97-28896 Mechanisms of Associative Learning Associative learning is a basic form of learning that is generally thought to be central to the scientific understanding of human memory and cognition. The grant research is directed toward identifying and characterizing the fundamental mechanisms involved. It follows and contributes to an approach that is shared by a substantial group of investigators, namely the use of a simple, experimentally well-controllable instance of associative learning about which a great deal of bevaioral and biological information is available (in case, Pavlovian-like eyeblink conditioning in the rabbit), and the attempted development of a quantitative, neural-network account of the regularities observed. The focus of the grat research at this juncture is on a set issues that have come to occupy great current theoretical attention, involving the roles played by elemental versus configural cues, in different instances of assoiative learning. The research will evaluate the usefulness componential treatment in which elemental and configural cues are generally presumed to compete with each other within an adaptive-network environment. The conception holds promise of providing a principled account of the very different patterns of generalization and discrimination that is observed under what might appear to be minor variations in the conditions of associative training.
