A brief history of the Hebbian learning rule.

Notes that D. O. Hebb included a version of his neural postulate of learning in his MA thesis (1932). It seems to be a translation of Pavlovian conditioning into neural terms. The version that appears in his book, The Organization of Behavior (1949), speaks of synapses rather than routes, but the idea of simultaneous firing of afferent and efferent elements is common to both versions. The postulate was adopted by groups interested in programming computers to learn and think. It was also one of the hypotheses tested by neurophysiologists in their search for the synaptic mechanism of learning. So far the neurophysiologists have had more success than the logicians; the NMDA synapse appears to explain the main features of Hebb's postulate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Within-category discontinuity interacts with verbal rule complexity in perceptual category learning.

A test of the predicted interaction between within-category discontinuity and verbal rule complexity on information-integration and rule-based category learning was conducted. Within-category discontinuity adversely affected information-integration category learning but not rule-based category learning. Model-based analyses suggested that some information-integration participants improved performance by recruiting more "units" in the discontinuous condition. Verbal rule complexity adversely affected rule-based category learning but not information-integration category learning. Model-based analyses suggested that the rule based effect was on both decision criterion learning and variability in decision criterion placement. These results suggest that within-category discontinuity and decision rule complexity differentially impact information-integration and rule-based category learning and provide information regarding the detailed processing characteristics of these two proposed category learning systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"V"字型法则定量化研究及其地质意义

“V”字形法则在地质填图中应用广泛，但该法则在以往文献中仅是定性的，随意性大，不能准确定量判断，本文根据地形图或图理论和地质界线走向定义，引出基准走向线，根据公式：L＝h.ctgα准确定量化确定“V”字形法则，并提出今后应用领域。     

The cognitive neuroscience toolkit for the neuroeconomist: A functional overview.

This article provides the beginning neuroeconomist with an introductory overview to the different methods used in human neuroscience. It describes basic strengths and weaknesses of each technique, points to examples of how each technique has been used in neuroeconomic studies, and provides key tutorial references that contain more detailed information. In addition to this overview, the article presents a framework that organizes human neuroscience methods functionally, according to whether they provide tests of the association between brain activity and cognition or behavior, or whether they test the necessity or the sufficiency of brain activity for cognition and behavior. This framework demonstrates the utility of a multimethod research approach, because converging evidence from tests of association, necessity, and sufficiency provides the strongest inference regarding brain–behavior relationships. Set against this goal of converging evidence, human neuroscience studies in neuroeconomics currently rely far too heavily on methods that test association, most notably functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consumer participation in disability research: The golden rule as a guide for ethical practice.

This article explores the value of the disability research process and outcomes, as viewed by those to whom the research is often directed-the research participants and their peers. The author discusses the "golden rule" for conducting research with people with disabilities and cites literature on participatory action research to assess research outcomes--especially the relevance of such research for those to whom it purports to benefit. The author also discusses guidelines to make disability research more participatory and empowering to those who are identified as beneficiaries of the research outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The learning research and development center at the University of Pittsburgh.

"In April of 1964 the Cooperative Research Branch of the United States Office of Education selected the 1st 2 research and development centers in a program designed to provide major concentrations of effort on various areas in education." 1 center, sociologically oriented, as at the University of Oregon and 1 psychologically oriented is at the University of Pittsburgh. The latter is described in this report. Major sections are: Background; Objectives; Activities (Research, Development, Dissemination); Organization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A research paradigm for the study of interpersonal learning.

A research paradigm is introduced to investigate the process whereby 1 person learns to predict the behavior of another person. The paradigm is derived from Brunswik's probabilistic functionalism and his "lens model" of behavior. Methods of analysis are applied to data provided by an illustrative experiment. Results of the experiment show that interpersonal learning occurs; the results are also shown to have implications for problems inherited from studies of interpersonal perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Neuropsychological validation of learning disability subtypes.

Rourke's present edited work, a welcome sequel or "companion volume" to his 1985 book, focuses primarily on evaluating the internal and external validity of existing learning disabilities (LD) typologies within a "confirmatory hypothesistesting framework" initially described by Skinner (1981). Within this framework, studies examining the internal validity of typologies are concerned with issues relating to their reliability and replicability (i.e., the degree to which the typologies' derivation is independent of specific statistical or sampling techniques). External validation studies, on the other hand, attempt to demonstrate that reliably-derived subtypes differ in a meaningful and predictable manner on variables (i.e., external criteria) not initially used to develop the typology. This edited volume will be of interest to research scientists, both within and outside the realm of neuropsychology, interested in classification theory and methods; to clinicians faced with the dual tasks of assessing disabled learners and facilitating rational and productive instructional decisions; and to academics, especially at the college and university level, entrusted with the education of learning-disabled adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social neuroscience: Understanding the pieces fosters understanding the whole and vice versa.

Social science and neuroscience perspectives represent two ends of a continuum of levels of organization studied in psychology. Human behavior as a whole unfolds at social levels of organization, whereas much of the research in psychology has focused on cognitive and biological pieces of this whole. Recent evidence underscores the complementary nature of social, cognitive, and biological levels of analysis and how research integrating these levels can foster more comprehensive theories of the mechanisms underlying complex behavior and the mind. This research underscores the unity of psychology and the importance of retaining multilevel integrative research that spans molar and molecular levels of analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enriched behavioral prediction equation and its impact on structured learning and the dynamic calculus.

This theoretical note describes an expansion of the behavioral prediction equation, in line with the greater complexity encountered in models of structured learning theory (R. B. Cattell, 1996a). This presents learning theory with a vector substitute for the simpler scalar quantities by which traditional Pavlovian-Skinnerian models have hitherto been represented. Structured learning can be demonstrated by vector changes across a range of intrapersonal psychological variables (ability, personality, motivation, and state constructs). Its use with motivational dynamic trait measures (R. B. Cattell, 1985) should reveal new theoretical possibilities for scientifically monitoring change processes (dynamic calculus model; R. B. Cattell, 1996b), such as encountered within psychotherapeutic settings (R. B. Cattell, 1987). The enhanced behavioral prediction equation suggests that static conceptualizations of personality structure such as the Big Five model are less than optimal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The science game: An introduction to research in the behavioral sciences.

Reviews the book, The science game: An introduction to research in the behavioral sciences by Neil Mck. Agnew and Sandra W. Pyke (see record 2007-07794-000). This book is an attempt to introduce a student or beginning researcher to the concepts and methods associated with doing good research in the behavioural sciences. The book is divided into six major parts, dealing in turn with the nature of science and observation; experimental methods; survey, archival and developmental methods; statistics; report writing and ethics; and theory building. The book is well produced and well organized. Specific exemplars of topics under consideration are included in boxes which give typical case reports, experimental designs, sample findings, and so forth. These boxed materials are good illustrations of and extrapolations from the material which the main body of the chapter tends to deal with. The writing style is clear and generally concise. Occasionally there are sparks of fantasy and humour which help to enliven long methodological passages. Overall, this is a well written and useful text. It is a difficult task to sustain interest and continuity in a book which deals almost completely with methodological and statistical issues. The authors have done a remarkably good job in this regard, and I would probably rate this as one of the better books in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The present situation in brain physiology.

"At the present time, no evidence as to the nature of brain function can compare with our own, that is, the psychologists' evidence, and most of this the physiologists quietly ignore. They obviously do so in the conviction that the main principles of peripheral nervous function are also those of central function… . I do not, of course, deny that impulses travel in axons of the brain just as they do in peripheral fibers. I merely suspect that, in addition, there are other forms of brain action and that, from the point of view of psychology, such other actions are no less important than the impulses." Cortical currents or fields differ from the more popular nerve impulses in 3 respects: (a) They do not follow the all-or-none principle which holds for impulses. The currents are graded processes. (b) Unlike the nerve impulses and the electric rhythms of cortical cells, "the currents shown in our records have not the form of short-lived waves; rather, they are quasi-steady states." (c) "While the currents spread freely in the tissue as a continuous medium, nerve impulses follow prescribed linear conductors, the nerve fibers." A number of neuropsychological studies concerning particularly figural after-effects and neural fields are cited. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of What’s behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences.

Reviews the book, What’s behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences by Brent D. Slife and Richard N. Williams (1995). As the book's subtitle indicates, the authors' purpose is to assist the reader in Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences, a worthy objective not likely to be realized simply through a love affair with "information" and its packaging. Slife and Williams state their mission clearly: "Presenting (behavioral sciences') hidden assumptions, along with their costs and consequences, is our task in this book. Whether you are a student of the behavioral sciences, therapist, educator, businessperson, or simply a consumer of behavioral science information, you will need to know the implicit ideas in that information. What are the main interpretations of the data by scientists? What alternative methods are available for gathering knowledge? What ideas are embedded in the usual approaches to abnormality and treatment? Are there other ideas available for generating solutions to human problems? Do conventional approaches to business or education include assumptions about the world or human nature that are questionable or unacceptable to the people who use them? We attempt to answer these and many other questions." In most respects, Slife and Williams do a splendid job at this. Many of the central conceptual issues Slife and Williams have raised have been treated before (by, among others, the mentor of both authors and the scholar to whom they have dedicated their work, Joseph Rychlak, but I know of no work the equal of this one in presenting the material in a way so accessible to previously uninitiated students and the intelligent and interested lay public. Surely this book will be welcomed by those scholars and educators who would wish to move psychology and the other behavioral sciences into the 21st century shorne of their positivistic leanings and empiricist pretensions, and re-oriented toward a more apposite science of human nature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blocking in rat serial pattern learning.

Both associative and rule-learning theories have been proposed to account for rat serial pattern learning, but individually they are unable to account for a variety of recent behavioral and psychobiological phenomena. The present study examined the role of rule learning versus discriminative learning in rat pattern learning using a classic associative phenomenon: blocking. Rats learned to press levers in an 8-lever circular array according to a rule-based serial pattern, 123–234–345–456–567–678–781–812, where digits indicate the correct lever in the array for each trial. Each pattern presentation contained a chunk with a final element violation, such as 454 instead of 456. Rats learned in a first phase that a noise signaled the violation chunk; then, a concurrent spatial cue was added in a second phase. A test with spatial cues alone showed that blocking occurred. The results suggest that associative learning mediated cuing of violation elements. Taken together with other behavioral and psychobiological evidence already reported in the literature implicating rule learning when rats learn this pattern in this paradigm, these results implicate multiple concurrent learning processes in rat serial pattern learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of behavioural outcome goals, learning goals, and urging people to do their best on an individual's teamwork behaviour in a group problem-solving task.

States that research has shown that learning goals are superior to outcome goals on complex tasks. The effectiveness of behavioral outcome goals (set using behavioral observation scales), learning goals, and urging people to do their best was examined in the context of a training program designed to improve an individual's teamwork behavior in a group problem-solving task. 50 participants (mean age 25.3 yrs) who set behavioral or learning goals had higher self-efficacy relative to those urged to "do their best". Self-efficacy correlated positively with teamwork behavior and goal commitment. Behavioral goals were superior to learning goals and being urged to "do your best" in bringing about teamwork behavior. These findings suggest that behavioral outcome goals may mitigate the need for learning goals on complex tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Piecing together the neuroscience of creativity: Review of Creativity and the brain.

Reviews the book, Creativity and the brain by Kenneth M. Heilman (see record 2005-05841-000). This book is a well-written introduction to the neurobiology of creativity and related cognitive constructs. Although it may not be the best source for neuroscience professionals or those looking for specific information about the neural mechanics of creativity, it is definitely a worthy read for an interested layperson. Heilman walks the reader through a variety of issues related to creativity: intelligence, handedness, gender, neurological disorders, and several others. He is an excellent writer--good at explaining complex ideas such as brain physiology--and his diagrams and language are accessible and "user friendly." Most chapters begin with a basic overview of the neuroscience relevant to the chapter's specific topic. This organization is especially helpful to those unfamiliar with the basics. The thematic chapters, however, present a problem. Chapters such as Intelligence, Knowledge and Talents, Imagery, Gender, Aging, and Nurture are all appropriate topics for a book on creativity; however, the structure feels distracting, as if Heilman is skirting the issue of creativity and the neurobiology specific to it. Instead of delving into direct questions on structures or neurotransmitters in the brain, Heilman focuses on the neuroscience of constructs related to creativity. This book is a worthwhile exploration of the neurological mechanisms of cognitive constructs which are related to creativity--areas such as intelligence, aging, and disability. For an educated layperson looking for a clear, well-written, synopsis of these ideas, the reviewer recommends the book. However, as an academic book published by an academic press, it is neither current enough nor detailed enough to be of any special interest to a creativity or neuroscience researcher. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explicit category learning in Parkinson's disease: Deficits related to impaired rule generation and selection processes.

The present study examined the source of explicit category learning deficits previously noted in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Task stimuli consisted of 4 binary-valued cues that together determined category assignment, although some cues were more important for the categorization decision. Participants verbalized the hypotheses being tested to provide several measures of the hypothesis testing. Analyses of these verbal protocols indicated that PD patients were impaired on rule generation and selection but not rule shifting. Patients had particular difficulty noting the relative importance of the cues. Specific aspects of performance were differently correlated with neuropsychological measures of working memory and hypothesis testing ability. Together, the results suggest that the cognitive processes required for explicit category learning are mediated by partially distinct neural mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exemplar effects in the context of a categorization rule: Featural and holistic influences.

Brooks and colleagues (S. W. Allen & L. R. Brooks, 1991; G. Regehr & L. R. Brooks, 1993) have shown that the classification of transfer stimuli is influenced by their similarity to training stimuli, even when a perfect classification rule is available. It is argued that the original effect obtained by Brooks and colleagues might have resulted from two potential confounding variables. Once these confounds were controlled, the current authors did not replicate Brooks and colleagues' results in Experiment 1. Exemplar effects appeared in Experiment 2 when transfer stimuli were perceptually more similar to training stimuli than in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, the authors obtained exemplar effects with separated stimuli, a finding that was not predicted by Brooks and colleagues' model. The authors suggest that a close perceptual match between training and transfer stimuli is necessary for the effect to occur, for both integrated and separated stimuli. The nature of this perceptual match, holistic or featural, is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Towards a neurobiology of creativity in nonhuman animals.

We propose a cognitive and neurobiological framework for creativity in nonhuman animals based on the framework previously proposed by Kaufman and Kaufman (2004), with additional insight from recent animal behavior research, behavioral neuroscience, and creativity theories. The additional information has lead to three major changes in the 2004 model—the addition of novelty seeking as a subcategory of novelty recognition, the addition of specific neurological processing sites that correspond to each of the processes, and the transformation of the model into a spectrum in which all three levels represent different degrees of the creative process (emphasis on process) and the top level, dubbed innovation, is defined by the creative product. The framework remains a three-level model of creativity. The first level is composed of both the cognitive ability to recognize novelty, a process linked to hippocampal function, and the seeking out of novelty, which is linked to dopamine systems. The next level is observational learning, which can range in complexity from imitation to the cultural transmission of creative behavior. Observational learning may critically depend on the cerebellum, in addition to cortical regions. At the peak of the model is innovative behavior, which can include creating a tool or exhibiting a behavior with the specific understanding that it is new and different. Innovative behavior may be especially dependent upon the prefrontal cortex and/or the balance between left and right hemisphere functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training networks of value units: A learning rule for PDP systems with nonmonotonic activation functions.

Much of the research in "New Connectionism" has studied "multiple-layer" perceptrons. Such a perceptron is a network of simple processing units, and can detect whether or not some property is true of a presented pattern. A multiple-layer perceptron has a layer of input units to which patterns are presented, as well as a layer of output units to represent an elicited response. Between these two layers are one or more layers of "hidden" processing units, which typically act as feature detectors. An important difficulty faced when dealing with such a network is the problem of credit assignment: how can the difference between the desired and observed activation in the output layer be used to change properties of "hidden" network components? The credit assignment problem needs to be solved if the network is to be trained to detect some property of interest. The generalized delta rule offers one solution to the credit assignment problem. While the generalized delta rule has provided a viable solution to the credit assignment problem, it has led to other difficulties. Processing units with monotonic activation functions cannot themselves make very sophisticated distinctions. Our approach to limiting the proliferation of hidden units has led to an important extension of the generalized delta rule. We have developed a technique to train networks with much more powerful processors. This research provides several advances to the Connectionist programme. First, we have shown how to train networks containing a new (and more powerful) kind of processing unit. Second, the use of such units reduces the number of hidden units required to make pattern discriminations. Third, our new learning rule can be used to train networks with two different kinds of processing units, which is a small but important step to the biological plausibility of connectionist networks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)