Sequence learning is fundamental to a wide range of cognitive functions. Explaining how sequences--and the relations between the elements they comprise--are learned is a fundamental challenge to cognitive science. However, although hundreds of articles addressing this question are published each year, the actual learning mechanisms involved in the…

Associations are formed among the items in a sequence over the course of learning, but these item-to-item associations are not sufficient to reproduce the order of the sequence (Lashley, 1951). Contemporary theories of serial order tend to omit these associations entirely. The current paper investigates whether item-to-item associations play a…

Findings obtained by providing rats with a single fixed series of events, A-B-C-..., often are equally compatible with three alternative serial learning interpretations: that the signal for items is (A) their position in the series (position view), (B) the prior item of the series (chaining view), and (C) one, two, or more prior items of the…