ABSTRACT

This classic edition of the Handbook of Operant Behavior presents seminal work in the field of learning and behavior, foreshadowing a new direction for learning research, and presenting many questions that remain unanswered.

Featuring impressive contributions from leading figures across the field—ranging from N. J. Mackintosh from what was to become the cognitive school through Morse, Kelleher, Hutchinson, and Hineline on the neglected topic of aversive control to Blough and Blough on psychophysics to Philip Teitelbaum on behavioral physiology—the book is a must-read for anyone interested in human and animal learning.

In a newly written introduction, J. E. R. Staddon highlights several issues that deserve more attention: how language is learned and syntax evolves, how animals choose, and a new paradigm for the study of learning in general. The book is essential reading for all students and researchers of learning and behavior, and aims to encourage researchers to revisit some of the fascinating behavioral questions raised by the original book.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

chapter 3|45 pages

Pavlovian Control of Operant Behavior

An analysis of autoshaping and its implications for operant conditioning*

chapter 4|27 pages

The Nature of Reinforcing Stimuli*

chapter 5|28 pages

Schedule-Induced Behavior*

chapter 8|32 pages

Schedules of Reinforcement

The controlling variables*

chapter 10|25 pages

Conditioned Reinforcement

Schedule effects*

chapter 11|27 pages

Conditioned Reinforcement

Choke and information*

chapter 14|17 pages

By-Products of Aversive Control*

chapter 16|33 pages

Stimulus Control

Attentional factors*

chapter 17|26 pages

Animal Psychophysics*

chapter 19|26 pages

Central Reinforcement

A bridge between brain function and behavior*

chapter 20|23 pages

The Experimental Production of Altered Physiological States

Concurrent and contingent behavioral models*