Response strategy in the dual-solution plus maze is regarded as a form of stimulus-response learning. In this study, by using an outcome devaluation procedure, we show that it can be based on both action-outcome and stimulus-response habit learning, depending on the amount of training that the animals receive. Furthermore, we show that…

Implicit task sequence learning may be attributed to learning the order of perceptual stimulus features associated with the task sequence, learning a series of automatic task set activations, or learning an integrated sequence that derives from 2 correlated streams of information. In the present study, our purpose was to distinguish among these 3…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sometimes have difficulties learning categories. Past computational work suggests that such deficits may result from atypical representations in cortical maps. Here we use neural networks to show that idiosyncratic transformations of inputs can result in the formation of feature maps that impair…

Unexpected outcomes can reflect noise in the environment or a change in the current rules. We should ignore noise but shift strategy after rule changes. How we learn to do this is unclear, but one possibility is that it relies on learning to learn in uncertain environments. We propose that acquisition of latent task structure during learning to…

While interest in active avoidance has recently been resurgent, many concerns relating to the nature of this form of learning remain unresolved. By separating stimulus and response acquisition, aversive Pavlovian-instrumental transfer can be used to measure the effect of avoidance learning on threat processing with more control than typical…

The quest for determining the degree of learning difficulty associated with different types of categories has been instrumental in our understanding of human categorization behavior and, more broadly, human generalization. For instance, we now know that the topological nature of the dimensions (e.g., whether these are integral or separable) that…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display stimulus overselectivity, wherein a subset of relevant components in a compound stimulus controls responding, which impairs discrimination learning. The original experimental research on stimulus overselectivity in ASD was conducted several decades ago; however, interventions for…

Recent research shows that while initial learning is dependent on "N"-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDArs), relearning can be NMDAr-independent. In the present study we examined whether this switch also occurs following forgetting. The developing animal exhibits much more rapid rates of forgetting than adults, so infant rats were used. It was…

"Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age" examines contemporary issues in the design and delivery of effective learning through a critical discussion of the theoretical and professional perspectives informing current digital education practice. This third edition has been thoroughly revised to address socio-cultural approaches, learning…

Within the domain of associative learning, there is substantial evidence that people (and other animals) select among environmental cues on the basis of their reinforcement history. Specifically, people preferentially attend to, and learn about, cueing stimuli that have previously predicted events of consequence (a predictiveness bias). By…

Improvements in performance on many perceptual skills can occur with only a single training session. Of interest here is what aspects of the training experience are being learned during this brief exposure. Although there is considerable evidence that learning associated with specific feature values of the stimulus used in training ("stimulus…

It has been demonstrated that the Simon effect may be increased or reversed due to proportion congruency manipulation, suggesting that learned spatial irrelevant stimulus-response (S-R) associations are used to guide responses. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that learning spatial irrelevant S-R associations by rewards may show a similar…

Learning to recognize a stimulus category requires experience with its many natural variations. However, the mechanisms that allow a category's sensorineural representation to be updated after experiencing new exemplars are not well understood, particularly at the molecular level. Here we investigate how a natural vocal category induces expression…

Although infants display preferences for social stimuli early in their lives, we know relatively little about the mechanisms of infant learning about the social world. In the current set of studies, 1-month-old infants underwent an adapted eyeblink conditioning paradigm to examine learning to both "social" and non-social cues. While infants were…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display stimulus overselectivity, wherein a subset of relevant components in a compound stimulus controls responding, which impairs discrimination learning. The original experimental research on stimulus overselectivity in ASD was conducted several decades ago; however, interventions for…