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PSYC1227-1

Experimental and Biological Psychology of Learning

[ version française ]

Duration :30h Th
Credits/ECTS :
2nd "licence" in Psychology3
Holder(s) :André Ferrara
Course contents : The basic phenomena as well as the underlying mechanisms of associative learning will be tackled. The main pavlovian, instrumental and operant techniques will be studied through several introductory lessons. The reading course will allow the student to see how those techniques can be used in the frame of topical issues such as: application of conditionning in the study of aging, study of neuropsychological or developmental troubles, behavioural phenotyping of mutant mices, cognitive evaluation after cerebral ischemia, ...
Course objective : Associative learning is commonly used in various fields of psychology such as experimental psychology, clinical neurosciences, psychopharmacology or neuropsychology. The aim of this course is to give the student a general idea of the use of conditioning in an applied and multidisciplinary perspective particularly calling the student's attention to the tasks validity problems (What does any task effectively measure? Are the human and animal performances really comparable?).
Organization : From 16th jannuary 2006

Some lectures will present fundamental notions about:


  • behavioural habituation and sensitization,
  • pavlovian learning (passive/active avoidance; fear conditioning, autoshaping, conditioned suppression),
  • instrumental conditioning (various mazes: T-maze, elevated Plus-maze, water maze, radial maze),
  • operant conditioning (operant schedules of reinforcement: FI/VI, FR/VR, matching to sample, serial learning...).
In 2005/06, we will show how some of these learning techniques can be used to investigate animal memory. The proposed reading course will thus concern the use of learning techniques to study animal memory in a funfamental or applied perspective.
Written notes : Michel Domjan (2004). The Principles of Learning and Behavior. Fifth Edition.
Assessment : Oral.
Contacts : Ferrara André, Chef de Travaux
ULg - FAPSE
Département des Sciences Cognitives
Boulevard du Rectorat, 5 - Bât.32
4000 Sart Tilman
Tél.: 04/366.22.32
eMail: a.ferrara@ulg.ac.be




ULg : Students and Studies Administration - Academic Affairs
Contact : Monique Marcourt, direction A.E.E.
Date of data : 27/02/2006
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