Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Flexible control of Pavlovian-instrumental transfer based on expected reward value.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 49(1), Jan 2023, 14-30; doi:10.1037/xan0000348The Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm is widely used to assay the motivational influence of reward-predictive cues, reflected by their ability to invigorate instrumental behavior. Leading theories assume that a cue's motivational properties are tied to predicted reward value. We outline an alternative view that recognizes that reward-predictive cues may suppress rather than motivate instrumental behavior under certain conditions, an effect termed positive conditioned suppression. We posit that c...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - February 16, 2023 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Pigeons discount continuously changing perspective during action recognition.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 49(1), Jan 2023, 1-13; doi:10.1037/xan0000338An important challenge for animal and artificial visual systems is separating the system’s own motions from the movements of other animals or events. To examine this issue in birds, we conducted three experiments testing four pigeons in a go/no-go action discrimination. The pigeons discriminated whether a digital human model was exhibiting an extended series of articulated motions or one of a set of static poses from the same video. They were required to do so while the rendering camera’s perspective chan...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - November 10, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Inhibition in discriminated operant learning: Tests of response-specificity after feature-negative and extinction learning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 413-434; doi:10.1037/xan0000337Six experiments with rats examined the nature of inhibition learned in an operant feature-negative (FN) discrimination. The results of prior experiments that examined instrumental extinction rather than FN learning suggest that inhibition can be very specific to the inhibited response. In Experiment 1, we trained lever-press and chain-pull responses in separate but parallel FN discriminations (AR1+, ABR1−, CR2+, and CDR2−) and then tested both inhibitors (B and D) with both responses. Of primary intere...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Response-independent outcome presentations weaken the instrumental response-outcome association.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 396-412; doi:10.1037/xan0000340The present article explored the fate of previously formed response-outcome associations when the relation between R and O was disrupted by arranging for O to occur independently of R. In each of three experiments response independent outcome delivery selectively reduced the R earning that O. Nevertheless, in Experiments 1 and 2, the R continued to show sensitivity to outcome devaluation, suggesting that the strength of the R-O association was undiminished by this treatment. These experiments used a two-le...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Hierarchical and configural control in conditional discrimination learning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 370-382; doi:10.1037/xan0000342Considerable discussion has concerned the role of context in conditional discrimination learning. Some authors have proposed that contexts might operate hierarchically on CS–US associations, whereas others have proposed that the context plus the CS might be processed configurally. In the present article, we report the results of two experiments that assessed the role of context on pigeons’ conditional discrimination learning. In Experiment 1, we found that our pigeons’ responding was inconsistent wit...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Assessing complex odor discrimination in mice using a novel instrumental patterning task.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 358-369; doi:10.1037/xan0000341Negative patterning tasks are a key tool to unveil the mechanisms by which stimulus representations are acquired—a central concern in Robert Rescorla’s research. In these tasks, target stimuli are reinforced when presented individually (A+/B+) but not when presented in compound (AB−). The discrimination of single stimuli from their compound presentation is a challenge for theories of associative learning, because it cannot be explained by the simple accrual of associative strength. The present study ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Reinforcement rate and the balance between excitatory and inhibitory learning: Insights from deletion of the GluA1 AMPA receptor subunit.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 307-314; doi:10.1037/xan0000336Conditioned responding is sensitive to reinforcement rate. This rate-sensitivity is impaired in genetically modified mice that lack the GluA1 subunit of the AMPA receptor. A time-dependent application of the Rescorla–Wagner learning rule can be used to derive an account of rate-sensitivity by reflecting the balance of excitatory and inhibitory associative strength over time. By applying this analysis, the impairment in GluA1 knockout mice may be explained by reduced sensitivity to negative prediction err...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

On the importance of feedback for categorization: Revisiting category learning experiments using an adaptive filter model.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 295-306; doi:10.1037/xan0000339Associative accounts of category learning have been, for the most part, abandoned in favor of cognitive explanations (e.g., similarity, explicit rules). In the current work, we implement an Adaptive Linear Filter (ALF) closely related to the Rescorla and Wagner learning rule, and use it to tackle three learning tasks that pose challenges to an associative view of category learning. Across three computational simulations, we show that the ALF is in fact able to make the predictions that seemed problematic. ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Developments in associative theory: A tribute to the contributions of Robert A. Rescorla.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 245-264; doi:10.1037/xan0000344The field of associative learning theory was forever changed by the contributions of Robert A. Rescorla. He created an organizational structure that gave us a framework for thinking about the key questions surrounding learning theory: what are the conditions that produce learning?, what is the content of that learning?, and how is that learning expressed in performance? He gave us beautifully sophisticated experimental designs that tackled deep theoretical problems in experimentally clever and elegant ways...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Inhibition in discriminated operant learning: Tests of response-specificity after feature-negative and extinction learning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 413-434; doi:10.1037/xan0000337Six experiments with rats examined the nature of inhibition learned in an operant feature-negative (FN) discrimination. The results of prior experiments that examined instrumental extinction rather than FN learning suggest that inhibition can be very specific to the inhibited response. In Experiment 1, we trained lever-press and chain-pull responses in separate but parallel FN discriminations (AR1+, ABR1−, CR2+, and CDR2−) and then tested both inhibitors (B and D) with both responses. Of primary intere...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Response-independent outcome presentations weaken the instrumental response-outcome association.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 396-412; doi:10.1037/xan0000340The present article explored the fate of previously formed response-outcome associations when the relation between R and O was disrupted by arranging for O to occur independently of R. In each of three experiments response independent outcome delivery selectively reduced the R earning that O. Nevertheless, in Experiments 1 and 2, the R continued to show sensitivity to outcome devaluation, suggesting that the strength of the R-O association was undiminished by this treatment. These experiments used a two-le...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Hierarchical and configural control in conditional discrimination learning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 370-382; doi:10.1037/xan0000342Considerable discussion has concerned the role of context in conditional discrimination learning. Some authors have proposed that contexts might operate hierarchically on CS–US associations, whereas others have proposed that the context plus the CS might be processed configurally. In the present article, we report the results of two experiments that assessed the role of context on pigeons’ conditional discrimination learning. In Experiment 1, we found that our pigeons’ responding was inconsistent wit...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Assessing complex odor discrimination in mice using a novel instrumental patterning task.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 358-369; doi:10.1037/xan0000341Negative patterning tasks are a key tool to unveil the mechanisms by which stimulus representations are acquired—a central concern in Robert Rescorla’s research. In these tasks, target stimuli are reinforced when presented individually (A+/B+) but not when presented in compound (AB−). The discrimination of single stimuli from their compound presentation is a challenge for theories of associative learning, because it cannot be explained by the simple accrual of associative strength. The present study ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Reinforcement rate and the balance between excitatory and inhibitory learning: Insights from deletion of the GluA1 AMPA receptor subunit.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 307-314; doi:10.1037/xan0000336Conditioned responding is sensitive to reinforcement rate. This rate-sensitivity is impaired in genetically modified mice that lack the GluA1 subunit of the AMPA receptor. A time-dependent application of the Rescorla–Wagner learning rule can be used to derive an account of rate-sensitivity by reflecting the balance of excitatory and inhibitory associative strength over time. By applying this analysis, the impairment in GluA1 knockout mice may be explained by reduced sensitivity to negative prediction err...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

On the importance of feedback for categorization: Revisiting category learning experiments using an adaptive filter model.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 295-306; doi:10.1037/xan0000339Associative accounts of category learning have been, for the most part, abandoned in favor of cognitive explanations (e.g., similarity, explicit rules). In the current work, we implement an Adaptive Linear Filter (ALF) closely related to the Rescorla and Wagner learning rule, and use it to tackle three learning tasks that pose challenges to an associative view of category learning. Across three computational simulations, we show that the ALF is in fact able to make the predictions that seemed problematic. ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research