Book excerpt: This popular text gives students a comprehensive and readable introduction to contemporary issues in learning and behavior. The books balanced coverage, careful organization, and focus on animal learning have made it a favorite for years with professors and students alike. The book provides a systematic introduction to elementary forms of learning that have been the focus of research for much of the twentieth century: habituation, classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, stimulus control, aversive control, and their applications to the study of cognition and to the alleviation of behavior problems. Biological constraints on learning are integrated throughout the text, as are applications boxes that relate animal research to human learning and behavior. The book is organized so that each chapter builds on the previous one, and simpler phenomena (habituation and sensitization) are described before more complicated ones. Within each chapter, information is also presented in increasing order of complexity. Throughout, analogies and examples help simplify and clarify concepts.