Book Description
Drawing together research and theory in ethology and psychology, this book offers a clear and provocative account of the ways in which living organisms learn. Throughout, the authors' focus is on the importance of operational definition.
In lively prose, describing experiments in enough depth to involve readers in the drama of experimental method, they recount the history of scientists' attempts to answer basic questions, and show how one study builds on another. Although they present the major traditional positions, they demand that readers examine actual evidence, recognize weaknesses, and consider alternatives.
This critical process leads to the delineation of a bottom up, feed forward model in contrast to the traditional top down, feed backward one. Recent research in robotics and fuzzy logic suggests ways in which artificial as well as living systems pursue bottom up, feed forward ethological solutions to practical problems. The authors' extended discussion of their exciting work teaching sign language to chimpanzees vividly illustrates the application of the basic principles of learning elucidated in the book.
Table of Contents
- Cover
- Halftitle
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Discovery Versus Understanding
- Belief Versus Evidence
- Operational Definition
- Facial Vision
- Dependent Variable
- Independent Variable
- Experimental Control
- Introspection
- Intervening Variable
- Experiment Versus Correlation
- Adaptive Versus Maladaptive
- Ethological Experiments
- Color Vision
- Arbitrary and Obligatory
- Obligatory Patterns
- Observation and Experiment
- Experimental Psychology
- Ethology of the Skinner Box
- Plan of This Book
- 2 Classical Conditioning
- Typical Procedures
- Salivation
- Leg Withdrawal
- Eyeblink
- Knee Jerk
- Basic Terms
- Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
- Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
- Orienting Response (OR)
- Unconditioned Response (UCR)
- Conditioned Response (CR)
- Response Measures
- Acquisition
- Extinction
- Resistance to Extinction
- Spontaneous Recovery
- Habituation
- Sensitization
- Relationship Between Conditioned and Unconditioned Responses
- Conditioned Response as a Fractional Response
- Conditioned Response as a Prepatory Response
- Generality
- Experimental Subjects
- Unconditioned Responses
- Conditioned Stimuli
- Arbitrary Stimuli
- Ethology of Stimulus/Response Compatibility
- Time and Sequence
- Interstimulus Interval (ISI)
- Length of the Interstimulus Interval
- Conditioned Emotional Response
- Social Conditioning
- Imprinting
- Conditioned Mobbing
- Chemical Alarms
- Emotional Words
- Summary
- 3 Instrumental Conditioning
- Typical Procedures
- Reward
- Escape
- Avoidance
- Punishment
- Basic Terms
- Unconditioned Stimulus
- Response Measures
- Response Variability
- Acquisition
- Extinction
- Resistance to Extinction
- Spontaneous Recovery
- Generality
- Maze Learning
- Skinner Box
- Schedules
- Fixed Interval
- Variable Interval
- Fixed Ratio
- Variable Ratio
- Maintenance Versus Conditioning
- Time Schedules
- Discrimination
- Successive Procedure
- Simultaneous Procedure
- Multiple Stimuli and Responses
- Reinforcement and Inhibition Versus Differential Response
- Summary
- 4 Mechanisms of Conditioning
- Theory and Experiment
- Stimuli and Responses
- Four Basic Mechanisms
- Common Sense
- Parsimony
- Implications
- S-S Contiguity
- Fractional Anticipatory Response
- Length of the Interstimulus Interval
- Direction of the Interstimulus Interval
- S-S* Contingency
- S-R-S* Contingency
- Role of S*
- Higher-Order Conditioning
- Preconditioning
- A Hybrid Paradigm
- A Misnomer
- S-R Contiguity
- Sign Stimuli
- Action Patterns
- Temporal Patterns
- Feedback Systems
- Feed Forward Systems
- Anticipatory Responses
- Backward Conditioning
- Rhythmic Patterns
- Delay Conditioning
- S-R Sequences
- Contrast With Stimulus Substitution
- Summary
- 5 Reinforcement Versus Expectancy
- Response Contingent Reinforcement
- S-R-S* Contingency
- Goal Gradient
- Learning the Shorter Path to a Goal
- Order of Elimination of Blinds
- Speed-of-Locomotion Gradient
- Cognitive Expectancy
- Unrewarded Trials
- Free Exploration
- Irrelevant Drive
- Summary
- 6 Sequence and Anticipation
- Latent Extinction
- Segments of a T-Maze
- Segments of a Goal Box
- Drive Discrimination
- Conditioned Rejection
- Summary
- 7 Feed Forward Versus Feed Backward
- Operational Definition
- Defining Secondary Reward
- Magazine Clicks
- New Learning
- Partial Reward
- Interstimulus Interval
- Summary
- S-R Contiguity
- S-R Chains in a Skinner Box
- Preliminary Training
- S-R-Sr
- Discriminative Stimulus: Sd Versus Sr
- Feed Forward Versus Feed Backward
- Conditioned Eating
- Magazine Click as Sd
- Token Rewards for Chimpanzees
- Money Feeds Forward
- 8 Continguity Versus Contingency
- Shaping and Autoshaping
- Superstition
- Earning Versus Free Loading
- Avoiding Food
- Constraints and Contingency
- Yoked Control
- Experimental Design
- Subject Selection
- Readiness
- Conclusion
- Learning Without Hedonism
- Bioassay
- Inhibition and Competition
- Feedback Versus Sign Stimuli
- Autonomous Robots
- Top-Down Robots
- Bottom-Up Robots
- Building From the Bottom Up
- Bottom-Up Learning
- Summary
- 9 Appetite, Aversion, and Conflict
- Motive and Drive
- Irritability
- How Many Drives?
- Evocative Stimuli
- Selection
- Summary
- Aversion
- Defensive Aggression
- Suppression and Induction
- Rhythmic Patterns
- Avoidance
- Compatibility
- Operant Avoidance
- Two Ways to Abolish Contingency
- Earning Pain
- Summary
- Conflict
- Homeostasis
- Robots in Conflict
- Fuzzy Control
- Fuzzy Logic
- Parallel Processing
- Queuing
- Control Problem
- Fuzzy Solution
- Biological and Industrial Priorities
- Summary
- 10 Excitation, Inhibition, and Competition
- Hull’s Excitation and Inhibition
- Two Kinds of Inhibition
- Massed and Distributed Practice
- Resistance To Extinction
- Overtraining
- Summary
- Competing Responses
- Considering More Than One Response
- Two-Choice Situations
- Competition and Contingency
- Summary
- 11 Reward Versus Nonreward
- Operant Procedure
- Partial Reward During Acquisition
- Extinction After Partial Reward
- Amount of Practice
- Discrete Trials
- Generality
- Discrimination
- Frustration
- What is Wrong With 100% Reward?
- Anticipatory Goal Responses
- Anticipatory Errors
- Summary
- 12 Places, Paths, and Bearings
- Place Learning Versus Response Learning
- Spontaneous Alteration
- Intramaze Stimuli Versus Extramaze Stimuli
- Odor Trails
- Compass Bearing
- Navigation
- Radial Arm Maze
- Morris Water Maze
- Caching Food
- Summary
- 13 Transfer
- Stimulus Generalization
- Basic Phenomenon
- Implications
- Peak Shift
- Transposition
- Spence’s Model
- Psychophysics
- Sign Stimuli
- Dimensional Stimuli
- Neural Networks
- Habits, Hypotheses, and Strategies
- Habits Versus Hypotheses
- Overtraining and Reversal
- Learning Sets
- Problem Solving Versus Habit
- Comparative Intelligence and Intelligent Comparisons
- Summary
- 14 Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees
- Cross-Fostering
- Sibling Species
- Sign Language
- Sign Language Only
- Ethological Considerations
- Chimpanzee Subjects
- Teaching Methods
- Contrast With Operant Conditioning
- Failure of Extrinsic Incentives
- Uses of the Signs
- Phrases
- Word-for-Sign Translation
- Creativity
- Development
- Modular Approaches
- Modular Semantics
- Modular Conversation
- A Robust Phenomenon
- Replication
- Loulis
- 15 Concepts and Communications
- Communication and Information
- Vocabulary Tests
- Objectives
- Teaching and Testing
- Rewards
- Items and Exemplars
- Photography
- Novelty
- Target Signs
- Test Results
- Chance Expectancy
- Productive Tests Versus Forced Choices
- Signs of ASL
- Concepts
- Communication and Language
- Duality of Patterning
- Ethology and Operational Definition
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index