Gilbert, R.M.; Sutherland, N.S. (Eds) — Animal Discrimination Learning

Academic Press London and New York xvi, 501, text figs. . HB. Vg in d/w. From the library of Prof. J. Green (1928-2016) with his name to endpaper.. An important collection of studies on animal learning and comparative psychology, bringing together leading late-1960s research on discrimination, stimulus selection, attention and reversal learning. The volume reflects a significant transitional period in experimental psychology, when traditional behaviourist accounts of learning were increasingly supplemented by theories involving perception and selective attention. Contributors include several influential figures in modern learning theory, notably N. J. Mackintosh, W. K. Honig and Allan R. Wagner. Wagner's chapter, dealt with incidental stimuli and discrimination learning, while Mackintosh contributed comparative work on reversal and probability learning in rats, birds and fish. These investigations helped lay groundwork for later theories of selective attention and associative learning, an area in which Mackintosh in particular became a major figure..