Associative Learning and Memory

Cognitive pragmatics is a mature field of research, characterized by robust theories and a growing amount of experimental work. In particular, Relevance Theory has provided a rich framework for research in the field. However, this theory makes a number of assumptions that are rooted in a modular view of cognition. This book provides a detailed analysis of such assumptions, arguing for an alternative model which has, however, some support in ideas explored by relevance theorists. First of all, inferences are explained in terms of associative pattern completion within associative networks, based on the schematic organization of memory. This explanation is shown to apply to a number of cognitive domains besides pragmatics, including mindreading. Moreover, such a view is compatible with a general understanding of the neurocomputational machinery of our cortex, suggesting a general argument to the effect that modularity in its standard version cannot be right. Second, the book argues for a crucial role of conscious attention in pragmatics as well as in most cognitive processes. In the end, what is proposed is not only a revision of Relevance Theory but also a fresh analysis of reasoning, which vindicates some Gricean intuitions.

Using an online survey and a week-long diary study, the relationship between music listening behaviors in everyday life and the occurrence of involuntary musical imagery (INMI) is investigated. It is expected that musical imagery may occur as a consequence of everyday conditioning through music listening, with everyday listening shaping INMI experiences. The results confirm a close relationship between listening behavior and experiences of INMI, providing tentative support for this prediction, as the study is exploratory and correlational. In particular, a differentiation is found between positive and negative experiences of INMI, which relate to frequency and type of music engagement. Additionally, support is found for the notion that INMI may function as a substitute for actual music listening and can serve similar functions in the absence of music.

This paper presents a brief, informal outline followed by a formal statement of an elemental associative learning model first described by McLaren, Kaye, and Mackintosh (1989). The model assumes representation of stimuli by sets of elements (i.e., microfeatures) and a set of associative algorithms that incorporate the following: real-time simulation of learning; an error-correcting learning rule; weight decay that distinguishes between transient and permanent associations; and modulation of associative learning that gives high salience to and, hence, promotes rapid learning with novel, unpredicted stimuli and reduces the salience for a stimulus as its error term declines. The model is applied in outline fashion to some of the basic phenomena of simple conditioning and, in greater detail, to the phenomena of latent inhibition and perceptual learning. A detailed account of generalization and discrimination will be provided in a later pape

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 mechanism, Goal-Proximity Decision-making (GPD), is implemented within the ACT-R cognitive framework. GPD is found to be more efficient than RL in three maze-navigation simulations. GPD advantages over RL seem to grow as task difficulty is increased. An experiment is presented where participants are asked to make choices in the absence of prior reward. GPD captures human performance in this experiment better than RL.

This study investigates the effectiveness of three vocabulary-teaching methods on Saudi students' acquisition of English word meanings in their L1 using technology. Ninety-nine EFL students tried each of the three methods: (a) associating the words' meanings with relevant audios, (b) associating the words' meanings with relevant images, (c) associating the words' meanings with relevant videos, without sounds inside language leaning laboratories. The study used two instruments: a lesson treatment to examine the effectiveness of the three treatments and a questionnaire to understand students' attitudes toward the three treatments. The results of the lesson treatment showed statistically significant improvement in memorizing words' meanings that are associated with images but not for words' meanings that are associated with audios or videos without sounds. The questionnaire results revealed that the students perceive the image associative method as the most helpful, followed by the audio associative method and the video associative method respectively. The results of the treatment lead to the conclusion that the students remember the foreign language words' meanings in their L1 better when the words' meanings are associated with images. This might be because (a) strong links between the nodes that contain words' meanings and the nodes that contain images in human memory, (b) the image associative method draws the attention of the students more strongly, (c) stronger positive attitudes of participants toward the use of image associative methods in language classrooms than video or audio associative methods.

Gives the original MKM model which is updated in McLaren and Mackintosh (2000, 2002). It combines a learning algorithm which has strong similarities to Wagner (1978) but has been re-worked to be real-time and incorporate trace decay. The representational assumptions are based on Estes (1950) stimulus sampling theory, but again are re-worked so that the whole model can be cast within the PDP framework.

The aim of this article is to present a succinct review and evaluation of the main areas of contention in the false memory debate and, from this basis, to suggest ways in which the best from both sides can be utilized. We examine the potential pitfalls of therapy in terms of the fallibility and suggestibility of autobiographical memory and therapists and therapeutic techniques as the architects of false memories. We then evaluate the case for false memory formation examining if some researchers hold misconceived views of psychotherapy, if experimental studies lack ecological validity, and the effect of trauma on memory. Finally, we explore how the potential pitfalls of therapy can be avoided in practice, reflecting on the usefulness of British Psychological Society guidelines, how clinicians can implement research findings, and how research on the false memory debate can be improved. We conclude that the way forward is researcher–clinician collaboration in the development of ecologically valid research paradigms.

This study considers different types of free association dictionaries and thesauruses as sources of the semantic representation of word meanings in the mental lexicon as well as in the  semantic system of a language. Traditional associative thesauruses and dictionaries provide researchers with a raw material for investigation of language competence and personal features of language community members. WordNet projects and a new software for free association experiments give an opportunity to apply associative connections to natural language processing and optimize computer mediated communication by supplying semantic links and relationships relevant to human information processing. Russian associative thesauruses generated and published by the group of psycholinguists including Natalia Ufimtseva are characterized in the paper.

Mirror neurons fire both when executing actions and observing others perform similar actions. Their sensorimotor matching properties have generally been considered a genetic adaptation for social cognition; however, in the present chapter we argue that the evidence in favor of this account is not compelling. Instead we present evidence supporting an alternative account: that mirror neurons' matching properties arise from associative learning during individual development. Notably, this process was not 'designed' by genetic evolution specifically to produce mirror neurons, but just happens to produce them when the developing system receives correlated experience of observing and executing similar actions. Sensorimotor experience with non-­‐matching actions, or with objects and actions, is hypothesized to generate other cell types in the same regions through the same process. The associative account has major implications for research into mirror neuron function and suggests several important lines of future research.

The field of interactive music systems (IMSs), beginning in the 1980s, is still relatively young and fast moving. The field of music theory-analysis, during the same period (since 1980), has undergone a major transformation in terms of technological innovations, flexibility, and breadth. The two fields have not really caught up with each other. It will be interesting to see what arises as they do — especially as both fields have become more concerned with the role of the body and embodied cognition. Framed in terms of contrasting epistemological orientations, this essay considers some relevant developments in IMSs, music cognition, and music theory and analysis, leading up to the present.  The most popular approaches to music cognition and to IMS design are rationalist (Ashby 2010), exploiting the ‘correct’ embodiments of music (Godøy 2004, Leman 2007, Paine 2009) based on affordances (Gibson 1977, Kelso 1998). This essay, however, advocates a pragmatist (Ashby 2010) approach inspired by music analysis and exploiting the potential of kinesthetic learning (associative learning). Prompted by a progressive approach to music analysis, theory, perception, and cognition (Dubiel 1999, Mailman 2007), interactive music technology can also be constructive, flexible, and progressive, by exploiting kinesthetic learning from immersion in new and unusual motion-to-sound mappings derived from dynamic formal processes in analysed music. In this way, immersive interactive systems offer an opportunity systematically to learn new associations based on principles theorised in response to analysis. Experience of these systems essentially ‘rewires the brain’, thereby exemplifying what Korsyn (2004) has attributed to Lewin’s (1986, 1987) approach to music perception: the ironist approach, as formulated by Rorty (1989). Thus a pragmatist ironist experimental (PIE) approach is articulated. Rather than committing to any particular ways music is already embodied, this approach acknowledges the flexible nature of embodied musical experience. It forges and uses interactive music technologies continually to redescribe and therefore reform how music is embodied, thereby disembodying to re-embody music, expanding how music is heard, contemplated and experienced.

Recent research with Rooks has demonstrated
impressive tool-using abilities in captivity despite this
species’ classification as a non-tool-user in the wild. Here,
we explored whether another non-tool-using corvid, the
Eurasian Jay, would be capable of similar feats and
investigated the relative contributions of causal knowledge
and instrumental conditioning to the birds’ performance on
the tasks. Five jays were tested on a variety of tasks
involving water displacement. Two birds reliably interacted
with the apparatuses. In these tasks, both birds
showed a preference for inserting stones into a tube containing
liquid over a tube containing a solid or a baited
‘empty’ tube and also for inserting sinkable items over
non-sinkable items into a tube of water. To investigate the
contribution of instrumental conditioning, subjects were
then tested on a series of tasks in which different cues were
made available. It was found that, in the absence of any
apparent causal cues, these birds showed a clear preference
for the rewarded tube when the food incrementally
approached with every stone insertion, but not when it
simply ‘‘appeared’’ after the correct number of stone
insertions. However, it was found that subjects did not
prefer to insert stones into a tube rewarded by the incremental
approach of food if the available causal cues
violated the expectations created by existing causal
knowledge (i.e. were counter-intuitive). An analysis of the
proportion of correct and incorrect stone insertions made in
each trial across tasks offering different types of information
revealed that subjects were substantially more successful
in experiments in which causal cues were available,
but that rate of learning was comparable in all experiments.
We suggest that these results indicate that Eurasian jays use
the incremental approach of the food reward as a conditioned
reinforcer allowing them to solve tasks involving
raising the water level and that this learning is facilitated
by the presence of causal cues.

The main goal of the current chapter is to review the core assumptions of our associative-propositional evaluation (APE) model, which explains dissociations between implicit and explicit evaluations in terms of their underlying mental
processes (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2011).

A strategy for adaptive control and energetic optimization of aerobic fermentors was implemented, with both air flow and agitation speed as manipulated variables. This strategy is separable in its components: control, optimization, estimation. We optimized parameter’s estimation (from the usual KLa correlation) using sinusoidal excitation of air flow and agitation speed. We have implemented parameter’s estimation trough recursive least squares algorithm with forgetting factor. We carried separate essays on control, optimization and estimation algorithms. We carried our essays using an original computational simulation environment, with noise and delay generating facilities for data sampling and filtering.

Our results show the convergence and robustness of the estimation algorithm used, improved with use of both forgetting factor and KLa dead-band facilities. Control algorithm used in our work compares favorably with PID using the integrated area criteria for deviation between oxygen molarity and critical molarity (set point). Optimization algorithm clearly reduces energetic consumption, respecting critical molarity. Integration of control, optimization and adaptive algorithms was implemented, but future work is needed for stability. Methods were defined and implemented for stability improvement. We have implemented data acquisition and computer manipulation of air flow and agitation speed for actual fermentors.

A debate concerning associative versus inferential approaches to pragmatics has arisen within the recent ‘cognitive turn’ in the pragmatic field. The nature of on-line pragmatic processes has become the focus of attention of philosophers (Recanati 2002a, 2004, 2007b) and linguists (Wilson & Carston 2007, Carston 2007). In this paper, I review this theoretical debate and then explore and assess the recent experimental literature focusing on it (Rubio-Fernández 2007, 2012). I address the question whether non-demonstrative inferential processes implemented in a fast and automatic system (e.g. the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure) can be empirically disentangled from ‘smart’ associative systems; and I raise some doubts about whether current experimental pragmatics is able to inform the theoretical debate on the nature of on-line pragmatic processes. I conclude by emphasising the role that philosophical analysis, with its traditional methodologies, can still play in the field of cognitive pragmatics.

The first part of the paper develops the argument that geographers should learn to decompose human memory into its constituent parts because then and then alone will we become attuned to the full range of ways in which we incorporate places into our beings. The second part of the paper articulates Stephen Hill's comments on episodic memory with my recent work on wisdom.

What, if anything, is special about human imitation? An evaluation of enculturated apes' imitation skills, a " best case scenario " of non-human apes' imitation performance, reveals important similarities and differences between this special population of apes and human children. Candidates for shared imitation mechanisms include the ability to imitate various familiar transitive responses and object–object actions that involve familiar tools. Candidates for uniquely derived imitation mechanisms include: imitating novel transitive actions and novel tool-using responses as well as imitating opaque or intransitive gestures, regardless of familiarity. While the evidence demonstrates that enculturated apes outperform non-enculturated apes and perform more like human children, all apes, regardless of rearing history, generally excel at imitating familiar, over-rehearsed responses and are poor, relative to human children, at imitating novel, opaque or intransitive responses. Given the similarities between the sensory and motor systems of preschool age human children and non-human apes, it is unlikely that differences in sensory input and/or motor-output alone explain the observed discontinuities in imitation performance. The special rearing history of enculturated apes—including imitation-specific training—further diminishes arguments suggesting that differences are experience-dependent. Here, it is argued that such differences are best explained by distinct, specialized mechanisms that have evolved for copying rules and responses in particular content domains. Uniquely derived social and imitation learning mechanisms may represent adaptations for learning novel communicative gestures and complex tool-use. Given our species' dependence on both language and tools, mechanisms that accelerated learning in these domains are likely to have faced intense selective pressures, starting with the earliest of human ancestors.

As children learn their mother tongues, they make systematic errors. For example, English-speaking children regularly say “mouses” rather than “mice.” Because children’s errors aren’t explicitly corrected, it has been argued that children could never learn to make the transition to adult language based on the evidence available to them, and thus that learning even simple aspects of grammar is logically impossible without recourse to innate, language-specific constraints. Here, we examine the role children’s expectations play in language learning, and present a model of plural noun learning that generates a surprising prediction: at a given point in learning, exposure to regular plurals (e.g., rats) can decrease children’s tendency to over-regularize irregular plurals (e.g., mouses). Intriguingly, the model predicts that the same exposure should have the opposite effect earlier in learning. Consistent with this, we show that testing memory for items with regular plural labels contributes to a decrease in irregular plural over-regularization in six-year-olds, but an increase in four-year-olds. Our model and results suggest that children’s over-regularization errors both arise and resolve themselves as a consequence of the distribution of error in the linguistic environment, and that far from presenting a logical puzzle for learning, they are inevitable consequences of it.

It is well known that certain variables can bias judgements about the perceived contingency between an action and an outcome, making them depart from the normative predictions. For instance, previous studies have proven that the activity level or probability of responding, P(R), is a crucial variable that can affect these judgements in objectively noncontingent situations. A possible account for the P(R) effect is based on the differential exposure to actual contingencies during the training phase, which is in turn presumably produced by individual differences in participants' P(R). The current two experiments replicate the P(R) effect in a free-response paradigm, and show that participants' judgements are better predicted by P(R) than by the actual contingency to which they expose themselves. Besides, both experiments converge with previous empirical data, showing a persistent bias that does not vanish as training proceeds. These findings contrast with the preasymptotic and transitory effect predicted by several theoretical models.

Several recent empirical findings have reinforced the notion that a basic learning and memory skill—chunking—plays a fundamental role in language processing. Here, we provide evidence that chunking shapes sentence processing at multiple levels of linguistic abstraction, consistent with a recent theoretical proposal by Christiansen and Chater (2016). Individual differences in chunking ability at two different levels is shown to predict on-line sentence processing in separate ways: i) phonological chunking ability, as assessed by a variation on the non-word repetition task, predicts processing of complex sentences featuring phonological overlap; ii) multiword chunking ability, as assessed by a variation on the serial recall task, is shown to predict reading times for sentences featuring long-distance number agreement with locally distracting number-marked nouns. Together, our findings suggest that individual differences in chunking ability shape language processing at multiple levels ...

An organism's ability to adapt to environmental challenges is aided by disparate neural systems, acting independently and interactively to influence behavioral responding. With respect to associative learning, emotional , contextual, and sensorimotor conditioning is established, maintained, and expressed by the amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum, respectively. In delay eyeblink conditioning, rapidly expressed emotional (fear) conditioned responses (CRs) tied to the conditioned stimulus (CS) and conditioning context accelerate the development and generation of a specific sensorimotor (eyeblink) CR, in accord with the two-stage model of aversive classical conditioning. This review discusses the model based on the behavior, neural pathways, and plasticity associated with the unconditioned stimulus (US), CS, and conditioning context. We conclude by introducing a putative third stage of conditioning, whereby cerebellar-mediated 'conditioned emotional sup-pression' mitigates and stabilizes fear responding as eyeblink CRs increase in frequency over training. Impaired sensorimotor learning due to cerebellar damage or dysfunction is proposed to limit conditioned suppression leading to a sustained, heightened state of emotional arousal that, over time, could generalize to anxiety or mood psychopathology.

Abstract: The theory of the archetypes and the hypothesis of the collective unconscious are two of the central characteristics of analytical psychology. These provoke, however, varying reactions among academic psychologists. Empirical studies which test these hypotheses are rare. Rosen, Smith, Huston and Gonzales proposed a cognitive psychological experimental paradigm to investigate the nature of archetypes and the collective unconscious as archetypal (evolutionary) memory. In this article we report the results of a cross-cultural replication of Rosen et al. conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. In short, this experiment corroborated previous findings by Rosen et al., based on English speakers, and demonstrated a recall advantage for archetypal symbol meaning pairs vs. other symbol/meaning pairings. The fact that the same pattern of results was observed across two different cultures and languages makes it less likely that they are attributable to a specific cultural or linguistic context.

A central theme in contemporary psychology is the distinction between implicit and explicit evaluations. Research has shown various dissociations between the two kinds of evaluations, including different antecedents, different consequences, and discrepant evaluations of the same object. The associative–propositional evaluation (APE) model accounts for these dissociations by conceptualizing implicit and explicit evaluations as the outcomes of two
qualitatively distinct processes. Whereas implicit evaluations are described as the outcome of associative processes, explicit evaluations represent the outcome of propositional processes. Associative processes are further specified as
the activation of mental associations on the basis of feature similarity and spatiotemporal contiguity; propositional processes are defined as the validation of activated information on the basis of logical consistency. The APE model includes specific assumptions about the mutual interplay between associative and propositional processes, implying a wide range of predictions about symmetric
and asymmetric changes in implicit and explicit evaluations. The current chapter reviews the conceptual and empirical assumptions of the APE model and evidence in support of its predictions. In addition, we discuss conceptual and empirical challenges for the APE model and various directions for future research on implicit and explicit evaluation.

The last few years have seen the publication of a number of studies by researchers claiming to have induced “synaesthesia,” “pseudo-synaesthesia,” or “synaesthesia-like” phenomena in non-synaesthetic participants. Although the intention of these studies has been to try and shed light on the way in which synaesthesia might have been acquired in developmental synaesthestes, we argue that they may only have documented a phenomenon that has elsewhere been accounted for in terms of the acquisition of sensory associations and is not evidently linked to synaesthesia. As synaesthesia remains largely defined in terms of the involuntary elicitation of conscious concurrents, we suggest that the theoretical rapprochement with synaesthesia (in any of its guises) is unnecessary, and potentially distracting. It might therefore, be less confusing if researchers were to avoid referring to synaesthesia when characterizing cases that lack robust evidence of a conscious manifestation. Even in the case of those other conditions for which conscious experiences are better evidenced, when training has been occurred during hypnotic suggestion, or when it has been combined with drugs, we argue that not every conscious manifestation should necessarily be counted as synaesthetic. Finally, we stress that cases of associative learning are unlikely to shed light on two highly specific characteristic of the majority of cases of developmental synaesthesia in terms of learning patterns: First, their resistance to change through exposure once the synaesthetic repertoire has been fixed; Second, the transfer of conditioned responses between concurrents and inducers after training. We conclude by questioning whether, in adulthood, it is ever possible to acquire the kind of synaesthesia that is typically documented in the developmental form of the condition. The available evidence instead seems to point to there being a critical period for the development of synaesthesia, probably only in those with a genetic predisposition to develop the condition.

A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the impact of recreational ecstasy use on short-term memory (STM), long-term memory (LTM), verbal and visual memory.We located 26 studies containing memory data for ecstasy and non-ecstasy users from which effect sizes could be derived. The analyses provided measures of STM and LTMin 610 and 439 ecstasy users and revealed moderate-to-large effect sizes (Cohen’s d) of d=0.63 and d=0.87, respectively. The difference between STM versus LTM was non-significant. The effect size for verbal memory was large (d=1.00) and significantly larger than the small effect size for visual memory (d=0.27). Indeed, our analyses indicate that visual memory may be affected more by concurrent cannabis use. Finally, we found that the total lifetime number of ecstasy tablets consumed did not significantly predict memory performance.

Previous studies have shown that stimuli associated with drugs can acquire motivational proprieties, which allow them to control operant behavior for drug consumption/seeking and other types of reward. The current research investigated whether a conditioned stimulus (CS) that has been paired with ethanol is able to disrupt the rate of responding for a reward. A Pavlovian instrumental transfer experiment was conducted with albino rats. The experimental group received paired presentations of the CS (i.e, tone) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) (i.e., the effects of ethanol). Subjects in the control group received random presentations of the US and the CS. The rate of operant behavior for food seeking in both the presence and the absence of the CS was determined for the subjects. The results show that a CS associated with ethanol increased the rate of responding for food.

Research based on event-related potential (ERP) reported mediofrontal negativities following unexpected negative feedback or performance error. Some authors proposed that these signals reflect reward prediction error for worse than expected outcomes, while others suggested that mediofrontal negativities express medial prefrontal cortex coding for unexpected non-occurrence of a predicted outcome, whether worse or better than expected. Many studies found mediofrontal negativities coding for unexpected negative
outcomes; however, few studies found them after unexpected positive outcomes. The present study investigated ERP and skin conductance response (SCR) to the unexpected omission of electric shocks during Pavlovian aversive conditioning. To manipulate expectancies, participants were presented with visual
stimuli paired with electric shock on either 80% (CS11) or 20% (CS12) of trials. SCR analysis confirmed
higher shock-delivery expectancy for CS11, relative to CS12. ERP analysis evidenced a stronger negative
frontocentral ERP component after unexpected, relative to expected, shock-omission. Methodological and
theoretical implications are discussed.

Many theories of contingency learning assume (either explicitly or implicitly) that predicting whether an outcome will occur should be easier than making a causal judgment. Previous research suggests that outcome predictions would depart from normative standards less often than causal judgments, which is consistent with the idea that the latter are based on more numerous and complex processes. However, only indirect evidence exists for this view. The experiment presented here specifically addresses this issue by allowing for a fair comparison of causal judgments and outcome predictions, both collected at the same stage with identical rating scales. Cue density, a parameter known to affect judgments, is manipulated in a contingency learning paradigm. The results show that, if anything, the cue-density bias is stronger in outcome predictions than in causal judgments. These results contradict key assumptions of many influential theories of contingency learning

Research using non-human animals as experimental subjects to understand human behavior have been based on the Darwinian notion of continuity between species. In this framework, we find analogous models to understand human biology and behavior in nonhuman species. In the scientific study of psychology, animal models have proven to be an effective tool for understanding both normal and abnormal human behaviors. In the present review, we discuss how animal models have been used in investigating psychopathology. After reviewing three historical animal models of specific psychopathologies, we discuss how phenomena discovered while studying Pavlovian conditioning have contributed to our understanding of the etiology and maintenance of human psychopathology, how the Pavlovian tradition has contributed to the development of better ways to treat these behavioral disorders, and more generally, how Pavlovian phenomena are implicated in almost all interactions between an organism and its environment.

The project explored in this chapter, titled "Remix Yourself," is informed by Gregory Ulmer's mystory technique, and asks students to use performance and remix praxis to explore issues of digital identity. This chapter utilizes a writing style inspired by mystory and collage, performing how the project was applied and experienced in a communication and performance studies course. The chapter illustrates how some university students appreciate learning via process-based, experimental projects—like "Remix Yourself"—a project which requires they examine their creative and interpretive processes, communicative tendencies, and sociocultural positionalities. Embracing relational meaning and associative thinking, mystory remixes image, text, video, memory, story, association, emotion, and artifact into a nonlinear, multimedia work.