Inhibition and Extinction in Associative Learning

该项目研究动物如何学习事件之间的统计关系（例如，视觉线索和食物之间的关系）。这样的学习是高度适应性的，但也会导致适应不良的行为，比如恐惧症、成瘾和暴饮暴食。如果我们要开发控制这些行为的干预措施，详细了解学习机制是至关重要的。为了实现这一目标，该项目将重点放在学习负相关性上，比如当一个暗示食物不会出现的时候（抑制性学习），以及当一个曾经暗示食物现在不会出现的时候（灭绝学习）。它使用最近开发的工具来揭示学习的内容，并结合了学习算法的实验和计算分析。

The project studies how animals learn about statistical relationships between events (for example, between a visual cue and food). Such learning is highly adaptive, but can contribute to maladaptive behaviours like phobias, addictions, and over-eating. A detailed understanding of learning mechanisms is crucial if we are to develop interventions to control these behaviours. In keeping with that goal, this project focuses on learning about negative correlations, as when a cue signals that food will not occur (inhibitory learning) and when a cue that once signalled food now does not (extinction learning). It uses recently developed tools for uncovering the content of learning, and combines experimental and computational analysis of learning algorithms.