International Journal of Comparative Psychology

The traditional learning view involves the general process theory of learning that focuses onidentifying universal principles that apply to all species capable of learning from experience, and that operate across a wide variety of situations.  Examples of behavior that contradictgeneral-process conceptions of learning have been in the past referred to as “biologicalconstraints”. Traditional learning theorists choose to consider these examplesas exceptions to otherwise universal principles of learning. On the contrary, thetypical ethologist is more likely to be concerned with how specific behaviorsmay have evolved and in an animal’s species typical responses to stimuli theyare likely to encounter in their natural environment.  However, they also fail to embrace animallearning phenomena that occurs in the laboratory into their theoreticalframework.  Behavior systems represent analternative to this view by providing a link between traditional views oflearning and ethology.  Theyconceptualize experiential learning not as a set of universal principles, butas species typical processes that reflect the specific demands of the ecological niche in which the species evolved. The current paper reviews andbrings-to-date Domjan’s formulation of a sexual behavior system in maleJapanese quail.  The system includes astimulus dimension consisting of species typical cues, local cues, andcontextual cues, and a response dimension consisting of general search, focalsearch, and copulatory behavior.  Domjan’sformulation includes two diagrams that include symbols that representunconditioned and conditioned effects within the system.  Our modification of the system focuses onadditional and up-to-date conditioned effects. In general, adding conditioning to the system increases potentialstimulus and response variation, thereby increasing the flexibility of thesystem as it has evolved as a result of continued observation andexperimentation.