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Associative Learning

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science
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Synonyms

Associationism; Conditioned associations; Instrumental associations; Learning through associations

Definition

Associative learning is a type of learning that involves the acquisition of new associations between environmental conditions and/or interoceptive states that govern and regulate the learning outcome.

Introduction

Associative learning constitutes a fundamental notion in numerous theoretical and operational models of learning (McSweeney and Murphy 2014). The basic theoretical models related to associative learning indicate either in an explicit and/or implicit way the acquisition of new associations that govern the learning outcome (Shanks 1995). Specifically, associative learning constitutes the capacity of living creatures to detect reliable and consistent associative relationships that are formed between environmental conditions and/or interoceptive experiences (Delamater and Lattal 2014). This type of learning enhances the capacity of living creatures for adaption...

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Correspondence to Christoforos Christoforou .

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Christoforou, C. (2018). Associative Learning. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1038-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1038-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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