The Psychology of Associative Learning
Abstract
It is hard to think of any significant aspect of our lives that is not influenced by what we have learned in the past. Of fundamental importance is our ability to learn the ways in which events are related to one another, called associative learning. This book provides a fresh look at associative learning theory and reviews extensively the advances made over the last twenty years. The Psychology of Associative Learning begins by establishing that the human associative learning system is rational in the sense that it accurately represents event relationships. David Shanks goes on to consider the informational basis of learning, in terms of the memorisation of instances, and discusses at length the application of connectionist models to human learning. The book concludes with an evaluation of the role of rule induction in associative learning. This will be essential reading for graduate students and final year undergraduates of psychology.
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Psychological research has demonstrated profound and omnipresent impacts of contingency in the learning of cue-outcome associations.
“Psychological research into animal and human learning alike has demonstrated profound and omnipresent impacts of contingency in the learning of cue-outcome associations (Shanks, 1995).”
From Effects of Availability, Contingency, and Formulaicity on the Accuracy of English Grammatical Morphemes in Second Language Writing (2022) · cites this paper as Shanks, 1995
Contingency of cue-outcome mapping is a driving force of all associative learning, human and animal alike.
“Contingency of cue-outcome mapping is a driving force of all associative learning, human and animal alike, to the degree that the field in which it is studied has become known as contingency learning (Shanks, 1995).”
From Effects of Availability, Contingency, and Formulaicity on the Accuracy of English Grammatical Morphemes in Second Language Writing (2022) · cites this paper as Shanks, 1995
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Theory-based Bayesian models of inductive learning and reasoning
Tenenbaum, J. B., Griffiths, T. L., & Kemp, C. (2006) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.05.009 · Cited by 880 · see citing works
AT THE INTERFACE: DYNAMIC INTERACTIONS OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE
Ellis, N. C. (2005) · Studies in Second Language Acquisition · doi:10.1017/s027226310505014x · Cited by 893 · see citing works
A Dual Role for Prediction Error in Associative Learning
den Ouden, H. E. M., Friston, K. J., Daw, N. D., McIntosh, A. R., & Stephan, K. E. (2009) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn161 · Cited by 306 · see citing works
Fletcher, P. C., Anderson, J. M., Shanks, D. R., Honey, R., Carpenter, T. A., Donovan, T., Papadakis, N., & Bullmore, E. T. (2001) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn733 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
Self-citationThe probability of causal conditionals
Over, D. E., Hadjichristidis, C., Evans, J. S. B. T., Handley, S. J., & Sloman, S. A. (2007) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2006.05.002 · Cited by 229 · see citing works
Ellis, N. C., O'Donnell, M. B., & Römer, U. (2014) · Cognitive Linguistics · doi:10.1515/cog-2013-0031 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
Murakami, A., & Ellis, N. C. (2022) · Language Learning · doi:10.1111/lang.12500 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
- Authors
- Shanks, D. R.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Shanks, David R.
- ORCID
- Shanks, David R.
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 1995-09-28
- OpenAlex
- W1520248950
- Cited by
- 387
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 1.99
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
- Keywords
- associative learning, learning theory, connectionist models, rule induction, memory, event relationships, human learning, cognitive psychology
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