Thirkettle, M., Walton, T., Redgrave, P. et al. (2 more authors) (2013) No learning where to go without first knowing where you're coming from: action discovery is trajectory, not endpoint based. Frontiers in Psychology, 4. 638. ISSN 1664-1078
Abstract
Intrinsic motivations drive an agent to explore, providing essential data for linking behaviors with novel outcomes and so laying the foundation for future flexible action. We present experiments using a new behavioral task which allows us to interrogate the connection between exploration and action learning. Human participants used a joystick to search repeatedly for a target location, only receiving feedback on successful discovery. Feedback delay was manipulated, as was the starting position. Experiment 1 employed stable starting positions, so the task could be learnt with respect to a target location or a target trajectory. Participants were able to learn the correct movement under all delay conditions. Experiment 2 used a variable starting location, so the correct movement could only be learnt in terms of target location. Participants displayed little to no learning in this experiment. These results suggest that movements on this scale are stored as trajectories rather than in terms of target location. Overall the experiments demonstrate the potential of this task for uncovering the native representational substrates of action learning.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2013 Thirkettle, Walton, Redgrave, Gurney and Stafford. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Keywords: | action outcome learning; spatial learning; intrinsic motivation; cognitive science; motor learning |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Nov 2015 16:04 |
Last Modified: | 27 Nov 2015 16:04 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00638 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00638 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:83586 |