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Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults

Cue competition is a key element of many associative theories of learning. Overshadowing, an important aspect of cue competition, is a phenomenon in which learning about a cue is reduced when it is accompanied by a second cue. Overshadowing has been observed across many domains, but there has been l...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Deery, Róisín, Commins, Seán
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10526441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37759887
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13091287
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author Deery, Róisín
Commins, Seán
author_facet Deery, Róisín
Commins, Seán
author_sort Deery, Róisín
collection PubMed
description Cue competition is a key element of many associative theories of learning. Overshadowing, an important aspect of cue competition, is a phenomenon in which learning about a cue is reduced when it is accompanied by a second cue. Overshadowing has been observed across many domains, but there has been limited investigation of overshadowing in human spatial learning. This experiment explored overshadowing using two landmarks/cues (at different distances to the goal) in a virtual water maze task with young, healthy adult participants. Experiment 1 initially examined whether the cues used were equally salient. Results indicated that both gained equal control over performance. In experiment 2, overshadowing was examined using the two cues from experiment 1. Results indicated that overshadowing occurred during spatial learning and that the near cue controlled searching significantly more than the far cue. Furthermore, the far cue appeared to have been completely ignored, suggesting that learning strategies requiring the least amount of effort were employed by participants. Evidence supporting an associative account of human spatial navigation and the influence of proximal cues was discussed.
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spelling pubmed-105264412023-09-28 Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults Deery, Róisín Commins, Seán Brain Sci Article Cue competition is a key element of many associative theories of learning. Overshadowing, an important aspect of cue competition, is a phenomenon in which learning about a cue is reduced when it is accompanied by a second cue. Overshadowing has been observed across many domains, but there has been limited investigation of overshadowing in human spatial learning. This experiment explored overshadowing using two landmarks/cues (at different distances to the goal) in a virtual water maze task with young, healthy adult participants. Experiment 1 initially examined whether the cues used were equally salient. Results indicated that both gained equal control over performance. In experiment 2, overshadowing was examined using the two cues from experiment 1. Results indicated that overshadowing occurred during spatial learning and that the near cue controlled searching significantly more than the far cue. Furthermore, the far cue appeared to have been completely ignored, suggesting that learning strategies requiring the least amount of effort were employed by participants. Evidence supporting an associative account of human spatial navigation and the influence of proximal cues was discussed. MDPI 2023-09-05 /pmc/articles/PMC10526441/ /pubmed/37759887 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13091287 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Deery, Róisín
Commins, Seán
Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults
title Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults
title_full Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults
title_fullStr Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults
title_full_unstemmed Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults
title_short Landmark Distance Impacts the Overshadowing Effect in Spatial Learning Using a Virtual Water Maze Task with Healthy Adults
title_sort landmark distance impacts the overshadowing effect in spatial learning using a virtual water maze task with healthy adults
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10526441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37759887
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13091287
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