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Profiles Detail

Stephen B. Fountain

Professor

Education: Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University (1981)
 
Research Area: Experimental - Behavioral Neuroscience

Research Interests

We study the behavioral and brain processes that give animals the ability to organize complex behavior. Our research in the areas of comparative cognition and neuroscience explores the psychological and neural processes underlying highly organized behavior. Our methods include cognitive paradigms tailored to the study of animals, behavioral neuroscience techniques, and computer simulations of cognitive processes.  Current research in the lab is focused in three areas, namely, the psychological processes involved in the organization of behavior through time, the effects of adolescent nicotine exposure on adult cognitive processes, and the study of brain structures and neurotransmitter systems involved in cognition.



Lab Site: Animal Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory

Courses Frequently Taught

  • Basic Learning Processes (undergraduate)
  • Animal Cognition (undergraduate)
  • Introduction to Learning Core (graduate)
  • Comparative Cognition (graduate)
  • Connectionism and Neural Networks (graduate)
Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Wallace, D. G., & Fountain, S. B. (2002). What is learned in sequential learning? An associative model of reward magnitude serial-pattern learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 28, 43-63.

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. (2007). Encoding structural ambiguity in rat serial pattern learning: The role of phrasing. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 20, 25-34.

Wallace, D. G., Rowan, J. D., & Fountain, S. B. (2008). Determinants of phrasing effects in rat serial pattern learning. Animal Cognition, 11, 199-214. DOI 10.1007/s10071-007-0110-7.

Fountain, S. B. (2008). Pattern structure and rule induction in sequential learning. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 3, 66-85.

Fountain, S. B., Rowan, J. D., Kelley, B. M., Willey, A. R., & Nolley, E. P. (2008). Adolescent nicotine impairs adult serial pattern learning in rats. Experimental Brain Research, 187, 651-656.

Kundey, S. M. A., & Fountain, S. B. (2010). Blocking in rat serial pattern learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 36, 307-312.

Fountain, S. B.  (2010).  Stewart H. Hulse.  Learning and Motivation, 41, 153-155.

Muller, M. D., & Fountain, S. B.  (In press).  Concurrent cognitive processes in rat serial pattern learning: Item memory, serial position, and pattern structure.  Learning and Motivation.

Fountain, S. B., Rowan, J. D., Muller, M. D., Kundey, S. M. A., Pickens, L. R. G., & Doyle, K. E.  (In press).  The organization of sequential behavior: Conditioning, memory, and abstraction.  In E. A. Wasserman and T. R. Zentall (Eds.), Handbook of Comparative Cognition (pp. xxx-xxx). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stephen B. Fountain
OFFICE
Department of Psychology
CONTACT INFO
Phone: 330-672-3826
Fax: 330-672-3786
sfountai@kent.edu
EXPERTISE