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Social learning is a well-studied process in vertebrates, yet insect social learning studies have historically neglected solitary insects. To bridge this gap, I investigated whether the fall field cricket, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, could use individual and social learning to associate water with visual and odour cues. Demonstrator crickets had firsthand experience sampling water paired with cues, and observer crickets watched the demonstrators. I therefore tested demonstrators for individual learning and observers for social learning. I tested for learning by measuring cue preference in the absence of water. When quantifying cue preference by the proportion of time spent near rewarded cues, there was no evidence of individual or social learning. However, when quantifying cue preference by the first cue investigation (>3 seconds) during the test, crickets showed evidence of individual but not social learning. There was also a small effect of cue type on learning. These results differ from previous studies that found social learning in other species of crickets. The findings highlight that there are interspecific differences in learning and social behaviour, and that the method of quantifying learning can influence the outcome.

It is the position of this paper that the body plays a crucial role in the manifestation of cognition and motivation. Cognition is situationally specific and emergent from a natural, habitual functioning process that is based on the embodied needs to transact with the environment. That natural function is the well-known Disequilibrium-Equilibrium function ( D-E f ), and the denied affective [the precognitive] is the embodied needs, desires and interests that frame selective attention and are the catalyst for emerging cognitive action. This precognitive catalyst usually contributes more to motivation than cognition. Motivation also has a cognitive component. The Disequilibrium-Equilibrium function ( D-E f ) process is part of a larger holistic embodied transaction where "knowing" is a way of behaving. This larger embodied transaction is Dewey's "Transactional Realism." In this transaction "inquiry" is the tool of the goal "sense" [or equilibrium] and "knowledge" is the product of a transformed context. On an individual level this transformation is learning, enculturation and reflection. On a cultural level this transformation is consensual validation. / Master of Arts

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Interleaving exemplars from different to-be-learned categories, rather than blocking exemplars by category, often enhances the inductive learning of those categories, as measured by learners’ subsequent ability to classify new exemplars from those categories. Majority of the studies on the learning of motor skills, perceptual categories, and mathematics procedures conceptualize the interleaving benefit to be a general learning phenomenon. Results from this dissertation extend the interleaving benefit to the inductive learning of cognitive, rule-based categories (e.g., statistical concepts). In this dissertation I examine factors that modulate this interleaving benefit, such that interleaving is more or less effective than blocking depending on whether the learning emphasis is on discriminating between categories (discriminative-contrast hypothesis) or encoding commonalities within a category (commonality-abstraction hypothesis), and depending on whether the temporal spacing between exemplars from the same category optimally promote distributed retrieval practice of critical features shared within a category (study-phase retrieval hypothesis). Thus, findings from the current dissertation offer further insight into the boundary conditions of the interleaving benefit. Consistent with the discriminative-contrast hypothesis, an interleaving benefit was observed when between-category similarity was high and within-category similarity was low, and when there was no temporal spacing between exemplars to disrupt contrast processes critical to between-category comparisons. Consistent with the commonality- abstraction hypothesis, a blocking benefit was observed when between-category similarity was low and within-category similarity was high, and when exemplars were presented three-at-a-time instead of one-at-a-time. Consistent with the study-phase retrieval hypothesis (i.e., introducing spacing between exemplars engages retrieval processes that enhance learning), a blocking benefit was observed when there was temporal spacing between exemplars from the same category. Moreover, the type of categories themselves and learners’ cognitive abilities drove the effects of category learning differently. Findings from the current dissertation begin to demonstrate the interactions between study schedules and perceptual-based categories (artists’ painting styles) and rule-based categories (statistical concepts). For instance, when between-category similarity was low, the interleaving benefit was eliminated for the perceptual-based categories, but no blocking benefit was obtained, contrary to our prediction. This suggests that blocked versus interleaved schedules may be more or less conducive to learning depending on the type of categories. Finally, learners with lower working memory capacities—that is, learners with cognitive limitations related to information processing and integration—benefited from schedules in which exemplars were presented three-at-a-time, and from schedules that were either temporally spaced or interleaved, but having neither or both manipulations produced sub-optimal performance. To conclude, findings from this dissertation clarify when, for whom, and with what kind of categories is interleaving beneficial. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy / Interleaving exemplars from different to-be-learned categories, rather than blocking exemplars by category, often enhances the inductive learning of those categories, as measured by learners’ subsequent ability to classify new exemplars from those categories. I examined the generality of the interleaving benefit and the conditions that make interleaving more or less effective for learning than blocking. Consistent with the hypothesis that interleaving enables between-category comparisons, I demonstrate that the interleaving benefit generalizes to the learning of complex, rule-based categories and across all learners, particularly those with lower cognitive abilities. Conversely, blocking enables within-category comparisons, and thus can be as beneficial as, or even more beneficial than, interleaving under certain conditions—if exemplars from the same category are presented at three-at-a-time rather than one-at-a-time or if the categories are structured such that there is high-within and low-between category similarity. These findings highlight the need to shift focus away from examining which type of schedule— interleaving or blocking—is more effective for category learning to identifying when and why each type of schedule may be more effective.

According to the theory of desirable difficulty, conflict during practice can elicit a greater degree of processing and result in a later memory benefit (Bjork & Bjork, 1994). The present paper extends the work by Thomson et al. (in prep) that there may be a stage-specific mechanism involved. They found a desirable difficulty effect when directing a conflict towards the categorization stage through classifying names by gender. However, no such effect was seen when classifying words by size. They provided evidence that gender classification is more semantically central than categorizing items by size, which tends to be relative and depend on context. We took the same stimuli used in the Thomson et al. (in prep) but had participants make animacy judgments (animal or “thing”) on words. A subsequent memory test revealed a desirable difficulty effect for incongruent words compared to congruent. Interestingly, animal words were better remembered overall compared to “thing” words. A second experiment directed a conflict towards the categorization and response processing stages through classifying names as male and female with semantic (male/female) and response selection (left/right) primes. A subsequent memory test revealed a desirable difficulty pattern of results (although non-significant) where incongruent compared to congruent words were better remembered for the sematic primes and congruent compared to incongruent words were better remembered for response primes. These results suggest to-be-remembered material needs to be the focus of attention and increasing difficulty to any stage of processing does not give you a guaranteed desirable effect. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Introduction: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a genetically heritable mood disorder typically characterized by manic and depressive episodes. Cognitive impairments experienced by people with BD are one of the best predictors of functional capacity in their daily lives. There are notable impairments in various domains, such as executive functioning, working memory, and processing speed, in both individuals diagnosed with BD as well as their first-degree unaffected relatives, which emphasizes the important role genetic factors play in the onset and presence of cognitive impairments. One commonly studied single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) associated with BD and cognition is the CACNA1C rs1006737 SNP. Although there have been numerous studies investigating the effects of rs1006737 on cognitive functioning in BD, results have been inconclusive and mixed. Thus, we examined the involvement and impact of the CACNA1C rs1006737 risk SNP on cognitive functioning in the domains of executive functioning, working memory, and processing speed. Methods: A total of 70 euthymic BD-I participants and 76 healthy control (HC) participants were assessed on the cognitive domains of executive functioning, working memory, and processing speed and genotyped for the CACNA1C rs1006737 risk SNP. Results: No significant differences were observed in the scores for the cognitive domains of executive functioning, working memory, and processing between BD risk carriers vs. non-risk homozygotes, HC risk carriers vs. non-risk homozygotes, BD and HC risk carriers, and BD and HC non-risk homozygotes. Conclusion and Future Directions: The results suggest that the rs1006737 risk SNP does not have a significant impact on the cognitive domains investigated in BD and HC. However, our small sample size and lack of an age-matched control group are crucial limitations that must be taken into consideration. Future studies with larger sample sizes can help to further elucidate the role the CACNA1C rs1006737 risk SNP plays in cognitive functioning in BD. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Traditionally, the concept of cognition has been tied to the brain or the nervous system. Recent work in various noncomputational cognitive sciences has enlarged the category of “cognitive phenomena” to include the organism and its environment, distributed cognition across networks of actors, and basic cellular functions. The meaning, scope, and limits of ‘cognition’ are no longer clear or well-defined. In order to properly delimit the purview of the cognitive sciences, there is a strong need for a clarification of the definition of cognition. This paper will consider the outer bounds of that definition. Not all cognitive behaviors of a given organism are amenable to an analysis at the organismic or organism-environment level. In some cases, emergent cognition in collective biological and human social systems arises that is irreducible to the sum cognitions of their constituent entities. The group and social systems under consideration are more extensive and inclusive than those considered in studies of distributed cognition to date. The implications for this ultimately expand the purview of the cognitive sciences and bring back a renewed relevance for anthropology and introduce sociology on the traditional six-pronged interdisciplinary wheel of the cognitive sciences.

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