About

Ruth M. Colwill received her PhD from the University of Cambridge and her BA from the University of York. Her research interests include animal learning and behavior, early adverse experiences on cognitive development, canine communication systems and aggressive behavior, and environmental enrichment.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Cognitive psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Mathematics
• Developmental psychology
• Law
• Neuroscience
• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Mathematics education
• Cognitive science

Selected publications

• Habituation: It’s not what you think it is

  Behavioural Processes · 2023 · 23 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  PublisherDOI

• Developments in associative theory: A tribute to the contributions of Robert A. Rescorla.

  Journal of Experimental Psychology Animal Learning and Cognition · 2022 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cognitive science

  The field of associative learning theory was forever changed by the contributions of Robert A. Rescorla. He created an organizational structure that gave us a framework for thinking about the key questions surrounding learning theory: what are the conditions that produce learning?, what is the content of that learning?, and how is that learning expressed in performance? He gave us beautifully sophisticated experimental designs that tackled deep theoretical problems in experimentally clever and elegant ways. And he left us with a collection of work that fundamentally altered the way we as a field think about basic learning processes. Few scientists have impacted their field in the way that Rescorla impacted animal learning theory. In this paper, we introduce this special issue (Developments in Associative Theory: A Tribute to Robert A. Rescorla) by considering some of the many ways in which Rescorla's empirical and theoretical contributions impacted learning theory over his almost 50-year career. We conclude by identifying multiple fundamental issues we think he would have found especially fruitful to pursue as we continue to move forward. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Activity Budget

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Peak Procedure

  2022-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Avoidance

  2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Activity Budget

  2021-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Peak Procedure

  2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Behavioral studies of stimulus learning in zebrafish larvae

  Behavioural Processes · 2019-05-02 · 9 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Analysis of vertebrate vision in a 384-well imaging system

  Scientific Reports · 2019-09-27 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  Visual impairment affects 253 million people worldwide and new approaches for prevention and treatment are urgently needed. While small molecules with potential beneficial effects can be examined in various model systems, the in vivo evaluation of visual function remains a challenge. The current study introduces a novel imaging system for measuring visually-guided behaviors in larval zebrafish. The imaging system is the first to image four 96-well plates with a single camera for automated measurements of activity in a 384-well format. In addition, it is the first system to project moving visual stimuli and analyze the optomotor response in the wells of a 96-well plate. We found that activity is affected by tricaine, diazepam and flumazenil. Surprisingly, diazepam treatments induce a loss of visual responses, at concentrations that do not affect activity or induce hyperactivity. Overall, our studies show that the developed imaging system is suitable for automated measurements of vertebrate vision in a high-throughput format.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Detecting Associations in Pavlovian Conditioning and Instrumental Learning in Vertebrates and in Invertebrates

  2018-02-12 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Many vertebrates and invertebrates display behavioral changes follozving exposure to Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning procedures. These behavioral changes are generally thought 2to represent the output of an associative learning process. Thus, Pavlovian conditioning leads to the formation of stimulus-outcome associations and instrumental learning leads to the development of response-outcome associations. In this chapter, I discuss a relatively unappreciated criticism of the conventional view that stimulus-outcome and response-outcome learning may be inferred simply on the basis of standard operational criteria. Then, I describe two techniques that are popular in the modern conditioning literature for detecting associations betzveen a stimulus and its consequent outcome and between a response and its consequent outcome. One of these techniques depends on the identity of the outcome and the other technique depends on the value of the outcome. Finally, I reviezo the possible limitations regarding the use of these methodologies for detecting associative learning.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03ES017755

  NIH · $145k · 2014

• NIH Grant R21DA014202

  NIH · $471k · 2005

Frequent coauthors

• Robbert Créton

  Providence College

  52 shared

• Robert A. Rescorla

  22 shared

• Danielle Clift

  Providence College

  16 shared

• Robert J. Thorn

  Brown University

  16 shared

• Holly Richendrfer

  Brown University

  16 shared

• Peter D. Balsam

  Columbia University

  12 shared

• Masayoshi Ohta

  Kitano Hospital

  10 shared

• Mrinal Kapoor

  Harvard University

  8 shared

Awards & honors

• The Lewis Paeff and Edna Duchin Lipsitt Lecture in Child Dev…