学習は心理学においてその最初期から中核を成してきたテーマです。学習無くしては記憶も言語も知能もあり得ないし、心理学や神経科学の中で学習が介在しない領域は考えられません。本書では古典的条件付けと道具的条件付けという相関理論の立場から学習を説明し、これらがなぜ今日の心理学において支配的であり、最良の分析とされているのかを考察します。また動物や人間の学習の研究に用いられる手法や、動物の習性・生存における学習の重要性についても言及します。
  

• Discusses the centrality of learning to our lives, and its role in memory, language and intelligence
• Considers the significance of learning to survival for animals, who need strategies to recognize changes in their environment, both opportunities and threats, and to respond appropriately
• Comments on psychology experiments and recent studies in the field of learning

 
What is learning? How does it take place? What happens when it goes wrong? 

The topic of learning has been central to the development of the science of psychology since its inception. Without learning there can be no memory, no language and no intelligence. Indeed it is rather difficult to imagine a part of psychology, or neuroscience, that learning does not touch upon. In this Very Short Introduction Mark Haselgrove describes learning from the perspective of associative theories of classical and instrumental conditioning, and considers why these are the dominant, and best described analyses of learning in contemporary psychology. Tracing the origins of these theories, he discusses the techniques used to study learning in both animals and humans, and considers the importance of learning for animal behaviour and survival.