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Biomedical subjects

M E Bitterman

Publications and source records attributed to M E Bitterman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Learning in honeybees (Apis mellifera) as a function of sucrose concentration.

Foraging honeybees (Apis mellifera) were trained with 2 successively presented targets differing in color or odor, one of which always contained a 5-microliters drop of 50% sucrose solution and the other, a 5-microliters drop of 20% sucrose solution. Latency of response to each target was measured during the training, and at the conclusion, preference was measured in an unrewarded choice test. Analysis of the latencies showed both a prospective effect (faster response to the 50% target than to the 20% target) and a nonassociative retrospective effect (faster response after leaving the 20% target than after leaving the 50% target) reminiscent of the frustration effect in rats. The results both for prospective latency and for choice can be understood on the simple theory that the attractiveness of a target depends on the strength of its association with sucrose and that the effect of concentration is on asymptotic strength.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Simultaneous conditioning in honeybees (Apis mellifera).

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) were classically conditioned with odor as conditioned stimulus (CS), sucrose as unconditioned stimulus (US), and proboscis extension as response. The purpose of Experiment 1 (Ns = 26 and 27) was to look for facilitation of forward conditioning by CS-US overlap, but rapid conditioning without overlap left little room for improvement. In 2 further experiments, CS and US were simultaneous, and response to odor alone was measured in subsequent tests. In Experiment 2, a Simultaneous group (N = 25) responded more to the training odor than did an Unpaired control group (N = 25). In Experiment 3, a differentially conditioned Simultaneous group (N = 29) responded more to an odor paired with sucrose in training (S+) than to an odor presented alone (S-). The implications of the results for the problem of the role of amount of reward in honeybee learning are considered.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Appetitive conditioning in Octopus cyanea.

The performance of Octopus cyanea was studied in 3 appetitive conditioning situations. In Experiment 1, 2 groups were trained in a runway; a large reward produced faster acquisition when reinforcement was consistent and better subsequent performance on a partial schedule than did a small reward. In Experiment 2, activity in the vicinity of a feeder was measured, and in Experiment 3, latency and probability of response were measured in an automated version of a traditional conditioned attack situation (Boycott & Young, 1950). There was evidence of acquisition with continuous reinforcement in both experiments but in neither with partial reinforcement. All of the results can be understood in terms of growth and decline in the strength of stimulus-reinforcer associations with reinforcement and nonreinforcement.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Learning by honeybees (Apis mellifera) on arrival at and departure from a feeding place.

The question of when in the course of a visit to a feeding place foraging honeybees (Apis mellifera) learn about its location was studied in Experiment 1 by moving the animals a short distance after they arrived and began to feed. A preference for the arrival place developed, although less rapidly than in control animals for which the arrival and departure places were the same. In Experiments 2-5, a distinctive object was used to define the location of the feeding place. When the object was removed after arrival or introduced only after arrival, the animals learned less about its color and shape than did control animals for which it was present throughout each visit. The results contradict the claim that honeybees learn about certain characteristics of a feeding place only on arrival and about others only on departure.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

The role of contingency in classical conditioning.

The assumption that classical conditioning depends on a contingent relation between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US), which was proposed some decades ago as an alternative to the traditional contiguity assumption, still is widely accepted as an empirical generalization, if no longer as a theoretical postulate. The first support for the contingency assumption was provided by experiments in which occasional CS-US pairings produced no response to the CS in random training--i.e., training in which the probability of the US was the same in the presence and absence of the CS. Those early experiments, the results of which too often are taken at face value, are reconsidered along with various later experiments that show conditioning, both of the CS and its context, in random training. The evidence suggests that CS-US contingency is neither necessary nor sufficient for conditioning and that the concept has long outlived any usefulness it may once have had in the analysis of conditioning.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Conditioning analysis of magnetoreception in honeybees.

A central problem in the study of magnetic sensitivity in animals has been the lack of behavioral techniques sufficiently powerful for the systematic psychophysical work required for an understanding of magnetosensory capacity and of the transduction mechanism. In recent experiments, free-flying honeybees have been conditioned to discriminate the presence and absence of localized magnetic dipole anomalies superimposed on the uniform background field of the earth. The results obtained thus far suggest that movement is necessary for conditioned responding to magnetic field stimuli and support the hypothesis that magnetic field transduction is based on single-domain particles of magnetite found in the anterodorsal abdomen of honeybees.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Attempts to train goldfish to respond to magnetic field stimuli.

Two different conditioning procedures, one appetitive and the other aversive, were used in separate attempts to demonstrate response to magnetic fields in the goldfish, Carassius auratus. Our results lead us to question those of an orientation experiment by Becker, although we recognize the possibility that goldfish may be sensitive primarily to magnetic field direction rather than intensity and that their directional sensitivity may be evidenced most readily by orientation in the field.

Animals↗
PubMed1978

Modification of attention in honey bees.

Honey bees were trained in two consecutive two-dimensional (color-position) problems with one dimension (color or position) relevant and the other irrelevant in each problem. As in analogous experiments on dimensional transfer in rats and monkeys, performance in the second problem was more accurate when the relevant and irrelevant dimensions were the same as in the first problem than when they were interchanged. The results of further experiments suggest that the transfer is mediated by different modes of responding that develop in color and position problems rather than by some special process of dimensional selection, such as has been assumed to operate in vertebrates.

Animals↗
PubMed1976

Incentive contrast in honey bees.

Bees trained to come to the laboratory for a 20% sucrose solution accept it readily, but bees trained with a 40% sucrose solution and tested with the 20% solution show a pattern of interrupted feeding that may last for several minutes. Bees trained with 20% and tested with 40% sucrose are undisturbed. When the animals are offered two samples of the 20% solution simultaneously, they drink to repletion from whichever they first taste on each visit, but if both a 20% and a 40% drop are offered the 20% solution is rejected after a single experience of the 40% solution. Although these results are analogous in many respects to incentive contrast effects found in mammals, they can be understood in sensory terms and do not require the assumption of learning about reward.

Animals↗
PubMed1975

Blocking and overshadowing in two species of fish.

In Experiment 1, a mixed blocking-overshadowing effect of color on an auditory discrimination was demonstrated in goldfish. In Experiment 2 (with lines differing in color and angle), blocking of angle by color and of color by angle was demonstrated in goldfish, In Experiment 3 (again with lines differing in color and angle), overshadowing of angle by color was demonstrated in carp, but the same animals (like goldfish in a previous study) failed to show greater intradimensional than extradimensional transfer. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that blocking and overshadowing are general phenomena of vertebrate learning. They suggest also that the processes responsible for blocking and overshadowing are different from those which produce the dimensional transfer effect.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1970

Interference and forgetting in bird and fish.

Retention in the pigeon and in the goldfish was measured 1 day or 2 weeks after the mastery of each of a series of color discrimination. The amount of forgetting in the pigeon increased with the number of prior problems and increased more rapidly at the longer than at the shorter interval. the amount of forgetting in the goldfish was independent, at both intervals, of the number of prior problems. These results point to the operation of different memory mechanisms in the two animals.

Animals↗
PubMed1969

Learning in fish with transplanted brain tissue.

Material taken from fish embryos during gastrulation was implanted at prospective tectal sites in host embryos of the same age and species. When mature, the hosts were trained in a series of habit reversals. Two of six animals showed progressive improvement in reversal (a phenomenon not typically found in fish, but characteristic of higher animals), two showed unusually few errors, and two behaved normally. Differences in performance were correlated with differences brain structure.

Animals↗