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Learning involves a complex set of conditions. While most training procedures focus on the explicit environmental control of such behavior (e.g., operant and respondent contingencies), underlying species-typical mechanisms determine much of how this will occur. This lecture will examine how these biological pre-cursors interact with learning to produce the end response. Aspects such as Motivational processes, “errors” in learning (e.g., misbehavior, “superstitious” behavior), and the relationship between the training context and an organism’s niche will be examined. The hope is to better account for how ethological principles and biology in general combine with learning to better produce the desired trained responses in animals. |
