Conditioning and Associative Learning (Oxford Psychology Series) PDF
Preview Conditioning and Associative Learning (Oxford Psychology Series)
THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/conditioningassoOOOOmack Conditioning and associative learning OXFORD PSYCHOLOGY SERIES EDITORS Donald E. Broadbent James L. McGaugh Nicholas J. Mackintosh Michael I. Posner Endel Tulving Lawrence Weiskrantz 1. The neuropsychology of anxiety: an enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system Jeffrey A. Gray 2. Elements of episodic memory Endel Tulving 3. Conditioning and associative learning N. J. Mackintosh Conditioning and associative learning N. J. MACKINTOSH Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge OXFORD PSYCHOLOGY SERIES NO. 3 CLARENDON PRESS • OXFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS • NEW YORK 1983 Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP London Glasgow New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Wellington and associate companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Mexico City © N. ./. Mackintosh, 1983 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Mackintosh, N. J. Conditioning and associative learning. - (Oxford psychology series) I. Conditioned response I. Title 153. r5 B F319 ISBN 0-19-852101-4 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mackintosh, N. J. (Nicholas John), 1935- Conditioning and associative learning. (Oxford psychology series) Bibliography: p. Includes index. I. Conditioned response. 2. Paired-association learning. 3. Classical conditioning. 4. Operant conditioning. I. Title II. Series. BF319.MI5 1983 156'.315 82-22427 ISBN 0-19-852101-4 Typeset by Oxford Verbatim Limited Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Preface My title will indicate, I hope sufficiently clearly, the scope of this book. It treats conditioning, in animals other than man, and from an associationist point of view. This does not, I fully acknowledge, encompass all that one might want to say about learning in animals, nor even about conditioning. I have touched only briefly or not at all on the issues of intelligence, problem¬ solving, and such possibly specialized forms of learning as imprinting, song¬ learning, and navigation; and I have equally eschewed discussion of the determinants of performance on operant schedules of reinforcement. But the study of conditioning or associative learning is a broad enough field in its own right and represents one of the main strands in laboratory work on learning in animals. My aim has been to summarize what I take to be one possible view of the nature of conditioning. The view is undoubtedly a theoretical one and in that sense, I suppose, this is a theoretical book. But I do not pretend that I have developed any theory of conditioning and I make no attempt even to sketch any formal models. The ideas I advance have evolved in discussion with numerous colleagues, in particular with A. Dickinson and G. Hall. Those who have read the former’s Contemporary animal learning theory will detect my debt all too plainly; those who have not will find most of the ideas advanced here presented more economically and cogently there. They and several other colleagues, including R. A. Boakes, V. M. LoLordo, P. F. Lovibond, G. C. Preston, and R. F. Westbrook, have read and commented on one or more chapters. Their comments have been invaluable; if I have ignored them the fault is mine and my book no doubt the poorer. I am also greatly indebted to R. S. Hammans, who drew all the figures, and to an embarrassingly large number of secretaries whom I have persuaded to type various drafts: A. Doidge, L. Missen, I. Rawlinson, Y. Simons, and S. Standing. I thank them all. I started writing this book, more years ago than I now care to recall, while spending a semester at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. I am very grateful to R. C. Gonzalez and his colleagues for their hospitality: without the opportunity provided by three or four months’ respite from normal academic routine, I should never have embarked on this project. But they too cannot be held responsible for the outcome. Cambridge, 1982 N. J. M. For Buns
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