- B230, Portland Square, Drake Circus
- +44 1752 584816
- andy.wills@plymouth.ac.uk
Profiles
Professor Andy Wills
Professor in Psychology
School of Psychology (Faculty of Health)
Role
Professor of Psychology
Twitter: @ajwills72
Personal website: willslab.org.uk
Qualifications
B.Sc. Psychology (Soton), Ph.D. Psychology (Cantab)
Academic background
I became interested in artificial intelligence through an early interest in computers (I was paid for my first computer program at age 14). I studied psychology as an undergraduate (Southampton, 1990 - 1993) because of a (still-held) belief that psychology can inform the design of intelligent systems. A continuing interest in neural networks led to me studying for a Ph.D. with computational learning theorist Ian McLaren (Cambridge, 1994 - 1998). I continued my Ph.D. research as a Junior Research Fellow (Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1998 - 2000).
Keen to secure a permanent position, and interested in teaching as well as research, I moved to Exeter University, where I became a lecturer (2000), senior lecturer (2005), and then associate professor (2006). In 2012, I moved to Plymouth as a full professor.
Teaching interests
Research methods, cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
I'm the lead author of the Creative Commons teaching materials Research Methods in R.
Staff serving as external examiners
Lincoln University
Research interests
My principal interest is the categorization of visual objects. This interest has also led me to work on the role of errors and attention in learning more generally. By some metrics, I'm in the top 1% of my field worldwide (the methodology for this calculation can be found here).
I'm also a strong advocate for open science. I'm the local network lead in Plymouth for the UK Reproducibility Network, the Editor of the newly-formed Open Journal of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience, and the maintainer of a number of R packages, including catlearn (an open repository of learning and categorization models, with over 15,000 downloads to date).
Research degrees awarded to supervised students
2019: Angus Inskter
2016: Charlotte Edmunds
2014: Henrietta Roberts
2014: Fayme Yeates
2006: Fraser Milton
2005: Alice Welham
2004: Kazuhiro Goto
Grants & contracts
2017 - 2020: Learning from total failure (ESRC)
2010 - 2013: The Exeter Science Exchange (EPSRC)
2011 - 2012: confidential project (QinetiQ)
2011 - 2011: IED threat awareness (CDE, Defence)
2009 - 2010: Neuroscience of human associative learning (British Council)
2006 - 2007: Unsupervised categorization (ESRC)
2005 - 2007: From Associations to Rules (EC FP6)
2002 - 2004: Acquisition of polymorphous concepts (BBSRC)
Key publications are highlighted
Journals
Articles
2020
'A dimensional summation account of polymorphous category learning'
Learning and Behavior
, DOI
PEARL
2019
'Theory protection in associative learning: humans maintain certain beliefs in a manner that violates prediction error'
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition
, DOI
PEARL
2019
'The effect of pre-exposure on overall similarity categorization'
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition
, DOI
PEARL
2019
'Dissociable learning processes, associative theory, and testimonial reviews: A comment on Smith and Church (2018'
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
, DOI
PEARL
2019
'Selective effects of errorful generation on recognition memory: The role of motivation and surprise'
Memory
, DOI
PEARL
2018
'Learning from failure: Errorful generation improves memory for items, not associations'
Journal of Memory and Language
104,
70-82
, DOI
PEARL
2018
'Automaticity and cognitive control: Effects of cognitive load on cue-controlled reward choice'
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
, DOI
PEARL
2018
'Multiple Feature Use in Pigeons’ Category Discrimination: The Influence of Stimulus Set Structure and the Salience of Stimulus Differences'
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition
44,
(2)
114-127
PEARL
2018
'Due process in dual process: Model-recovery simulations of decision-bound strategy analysis in category learning'
Cognitive Science
PEARL
2017
'Initial training with difficult items does not facilitate category learning'
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
, DOI
PEARL
2017
'Transfer of learned category-response associations is modulated by instruction'
Acta Psychologica
PEARL
2017
'In Defence of Effect-Centric Research'
Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
6,
(1)
43-46
, DOI
PEARL
2017
'Progress in modeling through distributed collaboration: Concepts, tools, and category-learning examples'
Psychology of Learning and Motivation
PEARL
2016
'The Neural Correlates of Similarity- and Rule-based Generalization'
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
29,
(1)
150-166
, DOI
PEARL
2016
'Free classification of large sets of everyday objects is more thematic than taxonomic'
Acta Psychologica
26-40
, DOI
PEARL
2016
'Amnesic Patients Show Superior Generalization in Category Learning'
Neuropsychology
, DOI
PEARL
2016
'Attention and associative learning in humans: An integrative review'
Psychological Bulletin
, DOI
PEARL
2016
'A Comparison of the neural correlates that underlie rule-based and information-integration category learning'
Human Brain Mapping
37,
(10)
3557-3574
, DOI
PEARL
2016
'Does Rumination Cause “Inhibitory” Deficits?'
Psychopathology Review
a4,
(3)
341-376
, DOI
PEARL
2015
'Combination or Differentiation? Two theories of processing order in classification'
Cognitive Psychology
80,
1-33
, DOI
PEARL
2015
'Feature- versus rule-based generalization in rats, pigeons and humans'
Animal Cognition
18,
(6)
1267-1284
, DOI
PEARL
2015
'Negative mood reverses devaluation of goal-directed drug-seeking favouring an incentive learning account of drug dependence'
Psychopharmacology
, DOI
PEARL
2015
'Feedback can be superior to observational training for both rule-based and information-integration category structures'
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
68,
1203-1222
PEARL
2015
'State trace analysis: Dissociable processes in a connectionist network?'
Cognitive Science
39,
1047-1061
PEARL
2014
'Attention, predictive learning, and the inverse base-rate effect: evidence from event-related potentials'
Neuroimage
87,
61-71
, DOI
PEARL
2013
'Cueing an unresolved personal goal causes persistent ruminative self-focus: An experimental evaluation of control theories of rumination'
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
44,
(4)
449-455
, DOI
PEARL
2013
'Modeling human sequence learning under incidental conditions'
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
39,
(2)
166-173
, DOI
2013
'Modeling human sequence learning under incidental conditions'
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes
39,
(2)
166-173
, DOI
2013
'Reinstating the Frontal Lobes? Having More Time to Think Improves Implicit Perceptual Categorization: A Comment on Filoteo, Lauritzen, and Maddox (2010)'
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
24,
(3)
386-389
, DOI
2013
'Is overall similarity classification less effortful than single-dimension classification?'
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
66,
(2)
299-318
, DOI
2012
'On the Adequacy of Bayesian Evaluations of Categorization Models: Reply to Vanpaemel and Lee (2012)'
PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN
138,
(6)
1259-1261
, DOI
2011
'Unitization, similarity, and overt attention in categorization and exposure'
Mem Cognit
39,
(8)
1518-1533
, DOI
2011
'Effects of concurrent load on feature- and rule-based generalization in human contingency learning'
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
37,
(3)
308-316
, DOI
2011
'Representation development, perceptual learning, and concept formation'
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
34,
(3)
141-142
, DOI
2011
'Simultaneous Backward Conditioned Inhibition and Mediated Conditioning'
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-ANIMAL BEHAVIOR PROCESSES
37,
(2)
241-245
, DOI
2011
'Interpreting the effects of image manipulation on picture perception in pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens)'
J Comp Psychol
125,
(1)
48-60
, DOI
2010
'Grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) show a feature-negative effect specific to social learning'
Anim Cogn
13,
(2)
219-227
, DOI
2010
'Syntactic transfer in artificial grammar learning'
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
17,
(1)
122-128
, DOI
2009
'A comparative analysis of the categorization of multidimensional stimuli: I. Unidimensional classification does not necessarily imply analytic processing; evidence from pigeons (Columba livia), squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), and humans (Homo sapiens)'
J Comp Psychol
123,
(4)
391-405
, DOI
2009
'A comparative analysis of the categorization of multidimensional stimuli: II. Strategic information search in humans (Homo sapiens) but not in pigeons (Columba livia)'
J Comp Psychol
123,
(4)
406-420
, DOI
2009
'The neural basis of overall similarity and single-dimension sorting'
Neuroimage
46,
(1)
319-326
, DOI
2009
'Prediction Errors and Attention in the Presence and Absence of Feedback'
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
18,
(2)
95-100
, DOI
2009
'Long-term persistence of sort strategy in free classification'
Acta Psychol (Amst)
130,
(2)
161-167
, DOI
2008
'Processes of overall similarity sorting in free classification'
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
34,
(3)
676-692
, DOI
2007
'Does maintenance of colour categories rely on language? Evidence to the contrary from a case of semantic dementia'
Brain Lang
103,
(3)
251-263
, DOI
2007
'Predictive learning, prediction errors, and attention: evidence from event-related potentials and eye tracking'
J Cogn Neurosci
19,
(5)
843-854
, DOI
2006
'Why are artificial polymorphous concepts so hard for birds to learn?'
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
59,
(2)
251-267
, DOI
2005
'The outcome specificity of learned predictiveness effects: Parallels between human causal learning and animal conditioning'
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-ANIMAL BEHAVIOR PROCESSES
31,
(2)
226-236
, DOI
2004
'Global-feature classification can be acquired more rapidly than local-feature classification in both humans and pigeons'
Anim Cogn
7,
(2)
109-113
, DOI
2004
'The influence of stimulus properties on category construction'
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn
30,
(2)
407-415
, DOI
2004
'The Role of Category Structure in Determining the Effects of Stimulus Preexposure on Categorization Accuracy'
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B
57,
(1b)
79-88
, DOI
2000
'Tests of the ratio rule in categorization'
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY SECTION A-HUMAN EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
53,
(4)
983-1011
, DOI
1998
'Perceptual categorization: connectionist modelling and decision rules'
Q J Exp Psychol B
51,
(1)
33-58
, DOI
1997
'Generalization in human category learning: A connectionist account of differences in gradient after discriminative and non-discriminative training'
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY SECTION A-HUMAN EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
50,
(3)
607-630
, DOI
0
'Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs'
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
PEARL
Reviews
2012
'On the adequacy of current empirical evaluations of formal models of categorization'
Psychol Bull
138,
(1)
102-125
, DOI
Chapters
Conference Papers
2014
'Does incidental training increase the prevalence of overall similarity classification?
A re-examination of Kemler Nelson (1984)'
Austin, TX
Cognitive Science Society
PEARL
2014
'Machine learning of visual object categorization: an application of the SUSTAIN model'
Austin, TX
Cognitive Science Society
290-295
PEARL
2014
'The effect of pre-exposure on family resemblance categorization for stimuli of
varying levels of perceptual difficulty'
Austin, TX
Cognitive Science Society
1018-1023
PEARL
2005
'ERPS support attentional theories of associative learning'
171-171
2004
'Acquisition of polymorphous concepts'
1657-1657
2004
'Emergence of features in visual stimuli'
1654-1654
2003
'Speeded categorization: The effects of perceptual processing and decision-making time'
1218-1223
2000
'Categorization and the Ratio Rule'
994-999
1997
'Generalization in category learning: One and two category problems'
1088-1088