Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Minimal Cognition approach has emerged vigorously, focusing on the study of the adaptive behavior of the simplest organisms, including bacteria, assuming that they are sentient and information-processing entities. Although Minimal Cognition has occasionally used Pavlovian methods to try to demonstrate Associative Learning, neither the Psychology of Learning nor the Comparative Psychology traditions are prominent in the movement. However, the Psychology of Learning approach, with its highly sophisticated experimental designs, has done a great deal of research on Associative Learning in animals and carried out several studies on plants and unicellular organisms. The present work offers a comprehensive review of these experimental results, among invertebrates, plants and unicellular organisms (paramecia and the amoeba Physarum policephalum) showing that, while there are increasing instances of Associative Learning in many invertebrate phyla (and also many phyla with no data) there is no adequate evidence of it in unicellular protists (despite more than a century of experiments with paramecia and amoeba) or in plants (despite recent results that so claim). We then consider the alternative offered by Minimal Cognition and suggest some complementary ideas, from a Comparative Developmental Psychology approach, which we call “Minimal Development.”

The feature negative discrimination (A+/AX−) can result in X gaining excitatory properties (second-order conditioning, SOC) or in X gaining inhibitory properties (conditioned inhibition, CI), a challenging finding for most current associative learning theories. Research on the variables that modulate which of these phenomena would occur is scarce but has clearly identified the trial number as an important variable. In the set of experiments presented here, the effect of trial number was assessed in a magazine training task with rats as a function of both the conditioning sessions and the number of A+ and AX− trials per session, holding constant the total number of trials per session. The results indicated that SOC is most likely to be found at the beginning of training when there are many A+ and few AX− trials, and CI (as assessed by a retardation test) is most likely to be found at the end of training when there are few A+ and many AX− trials. Both phenomena were also found at different moments of training when the number of A+ trials was equal to the number of AX− trials. These results cannot be predicted by acquisition-focused associative models but can be predicted by theories that distinguish between learning and performance.

Dog-assisted interventions (DAI) are those that include specially trained dogs in human health services. Often, the training methods employed to train animals for DAI are transmitted between trainers, so the latest scientific research on dog learning and cognition is not always taken into account. The present work aims to evaluate the impact that the main theories on the evolution of the dog have had both in promoting different training methods and in the relevance of behavior in the evolution of the skills of actual dogs. Then, an integrative method for the training of dogs is presented. This method takes into account the research on dog learning mechanisms and cognition processes, and effectively promotes the development of desirable behaviors for DAI during the dog’s ontogeny.

RESUMENEl condicionamiento clásico permite poner en relación la investigación básica con animales con las tareas de juicios de contingencia en humanos, dado que la manera en la que los animales juzgan la relación entre estímulo condicionado y estímulo incondicionado es análoga a la manera en que el humano juzga la relación entre clave y resultado. El condicionamiento clásico se ha explicado tradicionalmente mediante modelos asociativos, pero estos modelos han demostrado tener algunas limitaciones. La Teoría de Detección de Señales (TDS) podría ser una alternativa más adecuada. En este experimento, se evalúa el juicio de contingencia en cuatro grupos de ratas a las que se les presentó un tono acompañado siempre de comida (100% reforzado), y un compuesto tono-click con diferentes contingencias de reforzamiento (100%, 66%, 33% y 0%). El diseño general fue A+/AX+. El grupo para el que el compuesto fue siempre reforzado (100%) mostró aumentación y bloqueo. En cambio, cuando la contingencia fue del 0%, este diseño produjo condicionamiento de segundo orden e inhibición condicionada. Los resultados muestran que los fenómenos se produjeron en momentos distintos del entrenamiento para dichos grupos, mientras que para los grupos restantes (33% y 66%) los fenómenos parecen haber sido intermedios. Los resultados son analizados empleando metodologías propias del trabajo contemporáneo en aprendizaje asociativo y mediante técnicas provenientes de la TDS. Se discuten las implicaciones teóricas de este enfoque decisorio de los procesos de aprendizaje asociativo.Palabras clave: Teoría de Detección de Señales, condicionamiento clásico, juicios de contingencias, aprendizaje asociativo. ABSTRACTClassical conditioning allows relating the fundamental research in non-human animals with contingency assessment tasks in humans, given that animals judge the relationship between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus in a way akin to humans judge the relationship between a cue and an outcome. Classical conditioning has been traditionally explained by associative models, but these models have been demonstrated have some limitations. Signal Detection Theory (SDT) can be a more appropriate alternative. In the present experiment contingency assessment is analyzed in four groups of rats that were exposed to a tone that was always followed by food (100%), and a tone-click compound for which different contingencies of reinforcement were employed (100%, 66%, 33% and 0%). The general design was A+/ AX+. The group in which the compound was always reinforced (100%) showed augmentation and blocking. In contrast, second order conditioning and conditioned inhibition were observed when the compound contingency reinforcement was 0%. The results showed that these phenomena appeared in different moments of training for the mentioned groups, whereas groups with intermediate reinforcement (33% and 66%) showed intermediate results. Results are analyzed using associative learning methodologies and TDS techniques. Theoretical implications of applying ...