Spatial Learning

Question 1

Place cells

Answer 1

Cell fires when individual is in a specific location within the environment.
Cell firing is highest when the animal is within the place field.
Place cells next to each other do not necessarily have adjacent receptive fields.
Supports the cognitive map hypothesis.

Question 2

Grid cells

Answer 2

Cells in the EC, with receptive fields arranged in hexagons formed of equilateral triangles. The cell will fire when the individual is located within the receptive field.
This means that the cell will become repeatedly activated and then deactivated when the organism moves across the environment.
Allows interpretation of distance travelled.
Supports path integration hypothesis.

Question 3

Tolman

Answer 3

Supervised and unsupervised learning in rats. knew that animals move towards objects, e.g. food.
Placed rats in mazes with either food (sup.) or no food (unsup.). Rats not given the food were able to find the food faster when presented on day 11 > food given all the time.
Unsupervised learning - learned bout the environment without feedback, so when given the food, showed insight to move towards the food using the most efficient route available. (not simply stimulus-response behaviour).

Question 4

Olton

Answer 4

Radial arm maze (rats). Rats learn which of the arms are baited. Use reference points in environment to learn locations. They then must use this insight to make judgement of where to move to (only towards food - most efficient strategy).
Measure speed, direction, behaviour etc.

Question 5

Reference memory

Answer 5

Olton

Used between trials. e.g. remember which arm(s) are baited.

Question 6

Working memory

Answer 6

Olton

Used within trials, e.g. remember which arm(s) have already visited.

Question 7

Egocentric cues

Answer 7

Ideolithic cues that are internally generated.
e.g. vestibular input - head direction cells.
Only available in environment that is known well.
Can accumulate errors through path integration.

Question 8

Allocentric landmarks

Answer 8

External landmarks within the environment. Can be used to form cognitive map within area known well.

Question 9

Supervised learning

Answer 9

Monitored by feedback system.
e.g. animal learns that the CS predicts the US. Therefore will do CR in anticipation.
Supervised by a monitoring system - calculated deviation from the expected outcome. (Expected-Actual).
In response to deviation, synaptic weights are altered to reach expected outcome.

Question 10

Unsupervised learning

Answer 10

No feedback provided.
e.g. spatial learning.
no immediate reward/reinforcement for learning.

Question 11

MWM

Answer 11

Morris Water Maze (Richard Morris).

Question 12

Cued learning in MWM

Answer 12

Does not require navigation.
Can be performed with hippocampus lesions.
Involves stimulus-response pairing.

Question 13

Spatial learning in MWM

Answer 13

Does require navigation.
Rat needs to learn the relationship between the external cues provided - form cognitive map of where the platform is located.

Question 14

Animals keep track of location integrating ____ and ____ motion.

Answer 14

Linear, Angular.

Question 15

Cognitive Map hypothesis

Answer 15

O’keefe and Nadel.
Generate an internal representation of the environment based on the external cues provided.
Located within the hippocampus.
Place cells provide good neurological basis of cognitive map.
Does not require internally generated egocentric cues (e.g. vestibular).

Question 16

Path Integration hypothesis.

Answer 16

Bruce and McNaughton.
Path integration (internal cues) provide enough info for navigation.
Eg use info of direction, speed, time spent in certain area.
Not supported by place cells.

Question 17

Head direction cells

Answer 17

In pre-subiculum.
Peak firing rate when head is in certain direction.
Fire in 90 degree arc around preferred direction in different environments. Eg north. BUT cannot detect the compass direction?

Question 18

Speed cells

Answer 18

In entorhinal cortex.
Firing rate depends on speed of travel - will have a preferred speed, so firing will be highest at this speed.
Gradient of firing depending on speed of travel.

Question 19

Path integration = ____ + ____

Answer 19

Grid cells, head direction cells.

Question 20

Measure rate of movement = ____ + ____

Answer 20

Path integration, speed cells.

Question 21

Hippocampus responds to ____ attributes of the environment.

Answer 21

Spatial.

Question 22

The left MTL is more involved in ____ memory, whereas the right MTL is more involved in ____ memory.

Answer 22

Episodic, Spatial