When the first edition of this book appeared in 1979, B.F. Skinner described it as
"an excellent book, beautifully written, well organized, with an unusually
extensive coverage and a consistency of terminology in a wide variety of
fields which is truly unusual."
His description is fully applicable to the fifth edition as well. He might add the adjectives "charming" and "daring" in describing this version, because Catania has taken the unusual step of introducing several of the topics by using first person, every day prose to underscore the relevance of the material to our experiences in the natural environment. Students who are fortunate enough to be assigned this text will get a comprehensive look at a wider range of phenomena than is usual for a single volume. This book belongs in any liberal undergraduate curriculum.
--Hank Pennypacker
Emeritus, University of Florida
Sloan Publishing and the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies are proud to announce the 2012 publication of the 5th Edition of Learning by
A. Charles Catania.
This long-awaited revision of the definitive introduction to behavior analysis and learning features a complete updating and a reorganization of chapters into shorter segments for maximum flexibility. Flexibility has been further enhanced by the addition of new "Addendum" sections in many chapters that provide additional information for advanced study.
As in previous editions, the 5th Edition presents a coherent treatment of both animal learning and human learning literatures, with special attention given to sources of novel behavior, including shaping and fading, higher-order classes, reinforcement of variability, and equivalence classes. Its coverage of relevant research findings in biology, cognition, linguistics and other disciplines is supplemented by discussions of implications for applied behavior analysis, for ethics, and for social and cultural practices. The author uses experimental data to illuminate the relevance of basic principles to important human issues, such as education, freedom of choice, language, memory, self-awareness, and self-control, and also shows how our understanding of basic processes such as discrimination and verbal governance can help our culture to cope with damaging social phenomena such as discrimination and prejudice.
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