Time and Associative Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：这项资助的目的是了解时间信息处理如何影响学习。时间因素影响学习的速度和学习的表达方式。本文提出的实验分析了事件的时间模式影响联想学习的具体方式。这些研究分析了事件如何被整合或分离成不同的记忆表征，以及这些表征如何被用来确定反应强度、选择和推理。这些研究将有助于更好地理解学习，更具体地说，是如何学习预测可预测的事件。许多行为障碍都存在时机和预期方面的缺陷。抑郁症、精神分裂症和注意力缺陷多动障碍都与时间感知扭曲和预测可预测事件的能力变化有关。吸毒和其他习惯性高风险行为与预测长期后果的能力下降有关。对预期学习机制的理解将导致更有效的行为和生物学治疗。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this grant is to understand how temporal information processing affects learning. Temporal factors affect the speed of learning and how that learning is expressed. The experiments proposed here analyze the specific ways in which the temporal pattern of events affects associative learning. The studies analyze how events are integrated or segregated into different memory representations and how these representations are used to determine response strength, choice and inference. The studies will lead to a better understanding of learning and, more specifically, of how one learns to anticipate predictable events. There are deficits in timing and anticipation in many behavior disorders. Depression, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder are all associated with distortions in time perception and changes in the capacity to anticipate predictable events. Drug taking and other habitual high risk behaviors are associated with a diminished capacity to anticipate long-term consequences. An understanding of the mechanisms of anticipatory learning will lead to more effective behavioral and biological treatments.