Threat conditioning is a common associative learning model with translational relevance. How threat-conditioned cues impact on formally unrelated instrumental behavior in humans is not well known. Such an effect is known as Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT). While PIT with aversive primary Pavlovian reinforcers is established in nonhuman…

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…

Different mnemonic outcomes have been observed when associative memories are reactivated by CS exposure and followed by amnestics. These outcomes include mere retrieval, destabilization-reconsolidation, a transitional period (which is insensitive to amnestics), and extinction learning. However, little is known about the interaction between initial…

For over a century and a quarter, the science of learning has expanded at an increasing rate and has achieved the status of a mature science. It has developed powerful methodologies and applications. The rise of this science has been so swift that other learning texts often overlook the fact that, like other mature sciences, the science of…

Feeding in "Aplysia" provides an amenable model system for analyzing the neuronal substrates of motivated behavior and its adaptability by associative reward learning and neuromodulation. Among such learning processes, appetitive operant conditioning that leads to a compulsive-like expression of feeding actions is known to be associated…

In a typical transposition task, an animal is presented with a single pair of stimuli (for example, S3+S4-, where plus and minus denote reward and nonreward and digits denote stimulus location on a sensory dimension such as size). Subsequently, an animal is presented with a testing pair that contains a previously reinforced or nonreinforced…

Monkeys will selectively and adaptively learn to avoid the most difficult trials of a perceptual discrimination learning task. Couchman, Coutinho, Beran, and Smith (2010) have recently demonstrated that this pattern of responding does not depend on animals receiving trial-by-trial feedback for their responses; it also obtains if experience of the…

The present experiment investigated whether pigeons can show associative symmetry on a two-alternative matching-to-sample procedure. The procedure consisted of a within-subject sequence of training and testing with reinforcement, and it provided (a) exemplars of symmetrical responding, and (b) all prerequisite discriminations among test samples…

Reinforcement learning (RL) models of decision-making cannot account for human decisions in the absence of prior reward or punishment. We propose a mechanism for choosing among available options based on goal-option association strengths, where association strengths between objects represent previously experienced object proximity. The proposed…

Heterotrimeric G(o) is an abundant brain protein required for negatively reinforced short-term associative olfactory memory in "Drosophila". G(o) is the only known substrate of the S1 subunit of pertussis toxin (PTX) in fly, and acute expression of PTX within the mushroom body neurons (MB) induces a reversible deficit in associative olfactory…

Associative conditioning in "Drosophila melanogaster" has been well documented for several decades. However, most studies report only simple associations of conditioned stimuli (CS, e.g., odor) with unconditioned stimuli (US, e.g., electric shock) to measure learning or establish memory. Here we describe a straightforward second-order conditioning…

Although intelligence has traditionally been identified as "the ability to learn" (Peterson, 1925), this relationship has been questioned in simple operant learning tasks (Spielberger, 1962). Nevertheless, recent pieces of research have demonstrated a strong and significant correlation between associative learning measures and intelligence…

In 3 experiments, we examined Perruchet, Cleeremans, and Destrebecqz's (2006) double dissociation of cued reaction time (RT) and target expectancy. In this design, participants receive a tone on every trial and are required to respond as quickly as possible to a square presented on 50% of those trials (a partial reinforcement schedule).…

Memory systems are known to be influenced by feedback and error processing, but it is not well known what aspects of outcome contingencies are related to different memory systems. Here we use the Rescorla-Wagner model to estimate prediction errors in an fMRI study of stimulus-outcome association learning. The conditional probabilities of outcomes…

In experiments that measured food consumption, Holland (1981; "Learning and Motivation," 12, 1-18) found that food aversions were formed when an exteroceptive associate of food was paired with illness, but not when such an associate was paired with shock. By contrast, measuring the ability of food to reinforce instrumental responding,…