How do animals represent space, time, number and rate? From insects to                  humans, Charles Gallistel explores the sophisticated computations performed in these                  ubiquitous yet neglected domains of animal learning. He proposes new and imaginative                  hypotheses about brain and mental processes and provides original insights about                  animal behavior using a computational-representational framework that is an exciting                  alternative to traditional associative theories of learning.Gallistel argues                  compellingly that experimental psychologists should begin to view the phenomena of                  learning within a framework that utilizes as the proper unit of analysis the                  computation and storage of a quantity, rather than the formation of an association                  that has been the basis of traditional learning theory. His approach reveals the                  formal structure of the environmental relationships that animals master to time and                  orient their behavior. It clarifies what representations different animals can and                  cannot compute and the nature of the computations by which animals derive these                  representations.The author backs up this thesis with studies that encompass a vast                  range of animal learning: animal navigation (the use of dead reckoning and cognitive                  maps); the mechanisms of timekeeping in the nervous system; the registration and                  utilization of time of occurrence (circadian phase) in learned behavior; the                  learning and use of temporal intervals and of numerosity; the computation of rates                  of occurrence; modern findings and theories of classical conditioning.Gallistel                  surveys the experimental literature in zoology, biology, neuroscience, and                  psychology that bears on those aspects of their environment that animals represent                  and the computations they perform in constructing and utilizing those                  representations. He reveals the fundamental role these representations play in                  learning and memory, and the implications of these findings in the search for the                  cellular basis of memory.Charles R. Gallistel is Professor of Psychology at the                  University of Pennsylvania. The Organization of Learning is included in the series                  Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change, edited by Lila Gleitman, Susan Carey,                  Elissa Newport, and Elizabeth Spelke. A Bradford Book

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