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What's reason got to do with it? Affect as the foundation of learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Eliza Bliss-Moreau
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, California National Primate Research Center, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616eblissmoreau@ucdavis.edu
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467barretli@bc.eduwww2.bc/edu/~barretli Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129

Abstract

We propose that learning has a top-down component, but not in the propositional terms described by Mitchell et al. Specifically, we propose that a host of learning processes, including associative learning, serve to imbue the representation of the conditioned stimulus (CS) with affective meaning.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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