RELEASER-INDUCED RECOGNITION LEARNING BY AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES

This review evaluates the bases of the widely held assumption that amphibians and reptiles possess impoverished learning abilities. Procedurally defined forms of learning (instrumental conditioning, Pavlovian conditioning and autoshaping, imprinting, and social learning) are reviewed, as well as evidence for the involvement of learning in various behavioral phenomena, including aversive stimulus and predator avoidance, noxious and palatable food recognition, conditioned aversion formation, search image, conspecific recognition, habitat recognition, and cultural transmission of stimulus recognition. The evidence reviewed suggests that amphibian and reptilian learning, for the most part, consists of a releasing-stimulus-induced redirection of innately organized released responses. Amphibians and reptiles appear to learn what stimulus to respond to rather than how to respond to a particular stimulus.