Primacy Effects in Nonspatial Recognition Memory in Rats
Abstract The existence of primacy and recency effects in nonspatial recognition memory in rats was investigated using a nonmatching-to-sample task (namely, visual discrimination in a Y-maze). Although previous research has demonstrated recency effects in nonspatial tasks, evidence for a primacy effect in such tasks is equivocal. The current study evaluated nonspatial memory under conditions that have been found to optimize primacy effects. Significant primacy effects were found over all trials and also for the last six trials. Results are discussed in terms of identification of the optimal conditions for producing and detecting serial position effects in memory.
Summary form only given, as follows. A study is presented of precision constraints imposed by a hybrid chip architecture with analog neurons and digital backpropagation calculations. Conversions between the analog and digital domains and weight storage restrictions impose precision limits on both analog and digital calculations. It is shown through simulations that a learning system of this nature can be implemented in spite of limited resolution in the analog circuits and using fixed-point arithmetic to implement the backpropagation algorithm. >