Reflections on adaptive behavior : essays in honor of J.E.R. Staddon / edited by Nancy K. Innis.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Staddon, J. E. R.

Innis, Nancy K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adaptability (Psychology).

Adjustment (Psychology).

Behaviorism (Psychology).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (407 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

J. E. R. Staddon's colleagues and former students discuss Staddon's work as a "theoretical behaviorist" and his influence on their own research.John Staddon has devoted his long and distinguished career to the study of the adaptive function and mechanisms of learning. He did his graduate work at the famous Skinner Lab at Harvard in the early 1960s (supervised by Richard Herrnstein, who did his doctoral work with B. F. Skinner), but his work can be characterized as theoretical behaviorism. Staddon, now at Duke University, believes that experimental analysis is never enough to make sense of behavior and that "theoretical imagination" is also required. Staddon's theoretical imagination has distinguished his work over the years and has influenced the field. Staddon is not afraid to deviate from the norm: when psychologists were maintaining their distance from behavioral psychology, Staddon was promoting optimality theories. Optimality theories in psychology are now commonplace. In this volume, Staddon's colleagues and former students discuss topics that have been important in his work: behavioral ability and choice, memory, time and models (the subject of his work at Harvard), and behaviorism. They also reflect on Staddon's influence on their own work and the evolution of their thinking on these topics. ContributorsGiulio Bolacchi, Daniel T. Cerutti, Mircea Ioan Chelaru, J. Mark Cleaveland, Robert H. I. Dale, Rebecca A. Dixon, Valentin Dragoi, Stephen Gray, Jennifer J. Higa, John M. Horner, Nancy K. Innis, Mandar S. Jog, Richard Keen, John E. Kello, Eric Macaux, Armando Machado, John C. Malone, Jr., Kazuchika Manabe, Susan R. Perry, Alliston K. Reid

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Theoretical Behaviorist: John E. R. Staddon

2 Making Analogies Work: A Selectionist Model of Choice Behavior

3 Variation and Selection in Response Structures

4 Control of Response Variability: Call and Pecking Location in Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus)

5 Rules of Thumb for Choice Behavior in Pigeons

6 Choice and Memory

7 The Spatial Memory of African Elephants (Loxodonta africana): Durability, Interference, and Response Biases

8 Interval Timing and Memory: Breaking the Clock

9 Learning Mechanisms in Multiple-Time-Scale Theory

10 Mechanisms of Adaptive Behavior: Beyond the Usual Suspects

11 Varieties of the Behaviorist Experience: Histories of John E. R. Staddon

12 Santayana Told Us, or The Prevalence of Radical Behaviorism

13 The End of Psychology: What Can We Expect at the Limits of Inquiry?

14 Reflections on I-O Psychology and Behaviorism

15 A New Paradigm for the Integration of the Social Sciences

References

Contributors

Epilogue: Nancy Karen Innis, 1941-2004

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-386) and index.

ISBN:

9780262309837

0262309831

9780262276023

026227602X

9781435649026

1435649028

OCLC:

233534766