The trial-by-trial dynamics of behavioral changes can reveal the mechanisms underlying learning. Most experiments, however, quantify learning by comparing a post- to a pre-learning block and thus are blind to the dynamics during learning. Other studies obtain learning curves by averaging across subjects, but if learning systematically differs between individuals, the average learning curve can be misleading. As a service to other projects, this Focus Group will export support and training in the application of trial-by-trial and intra-trial analysis methods to these groups. Furthermore, the Focus Group will import data from the projects for the pursuit of a cross-cutting scientific agenda: to compare the learning dynamics across different individuals, learning stages, experimental paradigms, and species.

Guiding questions of F01:

• Does the learning dynamics differ fundamentally between different learning paradigms or species? Or just in their parameters?
• Are the dynamics of extinction learning and that of acquisition governed by different mechanisms?
• Which factors, such as cues and contextual information, drive changes at a trial-by-trial resolution, and beyond, in individual subjects?
• How do the dynamics of behavioral changes relate to that of neural activity and psychophysiological variables?