Department of psychology

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Stephen B. Fountain , Ph.D.

Education: Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University (1981)

Research Interests

I do research on the behavioral and brain processes that give animals, including humans, the ability to organize complex behavior. Research in my laboratory can be described as "comparative cognition," though some studies also explore the neural basis of complex behavior through psychobiological techniques and computer simulations of cognitive processes.

Lab Site: Animal Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory

Courses Frequently Taught

• Basic Learning Processes (undergraduate)
• Introduction to Learning Core (graduate)
• Comparative Cognition (graduate)
• Connectionism and Neural Networks (graduate)
• Computer Applications in Psychology (graduate)
  

Recent Publications

Wallace, D. G., & Fountain, S. B. (2003). An associative model of rat serial pattern learning in three-element sequences. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B: Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 56, 301-320.

Fountain, S. B. (2006). The structure of sequential behavior. In E. A. Wasserman and T. R. Zentall (Eds.), Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence (pp. 439-458). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fountain, S. B., & Benson, D. M. (2006). Chunking, rule leaning, and multiple item memory in rat interleaved serial pattern learning. Learning and Motivation, 37, 95-112.

Fountain, S. B., Rowan, J. D., & Carman, H. M. (In press). Encoding structural ambiguity in rat serial pattern learning: The role of phrasing. International Journal of Comparative Psychology.

Wallace, D. G., Rowan, J. D., & Fountain, S. B. (In press). Determinants of phrasing effects in rat serial pattern learning. Animal Cognition.