Brain Mechanisms of Concept Learning

By Dagmar Zeithamova, Michael L. Mack, Kurt Braunlich, T. Davis, Carol A. Seger, M. V. van Kesteren, Andreas Wutz. 2019

67 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Concept learning, the ability to extract commonalities and highlight distinctions across a set of related experiences to build organized knowledge, is a critical aspect of cognition. Previous reviews have focused on concept learning research as a means for dissociating multiple brain systems. The current review surveys recent work that uses novel analytical approaches, including the combination of computational modeling with neural measures, focused on testing theories of specific computations and representations that contribute to concept learning. We discuss in detail the roles of the hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal, lateral prefrontal, and lateral parietal cortices, and how their engagement is modulated by the coherence of experiences and the current learning goals. We conclude that the interaction of multiple brain systems relating to learning, memory, attention, perception, and reward support a flexible concept-learning mechanism that adapts to a range of category structures and incorporates motivational states, making concept learning a fruitful research domain for understanding the neural dynamics underlying complex behaviors.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

• Few-Shot and Continual Learning with Attentive Independent Mechanisms (2021, background): “While learning new concepts, prior concepts that were learned are leveraged to form new connections in the brain [4, 52].”