ABSTRACT
Surely the first question to be asked by our friends will be: What are a couple of nice students of rodent memory doing in a volume like this which is concerned primarily with information processing in rowdy, hairless apes? Clearly we would not be here if we felt that students of animal memory had nothing in common with researchers concerned with the psychobiology of human information processing. This is not to suggest that rodents are miniature humans save for the addition of whiskers and a tail. Rather, owing to our common evolutionary roots, it is our belief that the fundamental processes and basic structures responsible for the phenomenon of memory share certain similarities across Mammalia. Analogously, a motorcycle is not a minature car, but it is propelled by the same principles of internal combustion of hydrocarbons and translation of reciprocating motion into circular motion as is an automobile. Pushing the analogy a little further, the exposed motorcycle engine facilitates its study relative to the enclosed engine of an automobile: moreover, the absence of superfluous accessories on motorcycles relative to most automobiles would assist in focusing upon the essential principles of land transportation powered by internal combustion.
