Contemporary Animal Learning Theory

This 1980 book provides a general but comprehensive study of the way in which animals learn and in particular, learn about the relationship between events in their environment. The study of animal learning and conditioning can be approached from two very different perspectives. The psychologist can focus directly on behaviour, relying on the conditioning experiment in his attempt to formulate behavioural laws and principles which will transcend the confines of the laboratory. The learning theorist however, is concerned not with behavioural change per se but rather with the way in which animals acquire knowledge through experience: the types of relationship to which they are sensitive, their representation of their knowledge about these and the mechanisms that control these representations. Dr Dickinson provides an integrated survey of the experimental and theoretical work which was being carried out as he wrote. The book will continue to interest scholars of animal learning theory.