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Professor Anthony Mcgregor's Outputs (45)

Probability and rate of reinforcement in negative prediction error learning (2025)
Journal Article
Sanderson, D., Austen, J., McGregor, A., & Strickland, J. (in press). Probability and rate of reinforcement in negative prediction error learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition,

Trial based theories of associative learning propose that learning is sensitive to the probability of reinforcement signalled by a conditioned stimulus (CS). Learning, however, is often sensitive to reinforcement rate rather than probability of reinf... Read More about Probability and rate of reinforcement in negative prediction error learning.

The role of distal landmarks and individual differences in acquiring spatial representations that support flexible and automatic wayfinding (2024)
Journal Article
Buckley, M. G., Austen, J. M., & McGregor, A. (2024). The role of distal landmarks and individual differences in acquiring spatial representations that support flexible and automatic wayfinding. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 98, Article 102391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102391

Theories of parallel memory systems suggest that flexible wayfinding (e.g., shortcutting) requires knowledge about the spatial structure of an environment, whereas automatic wayfinding (e.g., route-following) does not. Distal landmarks have widely be... Read More about The role of distal landmarks and individual differences in acquiring spatial representations that support flexible and automatic wayfinding.

The well‐worn route revisited: Striatal and hippocampal system contributions to familiar route navigation (2024)
Journal Article
Buckley, M., McGregor, A., Ihssen, N., Austen, J., Thurlbeck, S., Smith, S. P., Heinecke, A., & Lew, A. R. (2024). The well‐worn route revisited: Striatal and hippocampal system contributions to familiar route navigation. Hippocampus, 34(7), 310-326. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.23607

Classic research has shown a division in the neuroanatomical structures that support flexible (e.g., short‐cutting) and habitual (e.g., familiar route following) navigational behavior, with hippocampal–caudate systems associated with the former and p... Read More about The well‐worn route revisited: Striatal and hippocampal system contributions to familiar route navigation.

Precision in spatial working memory examined with mouse pointing (2023)
Journal Article
McAteer, S. M., McAteer, S. M., McGregor, A., Smith, D. T., & Smith, D. T. (2024). Precision in spatial working memory examined with mouse pointing. Vision Research, 215, Article 108343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2023.108343

The capacity of visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is limited. However, there is continued debate surrounding the nature of this capacity limitation. The resource model (Bays et al., 2009) proposes that VSWM capacity is limited by the precision with... Read More about Precision in spatial working memory examined with mouse pointing.

Dynamic resource allocation in spatial working memory during full and partial report tasks (2023)
Journal Article
McAteer, S. M., Ablott, E., McGregor, A., & Smith, D. T. (2023). Dynamic resource allocation in spatial working memory during full and partial report tasks. Journal of Vision, 23(2), Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.2.10

Serial position effects are well-documented in working memory literature. Studies of spatial short-term memory that rely on binary response; full report tasks tend to report stronger primacy than recency effects. In contrast, studies that utilize a c... Read More about Dynamic resource allocation in spatial working memory during full and partial report tasks.

Frequency matters: how changes in hippocampal theta frequency can influence temporal coding, anxiety-reduction, and memory (2023)
Journal Article
Hines, M., Poulter, S., Douchamps, V., Pibiri, F., McGregor, A., & Lever, C. (2023). Frequency matters: how changes in hippocampal theta frequency can influence temporal coding, anxiety-reduction, and memory. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2022.998116

Hippocampal theta frequency is a somewhat neglected topic relative to theta power, phase, coherence, and cross-frequency coupling. Accordingly, here we review and present new data on variation in hippocampal theta frequency, focusing on functional as... Read More about Frequency matters: how changes in hippocampal theta frequency can influence temporal coding, anxiety-reduction, and memory.

Oculomotor rehearsal in visuospatial working memory (2022)
Journal Article
McAteer, S. M., McGregor, A., & Smith, D. T. (2023). Oculomotor rehearsal in visuospatial working memory. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 85(1), 261-275. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02601-4

The neural and cognitive mechanisms of spatial working memory are tightly coupled with the systems that control eye movements, but the precise nature of this coupling is not well understood. It has been argued that the oculomotor system is selectivel... Read More about Oculomotor rehearsal in visuospatial working memory.

The spatial layout of doorways and environmental boundaries shape the content of event memories (2022)
Journal Article
Buckley, M. G., Myles, L. A., Easton, A., & McGregor, A. (2022). The spatial layout of doorways and environmental boundaries shape the content of event memories. Cognition, 225, Article 105091. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105091

Physical boundaries in our environment have been observed to define separate events in episodic memory. To date, however, there is little evidence that the spatial properties of boundaries exert any control over event memories. To examine this possib... Read More about The spatial layout of doorways and environmental boundaries shape the content of event memories.

The effects of spatial stability and cue type on spatial learning: Implications for theories of parallel memory systems (2021)
Journal Article
Buckley, M. G., Austen, J. M., Myles, L. A., Smith, S., Ihssen, N., Lew, A. R., & McGregor, A. (2021). The effects of spatial stability and cue type on spatial learning: Implications for theories of parallel memory systems. Cognition, 214, Article 104802. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104802

Some theories of spatial learning predict that associative rules apply under only limited circumstances. For example, learning based on a boundary has been claimed to be immune to cue competition effects because boundary information is the basis for... Read More about The effects of spatial stability and cue type on spatial learning: Implications for theories of parallel memory systems.

Uncertainty and predictiveness modulate attention in human predictive learning (2020)
Journal Article
Chao, C.-M., McGregor, A., & Sanderson, D. J. (2021). Uncertainty and predictiveness modulate attention in human predictive learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(6), 1177-1202. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000991

Attention determines which cues receive processing and are learned about. Learning, however, leads to attentional biases. In the study of animal learning, in some circumstances, cues that have been previously predictive of their consequences are subs... Read More about Uncertainty and predictiveness modulate attention in human predictive learning.

Distinct and combined responses to environmental geometry and features in a working-memory reorientation task in rats and chicks (2020)
Journal Article
Lee, S. A., Austen, J. M., Sovrano, V. A., Vallortigara, G., McGregor, A., & Lever, C. (2020). Distinct and combined responses to environmental geometry and features in a working-memory reorientation task in rats and chicks. Scientific Reports, 10(1), Article 7508. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64366-w

The original provocative formulation of the ‘geometric module’ hypothesis was based on a working-memory task in rats which suggested that spontaneous reorientation behavior is based solely on the environmental geometry and is impervious to featural c... Read More about Distinct and combined responses to environmental geometry and features in a working-memory reorientation task in rats and chicks.

Spontaneous object-location memory based on environmental geometry is impaired by both hippocampal and dorsolateral striatal lesions (2020)
Journal Article
Poulter, S. L., Kosaki, Y., Sanderson, D. J., & McGregor, A. (2020). Spontaneous object-location memory based on environmental geometry is impaired by both hippocampal and dorsolateral striatal lesions. Brain and Neuroscience Advances, 4, https://doi.org/10.1177/2398212820972599

We examined the role of the hippocampus and the dorsolateral striatum in the representation of environmental geometry using a spontaneous object recognition procedure. Rats were placed in a kite-shaped arena and allowed to explore two distinctive obj... Read More about Spontaneous object-location memory based on environmental geometry is impaired by both hippocampal and dorsolateral striatal lesions.

En route to delineating hippocampal roles in spatial learning (2019)
Journal Article
Poulter, S., Austen, J. M., Kosaki, Y., Dachtler, J., Lever, C., & McGregor, A. (2019). En route to delineating hippocampal roles in spatial learning. Behavioural Brain Research, 369, Article 111936. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2019.111936

The precise role played by the hippocampus in spatial learning tasks, such as the Morris Water Maze (MWM), is not fully understood. One theory is that the hippocampus is not required for ‘knowing where’ but rather is crucial in ‘getting there’. To ex... Read More about En route to delineating hippocampal roles in spatial learning.

Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity (2018)
Journal Article
Seel, S., Easton, A., McGregor, A., Buckley, M., & Eacott, M. (2019). Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity. British Journal of Psychology, 110(1), 173-184. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12343

Previous research has reported that walking through a doorway to a new location makes memory for objects and events experienced in the previous location less accurate. This effect, termed the location updating effect, has been used to suggest that lo... Read More about Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity.

The response strategy and the place strategy in a plus-maze have different sensitivities to devaluation of expected outcome (2018)
Journal Article
Kosaki, Y., Pearce, J., & McGregor, A. (2018). The response strategy and the place strategy in a plus-maze have different sensitivities to devaluation of expected outcome. Hippocampus, 28(7), 484-496. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.22847

Previous studies have suggested that spatial navigation can be achieved with at least two distinct learning processes, involving either cognitive map‐like representations of the local environment, referred to as the “place strategy”, or simple stimul... Read More about The response strategy and the place strategy in a plus-maze have different sensitivities to devaluation of expected outcome.

Geometric Module. (2017)
Book Chapter
McGregor, A. (2017). Geometric Module. In J. Vonk, & T. Shackleford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_895-1

The concept of cognitive modularity is crucial to our understanding of the architecture of the mind. One view is that psychological processes such as learning, perception, memory, and judgment are domain general such that they are able to interact wi... Read More about Geometric Module..

The relation between spatial and nonspatial learning. (2016)
Book Chapter
McGregor, A. (2016). The relation between spatial and nonspatial learning. In R. Murphy, & R. Honey (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Learning (313-347). John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118650813.ch13

This chapter reviews the contents of spatial learning and the conditions under which spatial learning occurs. There is evidence for both S‐R and S‐S associations, with S‐S associations enabling learning based on the relations among stimuli and a repr... Read More about The relation between spatial and nonspatial learning..

Dorsolateral striatal lesions impair navigation based on landmark-goal vectors but facilitate spatial learning based on a "cognitive map" (2015)
Journal Article
Kosaki, Y., Poulter, S., Austen, J., & McGregor, A. (2015). Dorsolateral striatal lesions impair navigation based on landmark-goal vectors but facilitate spatial learning based on a "cognitive map". Learning & Memory, 22(3), 179-191. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.037077.114

In three experiments, the nature of the interaction between multiple memory systems in rats solving a variation of a spatial task in the water maze was investigated. Throughout training rats were able to find a submerged platform at a fixed distance... Read More about Dorsolateral striatal lesions impair navigation based on landmark-goal vectors but facilitate spatial learning based on a "cognitive map".

Revaluation of geometric cues reduces landmark discrimination via within-compound associations (2014)
Journal Article
Austen, J., & McGregor, A. (2014). Revaluation of geometric cues reduces landmark discrimination via within-compound associations. Learning & Behavior, 42(4), 330-336. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-014-0150-1

Rats were trained in a triangular water maze in which a compound of geometric and landmark cues indicated the position of a submerged platform. Rats that then underwent revaluation of the geometric cues in the absence of the landmarks subsequently fa... Read More about Revaluation of geometric cues reduces landmark discrimination via within-compound associations.