Abstract
In two separate experiments, rats with bilateral lesions of the superior colliculus showed significantly poorer relearning of a horizontal/vertical stripe discrimination than control animals. In Experiment 1, all animals showed disruption of performance when a stimulus--response (S--R) separation was introduced by raising the stimuli above the site of responding. However, the colliculectomized rats were much more disturbed by the S--R separation than were animals in the control group. In Experiment 2, all animals showed lower performance levels when conflicting patterns were introduced into the upper portion of the stimulus doors, but this time the rats with collicular lesions were less disturbed than the control animals. It is suggested (a) that when the stimulus and response sites are discontiguous, animals must make an appropriate orienting response in order to effectively sample the visual stimuli and (b) that lesions of the superior colliculus alter performance by interfering with this orienting behavior. The impairment in relearning is tentatively attributed to the absence of preoperative overtraining on the discrimination task.
Keywords
Superior colliculusOvertrainingStimulus (psychology)PsychologyAudiologyNeuroscienceVigilance (psychology)Superior ColliculiOrienting responseCognitive psychologyVisual systemMedicineHabituationVisual cortex
MeSH Terms
AnimalsCuesDiscrimination LearningDominanceCerebralFixationOcularForm PerceptionMaleOrientationPattern RecognitionVisualRatsSpace PerceptionSuperior ColliculiVisual Fields
Related Publications
The effects of lesions of the superior colliculus on locomotor orientation and the orienting reflex in the rat
The effects of bilateral removal of the superior colliculus or visual cortex on visually guided locomotor movements in rats performing a brightness discrimination task were inve...
Deficits of visual attention and saccadic eye movements after lesions of parietooccipital cortex in monkeys
1. Visual attention is often profoundly disturbed in humans after damage to the cortex of the posterior parietal lobe, particularly of the minor hemisphere, with some patients b...
Involvement of the central nucleus and basolateral complex of the amygdala in fear conditioning measured with fear-potentiated startle in rats trained concurrently with auditory and visual conditioned stimuli
The goal of this work was to test the involvement of the central nucleus and basolateral complex of the amygdala in fear conditioning, using auditory and visual conditioned stim...
Hand action preparation influences the responses to hand pictures
The relations between stimuli triggering a hand grasping movement and the subsequent action were studied in normal human participants. Participants were instructed to prepare to...
INTRAHEMISPHERIC CORTICAL CONNEXIONS AND VISUAL GUIDANCE OF HAND AND FINGER MOVEMENTS IN THE RHESUS MONKEY
An attempt has been made to elucidate in the rhesus monkey the role of intrahemispheric cortico-cortical connexions in visual guidance of relatively independent hand and finger ...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1979
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 93
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1015-1023
- Citations
- 68
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
68
OpenAlex
0
Influential
64
CrossRef
Cite This
A. David Milner,
Melvyn A. Goodale,
Margaret C. Morton
(1979).
Visual sampling after lesions of the superior colliculus in rats..
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
, 93
(6)
, 1015-1023.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0077638
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1037/h0077638
- PMID
- 521517