Exhaustive memory scanning in Rattus norvegicus: Recognition for food items.

Eight male and 8 female Long-Evans rats were trained with a forced correct decision technique to find and freely consume 1–6 foods in a modified food item recognition task to further test the suggestion in previous research of a convergence of human and nonhuman memory strategies. Results show that older, maze-wise, richly experienced Ss exhibited serial, exhaustive memory scanning of food items in the task. This strategy was observed whether the test food item matched or did not match a memorized set. There was no serial position effect noted, but there was an error phenomenon, which suggested an interaction between the opportunity to self-order handling of food items and a memory capacity limit. Findings provide support for convergence of memory strategies across mammalian species and suggest the need for thinking within a natural-selection framework. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)