Ontogeny of Appetitive Learning: Independent Ingestion as a Model Motivational System

The psychobiological study of how learning and memory develop has been plagued by a paradox. On the one hand, there is an enormous amount of evidence that early experiences can exert lasting effects on later behavior (see Hunt, 1979 for review). On the other hand, there are numerous studies that indicate poor memory in infants (Campbell & Coulter, 1976; Spear, this volume). These seemingly contradictory observations are slowly being reconciled, now, largely because of a change in how we view infants and infant behavior.