Robert A. Rescorla

Robert A. Rescorla (May 9, 1940 – March 24, 2020) was an American psychologist who specialized in the involvement of cognitive processes in classical conditioning focusing on animal learning and behavior.

One of Rescorla's significant contributions to psychology, with co-creator Allan Wagner, was the Rescorla-Wagner Model of conditioning. This model expanded knowledge on learning processes. Rescorla also continued to develop research on Pavlovian conditioning and instrumental training. While at Yale, Rescorla began a fruitful collaboration with colleague Allan Wagner, which led to the development of the Rescorla–Wagner model. In 1985, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1986 was awarded the Distinguished Scientific Contribution award of the American Psychological Association. In 1989, he was named the University of Pennsylvania's James M. Skinner Professor of Science. He also received the Ira Abrams Distinguished Teaching Award of the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn in 1999,

Research and contributions

The Rescorla-Wagner Theory In 1972, Robert A. Rescorla and his colleague Allan R. Wagner at Yale University, published the Rescorla–Wagner model of associative learning. This model conceptualizes learning as the development of associations between conditioned (CS) and unconditioned (US) stimuli, with learning occurring when these stimuli are paired on discrete trials. The change in the association between a CS and an US that occurs when the two are paired depends on how strongly the US is predicted on that trial – that is, informally, how "surprised" the subject is by the US. The amount of this "surprise" depends on the summed associative strength of all cues present during that trial. In contrast, previous models derived the change in associative strength from the current value of the CS alone.

Research program Rescorla conducted research at the University of Pennsylvania on animal learning and behavior, focusing on associative learning and particularly Pavlovian conditioning. He remarried to Shirley Steele.

Rescorla died March 24, 2020, after complications from a fall.

Publications Rescorla, R. A. (2006) Deepened Extinction from Compound Stimulus Presentation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32, 135-144. Rescorla, R. A. (2008). Evaluating conditioning of related and unrelated stimuli using a compound test. Learning & Behavior, 36, 67-74. Rescorla, R. A. (2008). Conditioning of stimuli with nonzero initial value. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 34, 315-323.