Alleviation of forgetting in preweanling rats

Three experiments tested the learning and retention of neonatal rats (7, 9, and 12 days of age) with a nondirectional active avoidance task, using a vibrotactile conditioned stimulus. The hypothesis was that the substantial deficit of these animals in 24‐hr retention is due, at least in part, to a deficiency in memory retrieval. In Experiment I, a reactivation treatment was found to alleviate the forgetting over the 24‐hr period for 12‐day olds although having somewhat lesser effect for animals 9 days of age. The reactivation treatment seemed ineffective for rats 7 days of age. Experiments II and III confirmed the reliability of the reactivation effects with 9‐ and 12‐day olds, while adding further control conditions and providing new information concerning the ontogenesis of latent inhibition.