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Long-Term Retention of Olfactory Discrimination Learning Set in Rats

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Abstract

Six male Sprague-Dawley rats were used to examine the long-term retention of an olfactory discrimination learning set. Rats were trained on 30 odor-unique, 5-trial discrimination problems, transferred to an olfactory discrimination reversal task, and then given a 6-week break in training. The rats demonstrated use of a learning set by performing significantly better than expected by chance on Trial 2 on both the olfactory discrimination problems and the olfactory discrimination reversal problems. Following the 6-week break in training, retention of learning set was tested using 20 new odor-unique discrimination problems. The rats again performed significantly better than expected by chance on Trial 2 in the retention test indicating they had retained the learning set.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, 18952 E. Fisher Road, St. Mary’s City, MD, 20686-3001, USA

    Aileen M. Bailey

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  1. Aileen M. Bailey
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Bailey, A.M. Long-Term Retention of Olfactory Discrimination Learning Set in Rats. Psychol Rec 56, 219–231 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395546

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