Developmental Psychobiology

Experience-Based Mechanisms, Learning, and Memory

Stimulation from the mother, littermates, the physical environment, as well as stimulation generated by the organism itself, constitute mechanisms that motivate, regulate, and guide development. This theme appears in much of our work, sometimes in analyses that incorporate “traditional” constructs of animal learning, and increasingly with more novel applications of experience-based processes.

 

 

Selected Publications

Brunjes, P. C., & Alberts, J. R. (1979). Olfactory stimulation induces filial preferences for huddling in rat pups. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 93(3), 548-555. PDF

Campbell, B.A., & Alberts, J. R. (1979). Ontogeny of long-term memory for learned taste aversions. Behavioral and Neural Biology, 25(2), 139-156. PDF

Martin, L. T., & Alberts, J. R. (1979). Taste aversions to mother's milk: The age-related role of nursing in acquisition and expression of a learned association. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 93(3), 430-445. PDF

Martin, L. T.,& Alberts, J. R. (1982). Associative learning in neonatal rats revealed by cardiac response patterns. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 96, 668-675.

Alberts, J. R., & Gubernick, D. J. (1984). Early learning as ontogenetic adaptation for ingestion by rats. Learning and Motivation, 15, 334-359. PDF

Gubernick, D. J., & Alberts, J. R. (1984). A specialization of taste aversion learning during suckling and its weaning-associated transformation. Developmental Psychobiology, 17(6), 613-628.

Melcer, T., Alberts, J. R., & Gubernick, D. J. (1985). Early weaning does not accelerate the expression of nursing-related taste aversions. Developmental Psychobiology, 18(5), 375-381. PDF

Alberts, J. R. (1987). Early learning and ontogenetic adaption. In N. A. Krasnegor, E. M. Blass, M. A. Hofer & W. P. Smotherman (Eds.), Perinatal Development: A psychobiological perspective (pp. 11-37). New York: Academic Press.

Alberts, J. R. (1994). Learning as adaptation of the infant. Acta Paediatrica, 83(s397), 77-85. PDF

Flory, G. S., Langley, C. M., Pfister, J. F., & Alberts, J. R. (1997). Instrumental learning for a thermal reinforcer in 1-day-old rats. Developmental Psychobiology, 30(1), 41-47. PDF

Hoffman, C. M., Flory, G. S., & Alberts, J. R. (1999). Neonatal thermotaxis improves reversal of a thermally reinforced operant response. Developmental Psychobiology, 34(2), 87-99. PDF

Hoffman, C. M., Flory, G. S., & Alberts, J. R. (1999). Ontogenetic adaptation and learning: A developmental constraint in learning for a thermal reinforcer. Developmental Psychobiology, 34(2), 73-86. PDF

Honeycutt, H., & Alberts, J. R. (2005). Housing pregnant mice (Mus musculus) in small groups facilitates the development of odor-based homing in offspring. Journal of comparative psychology, 119(4), 418-429. PDF

Alberts, J. (2008). Self-sensitivity in fetal development. Infancy, 13(3), 270-274. PDF

Alberts, J. R. (2008). The nature of nurturant niches in ontogeny. Philosophical Psychology, 21(3), 295-303. PDF

Kojima, S., & Alberts, J. R. (2009). Maternal care can rapidly induce an odor-guided huddling preference in rat pups. Dev Psychobiol, 51(1), 95-105. PDF