Generality of the Laws of Learning: From Biological Constraints to Ecological Perspectives

Investigators of conditioning phenomena at the behavioral level have always sought to identify general principles or processes. That effort has been challenged by instances of learning that are specific to the responses, stimuli, and reinforcers involved in a particular instrumental or Pavlovian conditioning situation. This chapter reviews the theoretical and empirical efforts that have been pursued to integrate specialized conditioning effects into a general theory, and then illustrates how evidence from naturalistic learning paradigms offers a more ecologically and evolutionarily relevant basis for identifying adaptive specializations of learning and the developing general theories of learning.

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