Learning by repetition engages distinct cognitive strategies whose contributions are adjusted with experience. Early in learning, performance relies upon flexible, attentive strategies. With extended practice, inflexible, automatic strategies emerge. This transition is thought fundamental to habit formation and applies to human and animal…

Pairing a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS; e.g., a tone) to an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US; e.g., a footshock) leads to associative learning such that the tone alone comes to elicit a conditioned response (e.g., freezing). We have previously shown that an extinction session that occurs within the reconsolidation window…

The phosphatase and tensin homolog detected on chromosome 10 (PTEN) gene product modulates activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT pathway. The PI3K pathway has been found to be involved in the regulation of the fragile X mental retardation protein, which is important for long-term depression and in the formation of new…

One component of hindsight bias is memory distortion. This component is measured with a memory design, in which individuals answer questions, learn the correct answers, and recall their original answers. Hindsight bias occurs when participants' recollections are closer to the correct answers than their original judgments actually were. The present…

Learning about object locations in space usually involves the summation of information from different experiences of that space and requires various cognitive operations to make this possible. These processes are poorly understood and, in the extreme, may not occur--leading to mutual exclusivity of memories (Baguley, Lansdale, Lines, & Parkin,…

Experience-induced changes associated with odor learning are mediated by a number of signaling molecules, including nitric oxide (NO), which is predominantly synthesized by neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) in the brain. In the current study, we investigated the role of nNOS in the acquisition and retention of conditioned olfactory fear. Mice…

A novel task, using a continuous spatial layout, was created to investigate the degree to which (in centimeters) 3-year-old children's ("N" = 63), 5-year-old children's ("N" = 60), and adults' ("N" = 60) own privileged knowledge of the location of an object biased their representation of a…

Recent research has shown superior memory retrieval when participants make a series of horizontal saccadic eye movements between the memory encoding phase and the retrieval phase compared to participants who do not move their eyes or move their eyes vertically. It has been hypothesized that the rapidly alternating activation of the two hemispheres…

Memory storage is a temporally graded process involving different phases and different structures in the mammalian brain. Cortical plasticity is essential to store stable memories, but little is known regarding its involvement in memory processing. Here we show that fear memory consolidation requires early post-training macromolecular synthesis in…

Signaling via the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) pathway has emerged as one of the key mechanisms in the development of the central nervous system in "Drosophila melanogaster." By contrast, little is known about the functions of EGFR signaling in the differentiated larval brain. Here, promoter-reporter lines of EGFR and its most prominent…

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder of music perception and production. The present study investigated the cerebral bases of impaired pitch perception and memory in congenital amusia using behavioural measures, magnetoencephalography and voxel-based morphometry. Congenital amusics and matched control subjects performed two melodic tasks (a…

We examined whether illusory self-motion perception ("vection") induced by viewing upward and downward grating motion stimuli can alter the emotional valence of recollected autobiographical episodic memories. We found that participants recollected positive episodes more often while perceiving upward vection. However, when we tested a small moving…

By merging neuropsychological (CANTAB/Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery) and structural brain imaging data (voxel-based-morphometry) the present study sought to identify the neurocognitive correlates of executive functions in individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) compared to healthy controls. Results disclosed subtle group…

In two experiments, 2.5-year-old children spontaneously used geometric information from 2D maps to locate objects in a 3D surface layout, without instruction or feedback. Children related maps to their corresponding layouts even though the maps differed from the layouts in size, mobility, orientation, dimensionality, and perspective, and even when…

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether preschool children with limitations in the visual or phonological working memory are disadvantaged in the acquisition of school relevant precursor skills at school entry. A sample of 92 children was divided into three subgroups depending on their performance in visual and phonological working…