Perceptual And Associative Learning

Traditional theories of associative learning have found no place for the possibility that the way in which events are perceived might change as a result of experience. Evidence for the reality of perceptual learning has come from those studied by learning theorists. The work reviewed in this book shows that learned changes in perceptual organization can in fact be demonstrated, even in experiments using procedures (such as conditioning and simple discrimination learning) of the type on which associative theories have been based. These results come from procedures that have been the focus of detailed theoretical and empirical analysis; and from this analysis emerges an outline of the mechanisms responsible. Some of these are themselves associative; others require the addition of nonassociative mechanisms to the traditional theory. The result is an extended version of associative theory which, it is argued, will be relevant not only to the experimental procedures discussed in this book but to the entire range of instances of perceptual learning.

This book brings together leading international learning and attention researchers to provide both a comprehensive and wide-ranging overview of the current state of knowledge of this area as well as new perspectives and directions for the future.

Perceptual learning is the specific and relatively permanent modification of perception and behaviour following sensory experience. This book presents advances made during the 1990s in this rapidly growing field.

The papers published in this Special Issue are based upon presentations at a workshop on "Associative Learning and Representation" which was sponsored by the Experimental Psychology Society at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

The present volume is a homage to Professor N. J. Mackintosh (1935-2015), an outstanding academic and a dear friend and colleague to many of the participants, as a final tribute after being awarded the Gold Medal by the University of Barcelona (November 2015). Although the topics of the chapters in this book have been freely chosen by the authors (Geoffrey Hall, Anthony Dickinson, John M. Pearce, Ian McLaren, Paula J. Durlach, Irina Baetu to mention a few), as well as the type of contribution (either an empirical paper, a review, or an application), they concentrate on issues that are crucial to the understanding of the basic principles of attention and associative learning (both Pavlovian and instrumental), in humans and also in other animals. In other words, to unravel the nature of conditioning, with a special emphasis on perceptual learning. The final chapter, by Gabriel Ruiz, addresses the importance of the contribution by Professor Mackintosh to the renaissance of animal psychology in Spain, where the Spanish Society for Comparative Psychology (SEPC in Spanish) played a relevant role.

Although many professionals in psychology (including the sub-disciplines of human learning and memory, clinical practice related to psychopathology, neuroscience, educational psychology and many other areas) no longer receive training in learning and conditioning, the influence of this field remains strong. Therefore, many researchers and clinicians have little knowledge about basic learning theory and its current applications beyond their own specific research topic. The primary purpose of the present volume is to highlight ways in which basic learning principles, methodology, and phenomena underpin, and indeed guide, contemporary translational research. With contributions from a distinguished collection of internationally renowned scholars, this 23-chapter volume contains specific research issues but is also broad in scope, covering a variety of topics in which associative learning and conditioning theory apply, such as drug abuse and addiction, anxiety, fear and pain research, advertising, attribution processes, acquisition of likes and dislikes, social learning, psychoneuroimmunology, and psychopathology (e.g., autism, depression, helplessness and schizophrenia). This breadth is captured in the titles of the three major sections of the book: Applications to Clinical Pathology; Applications to Health and Addiction; Applications to Cognition, Social Interaction and Motivation. The critically important phenomena and methodology of learning and conditioning continue to have a profound influence on theory and clinical concerns related to the mechanisms of memory, cognition, education, and pathology of emotional and consummatory disorders. This volume is expected to have the unique quality of serving the interests of many researchers, educators and clinicians including, for example, neuroscientists, learning and conditioning researchers, psychopharmacologists, clinical psychopathologists, and practitioners in the medical field.

Perceptual learning is emphasised as the discovery of affordances of events, objects and places in the world, and as the way meaningful perception develops.

The Wiley Handbook on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Learning charts the evolution of associative analysis and the neuroscientific study of behavior as parallel approaches to understanding how the brain learns that both challenge and inform each other. Covers a broad range of topics while maintaining an overarching integrative approach Includes contributions from leading authorities in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, associative learning, and behavioral psychology Extends beyond the psychological study of learning to incorporate coverage of the latest developments in neuroscientific research