Abstract
Some of the best minds in learning theory circa 1930–1950 dealt with problems involving spatial orientation in animals. In the ensuing Skinner era of the ’50s and ’60s, spatial problems were mostly ignored while attention was focused on reinforcement schedules and repetitive manipulative behavior. Late in the 1960s, however, learning researchers began returning to spatial problems, as did others whose interests lay in memory, reasoning and the neural mechanisms of behavior. Today, the ambience in parts of the field is strongly evocative of the 1930s. Problems, apparatuses and theoretical languages that were in vogue half a century ago appear in the current literature once again, and spatial behavior figures prominently in this trend.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Rashotte, M.E. (1987). Behavior in Relation to Objects in Space: Some Historical Perspectives. In: Ellen, P., Thinus-Blanc, C. (eds) Cognitive Processes and Spatial Orientation in Animal and Man. NATO ASI Series, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3531-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3531-0_3
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