A representation is a remnant of previous experience that allows that experience to affect later behavior. This paper develops a metatheoretical view of representation and applies it to issues concerning representation in animals. To describe a representational system one must specify the following: thedomainor range of situations in the represented world to which the system applies; thecontentor set of features encoded and preserved by the system; thecodeor transformational rules relating features of the representation to the corresponding features of the represented (...) world; themedium, or the representation's physical instantiation; and thedynamics, or how the system changes with time. In part because of the behaviorist assumption that the hypothetical, covert changes occurring in an organism during learning correspond to the overt physical changes that are observed, issues of representation in animal behavior have been largely ignored as irrelevant or misleading. However, it can be inferred that representations, acting as models of environmental regularities, operate at many levels of behavioral functioning, both cognitive and noncognitive. Objections to the use of this concept in explanations of animal behavior, based on the claim that it is indeterminate and on behaviorist considerations of parsimony, can be answered. Animal representations may be specialized in terms of tasks and species. Data from tasks involving spatial memory, delayed matching-to-sample, and sequence learning suggest some foundations for a general theory of animal representations. (shrink)

There are two big problems related to leadership today: unequal representation and high failure rates among leaders. This conceptual paper argues that commonly shared values, assumptions, and beliefs about leadership, i.e., universal leadership culture, are the common cause of both problems. After the concepts and levels related to leadership culture were explained, we introduce a multilevel, multi-actor process model named the bottleneck metaphor of leadership culture. This metaphor describes how leadership cultures are co-constructed by multiple actors based on their involvement (...) in leader selection and reproduce themselves in groups over time based on emergent leaders' characteristics. Next, a diagnostic tool called “the leadership mirror” is proposed for organizations that want to assess their leadership culture's current state as a starting point for further interventions. Specific suggestions are made for various actors, ranging from individuals to organizations, for their possible roles in preventing undesired leadership cultures. (shrink)

Rachlin's view of self-control is rejected on the grounds that his arguments do not establish the possibility of abstract, external, stimulus patterns and that his experiments, although they show that pigeons and human beings do sometimes choose postponed rather than immediate gratification, do not challenge the commonly held view that internal factors are involved in the former choice.

Converging data from different disciplines are showing the role of classical conditioning processes in the elaboration of human and animal behavior to be larger than previously supposed. Restricted views of classically conditioned responses as merely secretory, reflexive, or emotional are giving way to a broader conception that includes problem-solving, and other rule-governed behavior thought to be the exclusive province of either operant conditiońing or cognitive psychology. These new views have been accompanied by changes in the way conditioning is conducted and (...) evaluated. Data from a number of seemingly unrelated phenomena such as relapse to drug abuse by postaddicts, the placebo effect, and the immune response appear to involve classical conditioning processes. Classical conditioning, moreover, has been found to occur in simpler and simpler organisms and recently even demonstrated in brain slices and in utero. This target article will integrate the several research areas that have used the classical conditioning process as an explanatory model; it will challenge teleological interpretations of the classically conditioned CR and offer some basic principles for testing conditioning in diverse areas. (shrink)

The target article extends molar behaviorism in two positive ways: beyond average aggregates and beyond restricted laws of Although a molar framework based on purely overt events shows promise for advancing behavior theory, Rachlin's specific form of teleological behaviorism is in need of clarification.

The willingness to trade off large but ill-defined future consequences for immediate work characterizes social problems such as environmental sustainability. This commentary argues that important applications of behavioral models of self-control are being overlooked in the experimental literature. Tying the experimental literature to longterm health, environmental, and other risks makes the experimental work more germane, and raises new research questions for experimental modeling.

Operant psychologists are looking for alternatives to radical behaviorism. Rachlin offers teleological behaviorism, but it may pose as many difficulties as radical behaviorism. There is, however, a less drastic way to defend Rachlin's thesis of It portrays operant principles as relating distal efficient causes to behavioral effects.

Long-term potentiation (LTP) is operationally defined as a long-lasting increase in synaptic efficacy following high-frequency stimulation of afferent fibers. Since the first full description of the phenomenon in 1973, exploration of the mechanisms underlying LTP induction has been one of the most active areas of research in neuroscience. Of principal interest to those who study LTP, particularly in the mammalian hippocampus, is its presumed role in the establishment of stable memories, a role consistent with descriptions of memory formation. Other characteristics (...) of LTP, including its rapid induction, persistence, and correlation with natural brain rhythms, provide circumstantial support for this connection to memory storage. Nonetheless, there is little empirical evidence that directly links LTP to the storage of memories. In this target article we review a range of cellular and behavioral characteristics of LTP and evaluate whether they are consistent with the purported role of hippocampal LTP in memory formation. We suggest that much of the present focus on LTP reflects a preconception that LTP is a learning mechanism, although the empirical evidence often suggests that LTP is unsuitable for such a role. As an alternative to serving as a memory storage device, we propose that LTP may serve as a neural equivalent to an arousal or attention device in the brain. Accordingly, LTP may increase in a nonspecific way the effective salience of discrete external stimuli and may thereby facilitate the induction of memories at distant synapses. Other hypotheses regarding the functional utility of this intensely studied mechanism are conceivable; the intent of this target article is not to promote a single hypothesis but rather to stimulate discussion about the neural mechanisms underlying memory storage and to appraise whether LTP can be considered a viable candidate for such a mechanism. (shrink)