# Learning to learn: Single session acquisition of new rules by freely moving mice

## TL;DR

Mice can learn new visual tasks in a single session, improving their ability to learn over time, similar to humans.

## Contribution

Demonstrates that mice can rapidly learn new rules in a single session and improve their learning capacity with experience.

## Key findings

- Experienced mice can learn a new discrimination criterion after just five training and three testing trials.
- The ability to learn in a single session improves with time and is predicted by experience and task difficulty.
- Mice continuously improve performance in new situations after initial learning.

## Abstract

Learning from examples and adapting to new circumstances are fundamental attributes of human cognition. However, it is unclear what conditions allow for fast and successful learning, especially in nonhuman subjects. To determine how rapidly freely moving mice can learn a new discrimination criterion (DC), we design a two-alternative forced-choice visual discrimination paradigm in which the DCs governing the task can change between sessions. We find that experienced animals can learn a new DC after being exposed to only five training and three testing trials. The propensity for single session learning improves over time and is accurately predicted based on animal experience and criterion difficulty. After establishing the procedural learning of a paradigm, mice continuously improve their performance in new circumstances. Thus, mice learn to learn.