Individual differences in learning capacity are evident in humans and most other animals. Traditionally, such differences are described in terms of variations along a relatively small number of psychological dimensions corresponding to behavioral traits. Here, an alternative approach is considered in which individual differences in learning capacity are characterized by spatially sorting behavioral patterns. To illustrate this approach, a two-dimensional self-organizing feature map wasused to analyze patterns in the performances of intact and cortically-lesioned rats engaged in multiple learning tasks. After training, the spatial structure of the map revealed systematic variations inlearning across rats that were related to the degree of brain damage. Individual nodes within the map described prototypical performance profiles that corresponded closely to patterns of learning seen in individual rats, including individuals with idiosyncratic profiles. Techniques that automatically identify modal patterns of performance during learning may provide new insights into the processes that determine what an individual organism can learn.

Many people agree that dolphins are sentient beings, but few would claim to know what being a dolphin is like. From a psychological perspective, a dolphin’s experiences are a function of its mental capacities, especially those processes that relate to memories, percepts, thoughts, and emotions. This paper reviews what is currently known about dolphins’ cognitive abilities, focusing on how they perceive and remember events. Experiments with captive dolphins show that they can flexibly access memories of past events and construct sophisticated representations of the world and themselves.How dolphins act and what they remember about their actions impacts what they perceive, which in turn guides their thoughts and decisions. Many of the actions and events that shape a dolphin’s experience are internally generated and monitored. Knowing how dolphins perceive temporal patterns, objects, emotions, actions, agents, scenes, messages, and motivations can help clarify what dolphins’ thoughts, memories, and experiences are like. Only by giving dolphins a way to show what they know, or can learn, can we hope to understand what goes on inside their heads.