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.

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.
Six 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 interest was the extent to which the inhibitors suppressed the response they were trained with (same-response inhibition) ver...
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.
The 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-lever, two-outcome design introducing the possibility that devaluation reflected the influence of specific Pavlovian leve...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Hierarchical and configural control in conditional discrimination learning.
Considerable 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 with hierarchical processing; instead, they may have either relied on local features or on configural compounds comprising...
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.
Negative 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 examined the conditions under which mice learn this part–whole discrimination in olfactory stimuli using a novel inst...
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.
Conditioned 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 error and thus, impaired inhibitory learning, such that excitatory associative strength is not reduced during the nonreinf...
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.
Associative 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. Notably, in our simulations we use exactly the same model and specifications, attesting to the generality of our accoun...
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.
The 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. And he left us with a collection of work that fundamentally altered the way we as a field think about basic learning ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - October 20, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

There’s something about a pattern: Choice between pattern and random sequences in implicit learning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 49(1), Jan 2023, 62-74; doi:10.1037/xan0000335Three experiments examined the preference for pattern versus random sequences. In all experiments the elements composing the sequences were visual images presented sequentially on a touchscreen. Reinforcement was randomly programmed on .16 of the element presentations for each type of trial. For pattern sequences the elements occurred in the same order and at the same location on each presentation of the sequence. For random sequences the elements could occur in any order on a given trial. The experiments we...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - September 29, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Behavioral studies of spinal conditioning: The spinal cord is smarter than you think it is.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, Vol 48(4), Oct 2022, 435-457; doi:10.1037/xan0000332In 1988 Robert Rescorla published an article in the Annual Review of Neuroscience that addressed the circumstances under which learning occurs, some key methodological issues, and what constitutes an example of learning. The article has inspired a generation of neuroscientists, opening the door to a wider range of learning phenomena. After reviewing the historical context for his article, its key points are briefly reviewed. The perspective outlined enabled the study of learning in simpler preparations, su...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 28, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Behavioral studies of spinal conditioning: The spinal cord is smarter than you think it is.
In 1988 Robert Rescorla published an article in the Annual Review of Neuroscience that addressed the circumstances under which learning occurs, some key methodological issues, and what constitutes an example of learning. The article has inspired a generation of neuroscientists, opening the door to a wider range of learning phenomena. After reviewing the historical context for his article, its key points are briefly reviewed. The perspective outlined enabled the study of learning in simpler preparations, such as the spinal cord. The period after 1988 revealed that pain (nociceptive) stimuli can induce a lasting sensitizatio...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 28, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

The role of prediction in learned predictiveness.
Learning permits even relatively uninteresting stimuli to capture attention if they are established as predictors of important outcomes. Associative theories explain this “learned predictiveness” effect by positing that attention is a function of the relative strength of the association between stimuli and outcomes. In three experiments we show that this explanation is incomplete: learned overt visual-attention is not a function of the relative strength of the association between stimuli and an outcome. In three experiments, human participants were exposed to triplets of stimuli that comprised (a) a target (that define...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 25, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Signal detection analysis of contingency assessment: Associative interference and nonreinforcement impact cue-outcome contingency sensitivity, whereas cue density affects bias.
In a signal detection theory approach to associative learning, the perceived (i.e., subjective) contingency between a cue and an outcome is a random variable drawn from a Gaussian distribution. At the end of the sequence, participants report a positive cue-outcome contingency provided the subjective contingency is above some threshold. Some researchers have suggested that the mean of the subjective contingency distributions and the threshold are controlled by different variables. The present data provide empirical support for this claim. In three experiments, participants were exposed to rapid streams of trials at the end ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 25, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Generalization following symmetrical intradimensional discrimination training.
A challenge for generalization models is to specify how excitation generated from a CS+ (i.e., positive evidence) should interact with inhibition from a CS− (i.e., negative evidence) to produce generalized responding. Empirically, many generalization phenomena are consistent with the monotonicity principle, which states that additional positive evidence should increase generalized responding, whereas additional negative evidence should decrease responding. However, a recent study (Lee et al.,, 2019) demonstrated that additional negative evidence can sometimes increase generalization, in direct contrast to animal data and...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 25, 2022 Category: Zoology Source Type: research