A Salience Theory of Learning and Behavior: With Perspectives on Neurobiology and Cognition

Abstract

Traditional behaviorists have described behaviors fundamentally as responses to stimuli or, perhaps more liberally, as behaviors under the control of discriminative stimuli or contexts. They have held responses or behaviors to be established, strengthened, sustained, and inhibited or extinguished by contingent events: notably reinforcers, punishers, or the absence of either. In addition, they believed reinforcement acts on the response, the behavior, not on the organism. Here, and in support of Hebb's view, we advance a contrarian view. A key principle of our framework is that species' brains are uniquely designed to perceive and to relate stimulus events that are contiguous, salient, and relevant to adaptation. In accordance with what we here view as the constructive biases of species' brains, stimuli are differentially organized into amalgams that reflect an exchange of salience and response-eliciting properties of component units, which are then integrated to form a basis of knowledge about the organism and its ecological niche. One can then base adaptation on overarching principles and rules, not just on simple associations. Species may create emergent behaviors with no history of specific training, and even new capacities, to service adaptation to both familiar and novel challenges. Int J Primatol (2007) 28:973-996

The role of posterior parietal cortex in the regulation of saccadic eye movements

“…The guidance signal that LIP provides has been termed 'saliency', which is a subjective perceptual quality that causes some items to 'jump' out from their settings-the use of this term can be traced back to conditioning theory (see for review Rescorla, 1988;Rumbaugh, 2007). Saliency is a multifactorial quantity composed of diverse sensory and cognitive signals.…”

The Proust effect and the evolution of a dual learning system

“…We comment on the similarities and differences of Mitchell et al's framework for understanding classical and operant conditioning and the theoretical framework put forth by Rumbaugh et al (2007). We propose that all nonhuman and human learning may be based on amalgams created by co-occurring stimuli that share their responseeliciting properties and that these amalgams may be propositional in nature.…”

Training to Optimize Learning After Traumatic Brain Injury

“…For example, it is well-documented that the presence of a clear goal to learning [36], motivation or desire to achieve that goal [37], relevance or salience of the goal to the client [38,39], as well as the novelty and complexity of the skill being learned [39,40] are all factors that promote successful learning. High dose, or high quantity and intensity of exposure or practice, is also critical to successful learning [41].…”