Navigating the Interface Between Learning and Cognition

Abstract

The interface of learning and cognition applied to the study of animal behavior represents a target for significant progress if conceptual barriers can be reduced. Is animal behavior exclusively a product of learning or cognition, or are both implicated? Are special (i.e., new) methods required to study cognition or will the enterprise be accomplished by using well-established methods from learning? What types of hypotheses need to be tested to dissociate cognition from learning, and may these hypotheses be profitably tested? This article addresses the above questions by focusing on conceptual, methodological, and hypothesis-testing perspectives for navigating the interface between learning and cognition. Examples from contemporary research are used to develop some suggestions for best practices. The development of a rodent model of episodic memory is used as a case study tofeature the validation of an animal model of cognition.