ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how to conceptualize the role of environmental stimulation and its effects on behavior in child development. Some experiential conditions which do not readily fit the standard conditioning models and which appear to account for learnings in important sectors of early life include dimensional learning and the learning of background levels and contexts for the operation of stimuli. The concepts of "environmental wealth" and "stimulation" have been employed more intuitively than precisely in child-development analyses. The ambiguity of theoretical concepts and some of the direct consequences of their loose usage in theoretical and empirical analyses can also be illustrated by the issues arising when drive terms are introduced to aid in ordering relevant research realms. The drive concept appears in a particular long-term context where terms like "affect hunger," "emotional starvation," "privation," and "deprivation" have been employed to provide the conceptual bases for ordering changes in the strengths of child behaviors through extensive time ranges.
