Prof John M Pearce FRS - BSc Leeds DPhil Sussex
My research is directed at the study of animal learning and cognition. I am particularly interested in enhancing our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of associative learning. To this end, my research has focussed on discrimination learning and categorisation. I am investigating the role of attentional processes in this type of learning, and also the role that configural information plays when a discrimination involves complex patterns of stimulation. Many of my findings point to a similarity between the basic mechanisms of learning in animals and humans.
Another line of research is concerned with how animals are able to find a hidden goal by reference to landmarks that lie some distance from it. Some of my studies are exploring the extent to which such spatial learning can be explained by the principles that apply to discrimination learning. Other studies are investigating the contribution made by different neural structures to spatial behaviour.
Selected Publications
Haselgrove, M., George, D. N., & Pearce, J. M. (2005). The discrimination of structure: III. Representation of spatial relationships. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 31, 433-448.
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Pearce, J. M., Good, M. A., Jones, P. M., & McGregor, A. (2004). Transfer of spatial behavior between different environments: Implications for theories of spatial learning and for the role of the hippocampus in spatial learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 30, 135-147.
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Haselgrove, M., Pearce, J. M. (2003).Facilitation of extinction by an increase or a decrease in trial duration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 29, 153-166.
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Pearce, J. M. (2002).Evaluation and development of a connectionist theory of configural learning. Animal Learning and Behavior. 30, 73-95.
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Research Projects
1998-2003 MRC support of £50,000 for Co-operative Group grant “Learning, memory and neuronal plasticity in mammalian systems”, with J. Aggleton, P. Chapman, and K. Fox.
1998-2003 MRC support of £1,400,000, for a Programme grant “A multi-level analysis of brain systems for event memory”, with J. Aggleton, Z. Bashir, and M. Brown.
2001-2003 BBSRC support of £175,000 for a project “Analysis of spatial learning”.
2001 - 2003 Wellcome Trust support of £1,470,300 for a project “Creating models of health and disease: A facility for integrating production and functional analysis of nervous system plasticity in genetically modified rodents”, with Aggleton, Good, Kilcross, Pearce, Muir, Fox, Chapman, Dunnett, Carter.
2002-2005 BBSRC support of £189,000 for a project “The discrimination of structure”.
2003-2008 J. P. Aggleton, D. Carter, P. Chapman, S. Dunnett, K. Fox, M. Good, P. W. Halligan, R. C. Honey, A. S. Killcross, J. Muir, J. M . Pearce, F. Sengpiel, E. Wilding.MRC support of £628,663 for a Co-operative Group Core Grant “Learning memory and neuronal plasticity in mammalian systems”.
2003-2008 J. P. Aggleton, M. W. Brown, J. M. Pearce, Z. Bashir. MRC support of £1,782,437, for a programme grant “The neural substrates of familiarity andevent memory”.
2004-2007 C. M. Heyes, J. M. Pearce.BBSRC support of £184,996 for a project grant “Motor imitation in an avian mimic”
2004 J. M. Pearce, M. A. Good, J. Erichsen. BBSRC support of £5,500 for an international fellowship “Inter and intra hemispheric processing of structural information in pigeons” to support a visit by Prof V. Bingman.
2005-2008 J. M. Pearce. BBSRC support of £224,070 for a project grant “Stimulus relevance in discrimination learning”.
Research Students
Jemma Dopson jointly supervised by Dr David George - Title: "The fate of irrelevant stimuli during conditioning"
Murray Horne - Title: " Cue competition in spatial learning"
Rosetta Mui