Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Error Correction in Classical Conditioning and Human Category Learning

To what extent are the processes of human learning analogous to the more elementary learning processes studied in animal-conditioning experiments? This question, and the broader goal of integrating mathematical models of animal and human learning, was the focus of my collaborative research at Stanford with Gordon Bower in the mid-1980s as well as my doctoral dissertation, which he supervised (Gluck & Bower, 1988a, 1988b, 1990). While working with Gordon, I also began a parallel line of research with another faculty member at Stanford, Richard Thompson. This research had the same conceptual starting point as the cognitive studies with Gordon, mathematical models of animal learning, but asked a different question: How are these learning principles embodied by neural circuits