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Photo of Tom Zentall Thomas Zentall, PhD
Professor
Department of Psychology
202-B Kastle Hall
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0044

Office Phone: 859.257.4076
E-mail: zentall@uky.edu

My research interests focus on cognitive behaviors in animals including memory strategies, concept learning, and social learning. The approach my students and I use is to define a cognitive behavior that is characteristic of humans in a way that clearly distinguishes it from simple associative (SR) learning and then to examine the conditions under which it can be found in animals. This approach not only examines the relatively unexplored repertoire of animal behavior that has been thought to distinguish humans from other animals, but it also develops relatively simple training techniques that may be useful in training developmentally delayed and learning disabled humans to use concepts and strategies. For more information on my research and laboratory, click here.

Selected Recent Publications:
Zentall, T. R. (2007). Temporal discrimination learning by pigeons. Behavioural Processes, 74, 286-292.
Klein, E. D., Gehrke, B. J., Green, T. A., Zentall, T. R., & Bardo, M. T. (2007). Repeated cocaine experience facilitates sucrose-reinforced operant responding in enriched and isolated rats. Learning and Motivation, 38, 44-55.
Friedrich, A. M., Zentall, T. R., & Weisman, R. (2007). Absolute pitch: Frequency range discriminations in pigeons (Columbia livia), comparisons with zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), and humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 125, 95-105.
Singer, R. A., Berry, L. M., & Zentall T. R. (2007). Preference for a stimulus that follows a relatively aversive event: Contrast or delay reduction? Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 87, 275-285.
Zentall, T. R. & Singer, R. A. (2007). Within-trial contrast: When is a failure to replicate not a type I error? Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 87, 401-404.
DiGian, K. A., & Zentall, T. R. (2007). Pigeons may not use dual coding in the radial maze analog task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 33, 262-272.
Zentall, T. R. (2006). Mental time travel in animals: A challenging question. Behavioural Processes, 72, 173-183889-895.
Zentall, T. R. (2006). Instructional ambiguity in the discrimination of and memory for the duration of a stimulus. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 6, 163-183.
Benjumea, S., & Zentall, T. R. (2006). Darwin lives: Introduction to the series on animal learning and cognition. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 6, 129-132.
Zentall, T. R. (2006). Imitation: Definitions, evidence, and mechanisms. Animal Cognition, 9, 355-367.
Martin, T. I., & Zentall T. R. (2006). Simple discrimination reversals in the domestic horse (Equus caballus). Applied Animal Behavior Science, 101, 328-338.
Zentall, T. R. (2006). Functional equivalence in pigeons. Behavior Analyst Today, 7, 262-274.
Singer, R. A., Klein, E. D., & Zentall, T. R. (2006). The use of a single-code/default coding strategy by pigeons to acquire a duration-sample discrimination. Learning and Behavior, 34, 340-347.
Singer, R. A., & Zentall, T. R. (2006). Methodological issues in the study of cognitive mapping in animals. In M. J. Anderson (Ed.), Tasks and Techniques: A Sampling of Methodologies for the Investigationo f Animal Learning, Behavior, and Cognition (pp. 209-222). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
Zentall, T. R. (2006). Methodological issues in the study of imitative learning in animals. In M. J. Anderson (Ed.), Tasks and Techniques: A Sampling of Methodologies for the Investigationo f Animal Learning, Behavior, and Cognition (pp. 223-232). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
Zentall, T. R., Friedrich, A. M., & Clement, T. S. (2006). Required pecking alters judgments of the passage of time by pigeons. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 1038-1042.
Wasserman, E. A., & Zentall, T. R. (Eds.) (2006). Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence. Oxford University Press.
Zentall, T. R., Clement, T. S., Friedrich, A. M., & DiGian, K. A. (2006). Stimuli signaling rewards that follow a less preferred event are themselves preferred: Implications for cognitive dissonance. In E. A. Wasserman & T. R. Zentall (Eds.), Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence. Oxford University Press.
Zentall, T. R. (2006). Representation in animals: Cognitive maps, episodic memory, prospective memory, and metamemory. In K. Fujita & S. Itakura (Eds.), Diversity of cognition: Development, domestication, and pathology. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto University Press.
Zentall, T. R. (2005). Novelty is an unreasonable requirement for imitated behavior. In S. Hurley & N. Chater, (Eds.), Perspectives on imitation: From Mirror Neurons to Memes (pp. 189-191). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zentall, T. R. (2005). Action-level versus program-level imitation In S. Hurley & N. Chater, (Eds.), Perspectives on imitation: From Mirror Neurons to Memes (pp. 285-287). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zentall, T. R. (2005). Selective attention and shared attention in animals. Behavioral Processes, 69, 1-16.
Zentall, T. R. (2005). Animals may not be stuck in time. Learning and Motivation 36, 208-225.
Zentall, T. R. (2005). Configural/holistic processing or differential element versus compound similarity. Animal Cognition, 8, 141-142.
Nguyen, N. H., Klein, E. D., & Zentall, T. R. (2005). Imitation of two-action sequences by pigeons. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 514-518.
Klein, E. D., Bhatt, R. S., & Zentall, T. R. (2005). Contrast and the justification of effort. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12 335-339.
Friedrich, A. M., Clement, T. S., & Zentall, T. R. (2005). Discriminative stimuli that follow the absence of reinforcement are preferred by pigeons over those that follow reinforcement. Learning & Behavior, 33, 337-342.
Martin, T. I., & Zentall, T. R. (2005). Post-choice information processing by pigeons. Animal Cognition.
Zentall, T. R. & Kaiser, D. H. (2005). Interval timing with gaps: Gap ambiguity as an alternative to gap salience and temporal decay. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavioral Processes, 41, 484-486.
Zentall, T. R. (2005). A within-trial contrast effect and its implications for several social psychological phenomena. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 18, 273-297.

Last updated: July 19, 2007