The Role of the Basal Ganglia in Category Learning

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of the basal ganglia in category learning and provides an overview of the functional neuroanatomy of the basal ganglia, including its relatively unique neural plasticity. It reviews the behavioral neuroscience studies that originally called attention to this brain region as a possible important locus of category learning. The most important category‐learning tasks that are used with human subjects are described. The rule-based and information-integration tasks are more dependent on basal ganglia function. In rule-based tasks, the categories can be learned via some explicit reasoning process. Whereas in information-integration category-learning tasks, accuracy is maximized only if information from two or more stimulus dimensions is integrated at some predecisional stage. The chapter also reviews the relevant neuropsychological patient data, with a focus on patients with basal ganglia disease. The neuroimaging data is also discussed and the COVIS theory is described along with some possible future extensions of the model.