Learning associations between places and visual cues without learning to navigate: neither fornix nor entorhinal cortex is required

Rats with fornix transection, or with cytotoxic retrohippocampal lesions that removed entorhinal cortex plus ventral subiculum, performed a task that permits incidental learning about either allocentric (Allo) or egocentric (Ego) spatial cues without the need to navigate by them. Rats learned eight visual discriminations among computer-displayed scenes in a Y-maze, using the constant-negative paradigm. Every discrimination problem included two familiar scenes (constants) and many less familiar scenes (variables). On each trial, the rats chose between a constant and a variable scene, with the choice of the variable rewarded. In six problems, the two constant scenes had correlated spatial properties, either Alto (each constant appeared always in the same maze arm) or Ego (each constant always appeared in a fixed direction from the start arm) or both (Allo + Ego). In two No-Cue (NC) problems, the two constants appeared in randomly determined arms and directions. Intact rats learn problems with an added Allo or Ego cue faster than NC problems; this facilitation provides indirect evidence that they learn the associations between scenes and spatial cues, even though that is not required for problem solution. Fornix and retrohippocampal-lesioned groups learned NC problems at a similar rate to sham-operated controls and showed as much facilitation of learning by added spatial cues as did the controls; therefore, both lesion groups must have encoded the spatial cues and have incidentally learned their associations with particular constant scenes. Similar facilitation was seen in subgroups that had short or long prior experience with the apparatus and task. Therefore, neither major hippocampal input-output system is crucial for learning about allocentric or egocentric cues in this paradigm, which does not require rats to control their choices or navigation directly by spatial cues.

Why children differ in motivation to learn: insights from 13,000 twins from 6 countries

Little is known about why people differ in their levels of academic motivation. This study explored the etiology of individual differences in enjoyment and self-perceived ability for several school subjects in nearly 13,000 twins aged 9 to 16 from 6 countries. The results showed a striking consistency across ages, school subjects, and cultures. Contrary to common belief, enjoyment of learning and children’s perceptions of their competence were no less heritable than cognitive ability. Genetic factors explained approximately 40% of the variance and all of the observed twins’ similarity in academic motivation. Shared environmental factors, such as home or classroom, did not contribute to the twin’s similarity in academic motivation. Environmental influences stemmed entirely from individual specific experiences.

Learning to talk to users in participatory design situations

In participatory design situations the competence of the facilitator will influence the opportunities for a user group to become engaged in the process of design. Based on the observation of the conversations from a series of design workshops, the performance of design facilitation expertise by an expert architect is compared with a less experienced architectural graduate. The skills that are the focus of this research are the conversational competences deployed by architects to engage users in the design of an architectural project. The difference between the conversational behaviour of a project architect and a less experienced graduate was observed to illustrate with examples the effect the performance of facilitation had on the opportunity for user engagement in design, and of learning the skill of facilitation that occurred in these situations.

Learning to understand others' actions

Despite nearly two decades of research on mirror neurons, there is still much debate about what they do. The most enduring hypothesis is that they enable ‘action understanding’. However, recent critical reviews have failed to find compelling evidence in favour of this view. Instead, these authors argue that mirror neurons are produced by associative learning and therefore that they cannot contribute to action understanding. The present opinion piece suggests that this argument is flawed. We argue that mirror neurons may both develop through associative learning and contribute to inferences about the actions of others.