L2 spatial memory

Question 1

Two methods of navigation

Answer 1

path integration and cognitive map

Question 2

Navigation by path integration

Answer 2

• Ants use heading + distance travelled
• nocturnal ants can use moonlight polarisation
• Egocentric navigation uses internal sensory cues like proprioception
• tends to accumulate errors

Question 3

Navigation by cognitive map

Answer 3

• allocentric navigation (external sensory cues)
• e.g., honing pigeons
• highly accurate
• uses hippocampus (place cells)

Question 4

idiothetic

Answer 4

egocentric, internally generated

Question 5

allocentric

Answer 5

External landmark cues, cognitive map

Question 6

supervised Vs unsupervised learning

Answer 6

learning supervised is by a system that monitors prediction error and then adjusts associative weights
unsupervised occurs when here is no explicit learning outcomes

Question 7

Tolman experiment

Answer 7

• 2 groups of rats, one trained to run for food and the other doesn’t have until day 11
• the rats who didn’t get food till 11 performed better a cognitive map is second nature
• supports notion that neutral cognitive map exists

Question 8

Scovile and Milner

Answer 8

bilateral removal of MTL produces impairment in episodic memory

Question 9

Olton’s experiment

Answer 9

Radial arm maze:
- food at end of each arm once
- optimal strategy to visit each arm once
- reference memory used between trials - fact that all arms always baited
- working memory used within trial - mental note of arms already visited
- hippocampal lesions disrupt spatial but not cued WM learning

Question 10

what studies provide evidence for hippocampus being site of cognitive map

Answer 10

Olton and Tolman

Question 11

neural basis for cognitive map

Answer 11

• john Okeefe 1970s
• Place cells fire when rat enters place field, assumed to by pyramidal cells

Question 12

place cells

Answer 12

• non-topographic
• adjacent place cells do not usually have adjacent place fields
• fire APs in complex bursts

Question 13

Head direction (HD) cells

Answer 13

• codes for direction…
• in a 90degrees arc around their preferred direction
• to same direction in different environments
• may orient spatial maps in hippocampus

Question 14

Grid cells

Answer 14

• code for distance
• some overlapping some not
• grid field centres located at points of equilateral triangle
• arranged topographically
• context independent and maintain constant spacing between peaks in firing rate - so can map distance

Question 15

which cells support path integration?

Answer 15

• Head direction, grid and speed cells OUTSIDE hippocampus (egocentric)

Question 16

which cells respond to spatial attributes of environment (allocentric)

Answer 16

• place cells in rats fire relative to the position of the animal
• supports cognitive map hypothesis of O’Keefe and Nadel