Elemental, configural, and sequential memory processes in the rat can be tested in a single situation in one day

The present study shows that rats can perform behavioral tasks that test their elemental auditory, elemental visual, configural auditory-visual, and sequential auditory-visual memory processes. All the tasks employed an identical apparatus and identical stimuli and differed only in which feature of the stimuli was to be processed for correct performance. The rat made go or no-go responses to indicate whether the presented stimulus included specific tones (elemental auditory), lights (elemental visual), overlapped tones and lights (configural auditory-visual), or sequential tones and lights (sequential auditory-visual). The rats came to perform well in all the tasks in 1 day. Probe sessions proved that the rats did indeed discriminate elemental stimuli in the elemental tasks. This method makes it possible to compare activities from the same individual neurons among different memory processes.