Operant conditioning is B.F. Skinner’s name for instrumental learning: learning by consequences. Not a new idea, of course. Humanity has always known how to teach children and animals by means of ...

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered that the brain cannot learn simultaneously through both classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In fact, the brain actively prevents the ...

While I appreciate David P. Barash’s fine essays, I take exception to his latest (“B.F. Skinner, Revisited,” The Chronicle Review, April 1). In it, he manages to misrepresent the views of not one but ...

I have written previously about the fact that in today’s increasingly digital world, not every person who is compulsive with pornography is a traditional (trauma-driven) compulsive person. (See my ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American While second nature to many of us, driving a ...