A computational model of the neural substrates of elementary associate learning is developed. It is used to demonstrate that several higher order features of classical conditioning could be elaborations of the known cellular mechanisms for simple associative learning. (Author/LMO)

Autonomously developing organisms face several challenges when learning reaching movements. First, motor control is learned unsupervised or self-supervised. Second, knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies is acquired in contexts in which action consequences unfold in time. Third, motor redundancies must be resolved. To solve all 3 of these…

Staddon and Motheral derived a mathematical model of responding in concurrent variable-interval--variable-interval schedules. Their derivation ignores a fundamental aspect of the concurrent schedule contingency. A reinforcer can occur following two consecutive responses on the same schedule or following a switch between the two schedules.…

Heyman's major criticism (TM 504 810) of Staddon and Motheral's reinforcement maximization model is that it does not consider "local" and "interchangeover" interresponse times separately. We show that this separation may not be necessary. Heyman's apparent gain in comprehensiveness may not be worth the added complexity.…

Several varieties of perceptual independence are investigated, including sampling independence, dimensional orthogonality, stimulus separability and integrality, and performance parity. A general multivariate perceptual theory is developed, and a precise definition of perceptual independence is offered. (Author/LMO)

A general theory of how children learn conservation concepts is presented. The acquisition process is described at an abstract level in terms of a rule-sampling system, implying a three-state Markov model with identifiable parameters. Three experiments testing the model's quantitative predictions about conservation learning experiments are…