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The Past Half-Century has seen a dramatic shift in the biobehavioral study of learning and motivation. Fifty years ago, theory was dominated by mechanistic ideas about drive, reinforcement, and temporal contiguity. Now ethological and cognitive themes have become part of the lexicon. Robert C. Bolles, PhD, whose classic book Theory of Motivation marked the downfall of Hullian drive theory, was at the forefront of this emerging school of thought, advocating a new blend of psychology and ethology. He helped shape the era, fostering interest in radical empiricism, adaptive function, a strong infusion of biology, and a focus on the purposiveness of goal-oriented behavior. This volume reflects his influential scholarship and shares the same themes that guided his thinking: behavior and function. In Learning, Motivation, and Cognition, Bolles's former students, contemporaries, and colleagues continue his legacy in writing upon these themes. The volume begins with a section on evolution, ontogeny, and phylogeny that emphasizes the functional aspects of behavior. Bolles's first research topic was how motivations for commodities such as food and water affect behavior, and the second section describes this intimate interaction of learning with regulatory physiology. Later in his career, Bolles turned to the question of how past behavioral experience guides an animal's selection between various foods. Learned food preferences and aversions are the subject of the third section. Next, the book pays tribute to Bolles's work on the problems of aversively motivated behavior. The final section of the book addresses cognitive processes in animal learning.
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