Visual Discrimination Learning in Monkeys with Bilateral Parietal Cortex Lesions

The characteristics of visual discrimination learning were tested on rhesus monkeys during elaboration of an instrumental reflex after bilateral extirpation of the parietal cortex area 7. The animals were trained to discriminate stimuli with different visual attributes (shape, colour, orientation, size, spatial relationships). Their decisions and motor reaction times were recorded. Bilateral extirpation of area 7 did not influence learning characteristics for shape and colour discrimination. The duration of the learning process and the motor reaction time were shortest with these visual attributes. When monkeys were required to discriminate geometrical figures of different orientations and size, these learning characteristics slightly increased. However, learning to discriminate spatial relationships was dramatically impaired. As a result, the duration of the learning process and motor reaction time significantly increased and the level of correct decisions after training significantly decreased. Visual stimuli associated with identical learning characteristics formed distinct groups in a cluster analysis.

These results support the suggestion that area 7 is a structural and functional component of mechanisms involved in evaluation of spatial relationships. The impairment of the learning to discriminate spatial relationships can be explained by a change of learning strategy upon disturbance of this mechanism, associated with visual-vestibular interactions and synchronisation processes which bind distributed neurons across different cortical areas into synchronised assemblies.