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May 2001
ISBN 0262194538
420 pp.
156 illus.
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Adaptive Dynamics
J. E. R. Staddon

In this book J. E. R. Staddon proposes an explanation of behavior that lies between cognitive psychology, which seeks to explain it in terms of mentalistic constructs, and cognitive neuroscience, which tries to explain it in terms of the brain. Staddon suggests a new way to understand the laws and causes of learning, based on the invention, comparison, testing, and modification or rejection of parsimonious real-time models for behavior. The models are neither physiological nor cognitive: they are behavioristic. Staddon shows how simple dynamic models can explain a surprising variety of animal and human behavior, ranging from simple orientation, reflexes, and habituation through feeding regulation, operant conditioning, spatial navigation, stimulus generalization, and interval timing.

Table of Contents
 Preface
 Acknowledgments
1 Theoretical Behaviorism: Aim and Methods
2 Adaptive Function, I: The Allocation of Behavior
3 Adaptive Function, II: Behavioral Economics
4 Trial and Error
5 Reflexes
6 Habituation and Memory Dynamics
7 Motivation, I: Feeding Dynamics and Homeostasis
8 Motivation, II: A Model for Feeding Dynamics
9 Motivation, III: Incentive and Schedule Effects
10 Assignment of Credit
11 Stimulus Control
12 Spatial Search
13 Times, I: Pacemaker-Accumulator Models
14 Time, II: Multiple-Time-Scale Theory
15 Times, III: MTS and Time Estimation
16 Afterword
 Notes
 References
 Index
 
 


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