xi It might be argued that the task of the psychologist, the task of understanding
behavior and reducing the vagaries of human thought to a mechanical process of cause and effect, is a more difficult one than
that of any other scientist
p.92 Now it happens that the visual activity of lower species is dominated
by the perception of place. This turns out experimentally to mean a dominance of cues from remote objects instead of near
ones, and remote objects provide the most stable and constant stimulation of the animal's environment.
p.92-93 When visual cues from the distant environment are available, they
dominate behavior.
p.141 At a theoretical level, it seems further that there can be no explanation
of learning and problem-solving in any mammal without reference to the persisting central neural influence that sustains activity
in one particular direction.
p.240 We have deliberately got rid of any criterion of emotion except that
it "arouses, sustains, and directs" behavior.
p.256 Observe further the conditions in which the adaptive behavior of adult
emotion occurs. Apart from the spinal reflexes aroused by noxious stimulation, a fully coordinated emotional response
appears always to be a response to premonitory cues, not in themselves disruptive, but associated with disruptive
stimulation.
p.256 If the adaptive behavior of fear (that is,
avoidance) is indeed a response to events that are not directly disruptive but premonitory cues associated
with disruption, the behavior is by definition a learned response. It is then intelligible why there is usually less
emotional activity at maturity. As experience increases, rage and fear would tend to disappear in the familiar environment,
for the utilization of premonitory cues, to avoid disturbance that is foreseen but not yet in existence, would
become more and more efficient.
