Prof. Dr. Harald Lachnit

Email: Lachnit<at>staff.uni-marburg.de
Phone: +49(0)6421 2823642
Fax:     +49(0)6421 2826621

Primarily, my research deals with associative learning and cognition in humans. Naturally, I am therefore interested in other animals (such as honeybees), too. In particular, I take care of how the input of the “learning machinery” has to be specified. To this end, my research focuses on properties of stimuli, attention, the flexibility of stimulus processing, and aspects of time. In order to enhance the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of associative learning I rely on the logic of convergent operations. Many of my findings point to a similarity between the basic mechanisms of learning in animals and humans.

Selected Publications

Lachnit, H., Schultheis, H., König, S., Üngör, M., & Melchers, K. G. (2008). Comparing elemental and configural associative theories in human causal learning: A case for attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 34, 303-313.

Shanks, D. R., Lachnit, H. & Melchers, K. G. (2008). Representational flexibility and the challenge to elemental theories of learning: Response to commentaries. Behavioural Processes, 77, 451-453.

Melchers, K. G., Shanks, D. R., & Lachnit, H. (2008). Stimulus coding in human associative learning: Flexible representations of parts and wholes. Behavioural Processes, 77, 413-427.

Lachnit, H., Giurfa, M., & Menzel, R. (2004). Odor processing in honeybees: Is the whole equal to, more than, or different from the sum of its parts? Advances in the Study of Behavior, 34, 241-264.

Lachnit, H. (1988).  Convergent validation of information processing constructs with Pavlovian methodology. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 143-152.