We are interested in the mechanisms that produce adaptive behavior. For behavior to be successful it must occur in an appropriate place and at an appropriate time and must be appropriate in its form. The studies in our lab have been focused on understanding the mechanisms that underlie the acquisition of new adaptative behaviors. The induction of new behavior is a basic question in all areas of psychology. For example, a fundamental question in the study of development is why one response form gives way to another as the organism gets older.
Babies go from crawling to walking and from suckling to feeding.
Creative problem solving is a topic of study in cognitive psychology. In education, one is constantly concerned with the teaching of new responses, and successful psychotherapy often requires that clients learn new ways of reacting. It is clear that when we understand the principles that underlie the generation of new behavior, we will have information that is useful across the range of practical problems that psychologists have addressed. Our own work on the origins of new behavior has taken place in three domains. We have researched how a rat is shaped to press a bar , how a young bird learns to eat a piece of seed, and how humans learn a novel sequence of simple actions.