Learning & Behavior最新文献

The outcome of an action often occurs after a delay. One solution for learning appropriate actions from delayed outcomes is to rely on a chain of state transitions. Another solution, which does not rest on state transitions, is to use an eligibility trace (ET) that directly bridges a current outcome and multiple past actions via transient memories. Previous studies revealed that humans (Homo sapiens) learned appropriate actions in a behavioral task in which solutions based on the ET were effective but transition-based solutions were ineffective. This suggests that ET may be used in human learning systems. However, no studies have examined nonhuman animals with an equivalent behavioral task. We designed a task for nonhuman animals following a previous human study. In each trial, participants chose one of two stimuli that were randomly selected from three stimulus types: a stimulus associated with a food reward delivered immediately, a stimulus associated with a reward delivered after a few trials, and a stimulus associated with no reward. The presented stimuli did not vary according to the participants' choices. To maximize the total reward, participants had to learn the value of the stimulus associated with a delayed reward. Five chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) performed the task using a touchscreen. Two chimpanzees were able to learn successfully, indicating that learning mechanisms that do not depend on state transitions were involved in the learning processes. The current study extends previous ET research by proposing a behavioral task and providing empirical data from chimpanzees.

A recent paper Smulders et al., (2023) analyzed results of an experiment in which food-caching coal tits needed to relocate and recover multiple previously made food caches and argued that food caching parids use familiarity and not recollection memory when recovering food caches. The memory task involving recovery of multiple caches in the same trial, however, cannot discriminate between these two memory mechanisms because small birds do not need to recover multiple caches to eat during a single trial. They satiate quickly after eating just the first recovered food cache and quickly lose motivation to search for caches, and can be expected to start exploring noncache locations rather than recovering the remaining caches, which would result in inaccurate memory measurements.

In a noteworthy observation, Godfrey-Smith and colleagues report the first evidence of debris throwing in wild octopuses, including instances where they target conspecifics. Proposing parallels with behaviours observed in select social mammals, this discovery prompts inquiries into the extent of their similarity and the potential role of cognition.

Giurfa, Marcout, Hilpert, Thevenoy, and Rugani (PNAS, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.22035841192022 ) report the first evidence of spatial representation of quantity in invertebrates. In an exciting and well-controlled series of experiments, the authors present evidence that honeybees, like humans, non-human primates, and birds, represent small quantities on one side of space and large quantities on the other side of space.

We explore the idea that some learning phenomena can be thought of as instances of relational behavior-more specifically, arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR). After explaining the nature of AARR, we discuss what it means to say that learning phenomena such as evaluative and fear conditioning are instances of AARR. We then list several implications of this perspective for empirical and theoretical research on learning, as well as for how learning phenomena relate to other psychological phenomena in human and nonhuman animals.

We report a new, simple instrumental action-slip task, which sets goal-directed action against putative S-R associations. On each training trial, participants were presented with one of two stimuli (blue or green coloured screen). One stimulus (S1) signalled that one joystick response (R1-left or right push) would earn one of two rewards (O1-jellybeans or Pringles points). A second stimulus (S2) signalled a different instrumental relationship (S2:R2-O2). On each test trial, participants were told which outcome could be earnt (O1/O2) on that trial. They were required to withhold responding until the screen changed colour to S1 or S2. On congruent test trials, the stimulus presented (e.g., S1) was associated with the same response (R1) as the outcome available on that trial (O1). On incongruent test trials, in contrast, the outcome (e.g., O1) preceded a stimulus that was associated with a different response (e.g., S2). Hence, in order to obtain the outcome (O1) on incongruent trials, participants were required to suppress any tendency they might have to make the response associated with the stimulus (R2 in response to S2). In two experiments, participants made more errors on incongruent than congruent trials. This result suggests that, on incongruent trials, the stimulus drove responding (e.g., S2 increased R2 responding) in a manner that was inconsistent with goal-directed action (e.g., R1 responding to obtain O1)-an action slip. The results are discussed in terms of popular dual-process theories of instrumental action and a single-process alternative.

Pigeons are commonly utilized in psychological research, and their cognitive abilities have been thoroughly investigated. Yet very little is known about how these abilities change with age. In contrast, age-related changes in humans, nonhuman primates, and rodents are well documented. Mammalian research consistently shows that older subjects show deficits in a variety of learning and memory processes, particularly those that rely on the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. This research expands the avian aging literature by administering a memory task, the delayed match to sample procedure, and an associative learning task, a conditional or symbolic match to sample procedure, to nine young and 11 old pigeons. Previous research has indicated that these tasks rely on the avian equivalent to the mammalian prefrontal cortex, and we predicted that performance on both tasks would decline with age. In contrast to our predictions, only the associative learning task was sensitive to age-related decline. Performance on the memory task was maintained in older subjects. These results highlight further potential differences in avian versus mammalian aging, particularly when it comes to the prefrontal cortex.

Punishment and extinction are both effective methods of reducing instrumental responding and may involve similar learning mechanisms. To characterize the similarities and differences between them, we examined three well-established recovery or "relapse" effects -renewal, spontaneous recovery, and reacquisition - following either punishment or extinction of an instrumental response. In Experiment 1a, both punished and extinguished responses renewed to similar degrees following a context change at test (ABA renewal). In Experiment 1b, responding spontaneously recovered to similar degrees following punishment or extinction. In Experiment 2, responding was rapidly reacquired when the response was reinforced again following extinction but not following punishment, as predicted by the idea that the reinforcer delivered in reacquisition is part of the context of punishment, but not extinction. The results collectively suggest that both punishment and extinction produce similar context-dependent retroactive interference effects. More broadly, they also suggest that punished and extinguished responses may be equally likely to return following a change of context despite the intuition that punishment might provide a more extreme and effective means of suppressing behavior. To our knowledge, this is the first direct behavioral comparison of response recovery after punishment and extinction within individual experiments.

It is commonly known-and previous studies have indicated-that time appears to last longer during unpleasant situations. This study examined whether a reciprocal statement can be made-that is, whether changes in the perception of time can influence our judgment (or rating) of a negative event. We used a temporal illusion method (Pomares et al. Pain 152, 230-234, 2011) to induce distortions in the perception of time. Two stimuli were presented for a constant time: a full clock, which stayed on the screen until its clock hand completed a full rotation (360°); and a short clock, in which the clock hand moved just three-quarters of the way (270°), thus suggesting a reduced interval duration. However, both stimuli were shown for the same amount of time. We specifically investigated (a) whether we could induce a temporal illusion with this simple visual manipulation, and (b) whether this illusion could change participants' ratings of a painful stimulus. In Experiment I (n = 22), to answer (a) above, participants were asked to reproduce the duration in which the different clocks were presented. In Experiment II (n = 30), a painful thermal stimulation was applied on participants' hands while the clocks were shown. Participants were asked to rate the perceived intensity of their pain, and to reproduce its duration. Results showed that, for both experiments, participants reproduced a longer interval after watching the full clock compared with the short clock, confirming that the clock manipulation was able to induce a temporal illusion. Furthermore, the second experiment showed that participants rated the thermal stimuli as less painful when delivered with the short clock than with the full clock. These findings suggest that temporal distortions can modulate the experience of pain.

A recent paper by Kutlu et al. (2022) argues that changes in dopamine release during stimulus pre-exposure reflect non-associative changes in attention to the conditioned stimulus that are causally related to latent inhibition effects. Associative accounts of pre-exposure-induced changes in associability suggest, however, that such conclusions may be premature.