Effects of cue manipulation on performance by old and young rats in a test of non-matching-to-sample

In a study of the effects of age on cue utilization, groups of young and old rats were administered three versions of a non-matching-to-sample task that could be solved only by using spatial stimuli, local stimuli, or response cues respectively. The delay between sample and test runs was varied between 0 and 60 s. The old rats were severely impaired in spatial and local stimulus versions but the performance of old and young groups was comparable in the response version of the task. In the Response-cue task, where the old rats displayed substantial learning, their performance deteriorated more than that of the young rats when the delay was increased from 0 to 60 s.