A multiple species approach to sequential learning: Are you a man or a mouse?

We have developed a method for studying list learning in animals and humans , and we use variants of the task to examine list learning in rats, mice, a nd humans. This method holds several advantages over other methods. It has been found to be easily learned without lengthy pretraining. The data gathe red with this procedure provide a measure of correct response rates, of inc orrect responses and the locations of these responses, and of response late ncy on a trial-by-trial basis. We have examined mouse, rat, and human list acquisition of patterns ranging from 12 to 48 items in length. This procedu re has also been used to examine many aspects of list learning, such as the effects of the placement of phrasing cues that are either consistent or in consistent with the structure of the list in rats and mice, the effects of phrasing cues of differing modalities in mice, the sensitivity of subjects to violations of list structure in rats, subjects' abilities to "chunk" fro m nonadjacent serial positions in structured lists in rats, and subjects' s ensitivity to serial patterns with multiple levels of hierarchical organiza tion. The procedure has also been used to examine the effects of drugs on s equential learning.