An instance theory of associative learning

Abstract

We present and test an instance model of associative learning. The model, Minerva-AL, treats associative learning as cued recall. Memory preserves the events of individual trials in separate traces. A probe presented to memory contacts all traces in parallel and retrieves a weighted sum of the traces, a structure called the echo. Learning of a cue-outcome relationship is measured by the cue's ability to retrieve a target outcome. The theory predicts a number of associative learning phenomena, including acquisition, extinction, reacquisition, conditioned inhibition, external inhibition, latent inhibition, discrimination, generalization, blocking, overshadowing, overexpectation, superconditioning, recovery from blocking, recovery from overshadowing, recovery from overexpectation, backward blocking, backward conditioned inhibition, and second-order retrospective revaluation. We argue that associative learning is consistent with an instance-based approach to learning and memory.Keywords Associative learning . Memory . Instance theory . Exemplar theoryIn a simple associative learning procedure, a cue, A, is presented followed by an outcome, X. With experience, presentation of A elicits anticipation of X. The growth of anticipation is the process of associative learning.Typically, associative learning is modeled as a gradual accrual of excitatory and inhibitory connections between stimulus units. Associative strength is treated as summative; so the strength of an association between stimuli on trial t stands for the entire history of learning. This scheme for understanding learning is well described in the RescorlaWagner model (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) and the many theories that follow from it.Whereas summative theories provide insight into learning, they make an unreasonable assumption. Namely, they deny that the learner remembers the events of separate learning trials-a problem that Miller, Barnet, and Grahame (1995) call the assumption of path independence. The problem is important. First, it distinguishes learning from memory. Second, it denies a growing body of evidence that animals other than humans remember the events of learning trials (e.g., Fagot & Cook, 2006;Vaughan & Greene, 1984;Voss, 2009).In contrast to the classical theories of learning, instance theories of human memory identify the individual experience (i.e., the instance) as the primitive unit of knowledge and treat learning as the accumulation and deployment of instances from memory. Brooks (1978Brooks ( , 1987 was among the first to champion the view. Medin and Schaffer (1978) were among the first to formalize it (see also Reed, 1972). Hintzman's (1986Hintzman's ( , 1988 Minerva 2 model and Nosofsky's (1986) generalized context model are classic formalizations of the view. Kruschke's (1992Kruschke's ( , 1996Kruschke's ( , 2001) and Logan's (1988Logan's ( , 2002 Learn Behav (2012) 40:61-82 DOI 10.3758/s13420-011-0046-2 In this article, we build on previous efforts (Jamieson, Hannah & Crump 2010) to show that an instance model of ass...

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“…This form of retroactive mechanism is consistent with some recent theories in adaptive leaning proposing that cue interaction effects emerge from the assessment of the learned associations to generate a response rather than from deficits of acquisition. For example, the model Minerva-AL (Jamieson, Crump, and Hannah 2012) is an instance-based theory of memory and learning that predicts that cue interaction effects arise from cue recall (i.e., the response to a cue is a function of the weighed sum of the instances recalled by this cue). Alternatively, it has also been proposed that cue interaction effects may arise from retrospective inference whereby learners apply a probabilistic contrast model to estimate the likelihood of behavioral control once presented with a cue (De Houwer 2002;De Houwer, Baeyens, and Field 2005;De Houwer and Beckers 2002).…”

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