Dissociable learning processes in comparative psychology

Comparative and cognitive psychologists interpret performance in different ways. Animal researchers invoke a dominant construct of associative learning. Human researchers acknowledge humans’ capacity for explicit-declarative cognition. This article offers a way to bridge a divide that defeats productive cross-talk. We show that animals often challenge the associative-learning construct, and that it does not work to try to stretch the associative-learning construct to encompass these performances. This approach thins and impoverishes that important construct. We describe an alternative approach that restrains the construct of associative learning by giving it a clear operational definition. We apply this approach in several comparative domains to show that different task variants change—in concert—the level of awareness, the declarative nature of knowledge, the dimensional breadth of knowledge, and the brain systems that organize learning. These changes reveal dissociable learning processes that a unitary associative construct cannot explain but a neural-systems framework can explain. These changes define the limit of associative learning and the threshold of explicit cognition. The neural-systems framework can broaden empirical horizons in comparative psychology. It can offer animal models of explicit cognition to cognitive researchers and neuroscientists. It can offer simple behavioral paradigms for exploring explicit cognition to developmental researchers. It can enliven the synergy between human and animal research, promising a productive future for both.     

Hierarchically organized behavior and its neural foundations: a reinforcement learning perspective

Research on human and animal behavior has long emphasized its hierarchical structure—the divisibility of ongoing behavior into discrete tasks, which are comprised of subtask sequences, which in turn are built of simple actions. The hierarchical structure of behavior has also been of enduring interest within neuroscience, where it has been widely considered to reflect prefrontal cortical functions. In this paper, we reexamine behavioral hierarchy and its neural substrates from the point of view of recent developments in computational reinforcement learning. Specifically, we consider a set of approaches known collectively as hierarchical reinforcement learning, which extend the reinforcement learning paradigm by allowing the learning agent to aggregate actions into reusable subroutines or skills. A close look at the components of hierarchical reinforcement learning suggests how they might map onto neural structures, in particular regions within the dorsolateral and orbital prefrontal cortex. It also suggests specific ways in which hierarchical reinforcement learning might provide a complement to existing psychological models of hierarchically structured behavior. A particularly important question that hierarchical reinforcement learning brings to the fore is that of how learning identifies new action routines that are likely to provide useful building blocks in solving a wide range of future problems. Here and at many other points, hierarchical reinforcement learning offers an appealing framework for investigating the computational and neural underpinnings of hierarchically structured behavior.     

The psychodynamic perspective in organizational research: Making sense of the dynamics of direction setting in emergent collaborative processes

This paper demonstrates how the psychodynamic perspective can contribute to the study of organizing processes. Research from this perspective provides a complementary insight in what actually happens in an unfolding collaborative process, both on the manifest and latent level, and how subjectivity is expressed in the organizing process. First, the paper addresses the specific nature and challenges of ‘multiparty collaboration’. Then it describes how the psychodynamic approach can be used in organizational research and the kind of theory it generates. The author presents a case study in the domain of foster care, where five independent organizations tried to develop a scenario for future collaboration. The case analysis focuses on three critical issues with which the participants and consultants were struggling. It discusses how the dynamics that emerged around those issues set the direction of the process. The paper concludes with the benefits of using a psychodynamic perspective in organizational research. Its main contribution is a better understanding of the paradox between the intention and societal necessity for creative collaboration, and the emotional and defensive responses when participants are confronted with the tensions of collaborative work.     

Working memory capacity and self-regulatory behavior: toward an individual differences perspective on behavior determination by automatic versus controlled processes

In the present research, the authors investigated how individual differences in working memory capacity moderate the relative influence of automatic versus controlled precursors on self-regulatory behavior. In 2 studies, on sexual interest behavior (Study 1) and the consumption of tempting food (Study 2), automatic attitudes toward the temptation of interest had a stronger influence on behavior for individuals who scored low rather than high in working memory capacity. Analogous results emerged in Study 3 on anger expression in a provoking situation when a measure of the automatic personality trait of angriness was employed. Conversely, controlled dispositions such as explicit attitudes (Study 1) and self-regulatory goals (Studies 2 and 3) were more effective in guiding behavior for participants who scored high rather than low in working memory capacity. Taken together, these results demonstrate the importance of working memory capacity for everyday self-regulation and suggest an individual differences perspective on dual-process or dual-system theories of human behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

Soviet patriotism in a comparative perspective: a passion for oxymora

The official patriotic narrative that emerged in the USSR during the Stalin period shows the continuity of imperial models that served to constitute “love of the fatherland”. This article presents several concepts about the formation of imperial patriotism prevalent in the course of history; it identifies tendencies of interaction between cultural tradition and foreign models. It also shows the principal possibility of combining patriotism with other forms of unifying and mobilizing discourses. The official patriotic discourse of the Stalin era is analyzed as an eclectic ideological construct that, to a large extent, relied on the tradition of imperial patriotic education. The constants distinguishing Russian-Soviet patriotism include the representation of Russia’s imperial past, viewing the question of a multi-national state through the paradigm of the empire’s “civilizing mission”, and patriotism as an integral part of public political education. Some of the elements fundamental for Soviet “love of the fatherland” are preserved in modern Russian patriotism as for instance in the form of “Soviet” nostalgia or representations of militant “statehood”.     

The biology and evolution of music: a comparative perspective

Studies of the biology of music (as of language) are highly interdisciplinary and demand the integration of diverse strands of evidence. In this paper, I present a comparative perspective on the biology and evolution of music, stressing the value of comparisons both with human language, and with those animal communication systems traditionally termed "song". A comparison of the "design features" of music with those of language reveals substantial overlap, along with some important differences. Most of these differences appear to stem from semantic, rather than structural, factors, suggesting a shared formal core of music and language. I next review various animal communication systems that appear related to human music, either by analogy (bird and whale "song") or potential homology (great ape bimanual drumming). A crucial comparative distinction is between learned, complex signals (like language, music and birdsong) and unlearned signals (like laughter, ape calls, or bird calls). While human vocalizations clearly build upon an acoustic and emotional foundation shared with other primates and mammals, vocal learning has evolved independently in our species since our divergence with chimpanzees. The convergent evolution of vocal learning in other species offers a powerful window into psychological and neural constraints influencing the evolution of complex signaling systems (including both song and speech), while ape drumming presents a fascinating potential homology with human instrumental music. I next discuss the archeological data relevant to music evolution, concluding on the basis of prehistoric bone flutes that instrumental music is at least 40,000 years old, and perhaps much older. I end with a brief review of adaptive functions proposed for music, concluding that no one selective force (e.g., sexual selection) is adequate to explaining all aspects of human music. I suggest that questions about the past function of music are unlikely to be answered definitively and are thus a poor choice as a research focus for biomusicology. In contrast, a comparative approach to music promises rich dividends for our future understanding of the biology and evolution of music.     

Just in time: Toward a new American philosophy

Continental Philosophy Review -     

The adolescent with a learning disability: a developmental perspective

The psychosocial difficulties that usually accompany learning disabilities are examined from a framework of developmental theory, particularly that of Erik Erikson. The implications of this perspective for treatment of adolescents with learning problems is discussed, and a specific program described.     

Evolution and learning: An epistemological perspective

The deep formal and conceptual link existing between artificial life and artificial intelligence can be highlighted using conceptual tools derived by Karl Popper's evolutionary epistemology. Starting from the observation that the structure itself of an organism embodies knowledge about the environment which it is adapted to, it is possible to regard evolution as a learning process. This process is subject to the same rules indicated by Popper for the growth of scientific knowledge: causal conjectures (mutations) and successive refutations (extinction). In the field of machine learning such a paradigm is represented by genetic algorithms that, simulating biological processes, emulate cognitive processes. From a practical viewpoint, that perspective allows to identify the two different kinds of learning considered by artificial intelligence, knowledge acquisition and skill improvement, and to get a different view of the problem of heuristic knowledge in learning systems. From a theoretical point of view, these considerations can shade a new light on an old epistemological problem: why do we live in a learnable world?     

A socioecological perspective on primate cognition,past and present

The papers in this special issue examine the relationship between social and ecological cognition in primates. We refer to the intersection of these two domains as socioecological cognition. Examples of socioecological cognition include socially learned predator alarm calls and socially sensitive foraging decisions. In this review we consider how primate cognition may have been shaped by the interaction of social and ecological influences in their evolutionary history. The ability to remember distant, out-of-sight locations is an ancient one, shared by many mammals and widespread among primates. It seems some monkeys and apes have evolved the ability to form more complex representations of resources, integrating “what-where-how much” information. This ability allowed anthropoids to live in larger, more cohesive groups by minimizing competition for limited resources between group members. As group size increased, however, competition for resources also increased, selecting for enhanced social skills. Enhanced social skills in turn made a more sophisticated relationship to the environment possible. The interaction of social and ecological influences created a spiraling effect in the evolution of primate intelligence. In contrast, lemurs may not have evolved the ability to form complex representations which would allow them to consider the size and location of resources. This lack in lemur ecological cognition may restrict the size of frugivorous lemur social groups, thereby limiting the complexity of lemur social life. In this special issue, we have brought together two review papers, five field studies, and one laboratory study to investigate the interaction of social and ecological factors in relation to foraging. Our goal is to stimulate research that considers social and ecological factors acting together on cognitive evolution, rather than in isolation. Cross fertilization of experimental and observational studies from captivity and the field is important for increasing our understanding of this relationship. This contribution is part of the Special Issue “A Socioecological Perspective on Primate Cognition”.     

Toward a general theory of unconscious processes in psychoanalysis and anesthesiology

Psychoanalysis and anesthesiology appear radically different in their clinical practice, yet they share a focus of inquiry: unconscious processes. Despite this common domain, there has been no exploration of the relationship between "the unconscious" as conceived by psychoanalysts and "surgical unconsciousness" as conceived by anesthesiologists. This is likely due to the fact that general anesthesia has been assumed to be a state in which the brain is simply "turned off." More recent neuroscientific data invalidate this assumption by demonstrating that the anesthetized brain is both cognitively dynamic and capable of implicit learning. Current perspectives on anesthetic mechanisms suggest that general anesthesia is characterized not simply by the absence of cognitive activity, but by the disintegration of cognitive activity. The cognitive unbinding paradigm of general anesthesia is discussed and its application to Wilfred Bion's theory of thinking, as well as his concept of attacks on linking, is elucidated. Based on the common structure and function of unconscious processes in psychoanalysis and anesthesiology, the foundation of a general theory is established.     

Spatial cognition and behavior in young and elderly adults: implications for learning new environments

Young and elderly women's performances on scene-recognition, distance-ranking, route-execution, and map-placement tasks were compared in familiar and novel supermarkets to seek evidence of an age-related deficit in spatial cognitive performance, a benefit of environmental familiarity, and an age-related decrement in the efficiency of spatial learning. Results suggested that younger adults acquired spatial information in a novel environment more quickly than did elderly adults, but findings indicated neither an age-related deficit in spatial cognitive performance nor a benefit of environmental familiarity. Scores from psychometric tests produced low correlations with cognitive task performance. Of the behaviors observed during exploration and route execution, only 1 was significantly correlated with cognitive task performance. Standing without scanning was negatively correlated with performance on 3 tasks for elderly adults only.     

Implicit and explicit processes in a second-language learning task

Abstract

Two experiments examined the learning of a set of Greek pronunciation rules through explicit and implicit modes of rule presentation. Experiment 1 compared the effectiveness of implicit and explicit modes of presentation in two modalities, visual and auditory. Subjects in the explicit or rule group were presented with the rule set, and those in the implicit or natural group were shown a set of Greek words, composed of letters from the rule set, linked to their pronunciations. Subjects learned the Greek words to criterion and were then given a series of tests which aimed to tap different types of knowledge. The results showed an advantage of explicit study of the rules. In addition, an interaction was found between mode of presentation and modality. Explicit instruction was more effective in the visual than in the auditory modality, whereas there was no modality effect for implicit instruction. Experiment 2 examined a possible reason for the advantage of the rule groups by comparing different combinations of explicit and implicit presentation in the study and learning phases. The results suggested that explicit presentation of the rules is only beneficial when it is followed by practice at applying them.     

Cognitive bias in animal behavior science: a philosophical perspective

Animal Cognition - Emotional states of animals influence their cognitive processes as well as their behavior. Assessing emotional states is important for animal welfare science as well as for many...