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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Second-order conditioning (SOC) is the association of a neutral stimulus with another stimulus that had previously been combined with an unconditioned stimulus (US). We used classical conditioning of the proboscis extension response (PER) in honeybees ("Apis mellifera") with odors (CS) and sugar (US). Previous SOC experiments in bees were…

Three mechanisms can explain second-order conditioning: (1) The second-order conditioned stimulus (CS2) could activate a representation of the first-order conditioned stimulus (CS1), thereby provoking the conditioned response (CR); The CS2 could enter into an excitatory association with either (2) the representation governing the CR, or (3) with a…

One conditioned taste aversion experiment with rats assessed the impact of extinguishing a target conditioned stimulus (CS), S, in compound with a second CS, A, upon conditioned responding elicited by CS S when presented alone at test. Following initial conditioning treatment with CSs A and S, the experiment manipulated number of extinction trials…

The orbitofrontal cortex contains the secondary taste cortex, in which the reward value of taste is represented. It also contains the secondary and tertiary olfactory cortical areas, in which information about the identity and also about the reward value of odours is represented. The orbitofrontal cortex also receives information about the sight…

THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALOGIES ARE DRAWN BETWEEN LEARNING THEORY AND PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION AS AN EXTENSION OF LIBERALIZED STIMULUS RESPONSE THEORY. IN THE FIRST EXPERIMENT ON INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING OF ATTITUDES, THE SUBJECTS READ AN OPINION TO BE LEARNED, FOLLOWED BY A SUPPORTING ARGUMENT ASSUMED TO FUNCTION AS A REINFORCER. THE TIME…

Rodrigo, Chamizo, McLaren, & Mackintosh (1997) demonstrated the blocking effect in a navigational task using a swimming pool: rats initially trained to use three landmarks (ABC) to find an invisible platform learned less about a fourth landmark (X) added later than did rats trained from the outset with these four landmarks (ABCX). The aim of the…