to be trained on task- don’t reflect typical behaviour
Difficult to design tasks to remove confounds- motor preparation, reward anticipation