International Journal of Comparative Psychology

These introductory comments for the special issue on Pavlovian conditioning begin with a brief review of Rescorla’s (1988) influential paper outlining how trends in the study of Pavlovian conditioning changed the dominant view from an analysis of simple associations to an information seeking approach. I argue that current research trends in Pavlovian conditioning suggest possible ways of integrating the information-seeking approach with a more embodied, evolutionary approach. I briefly consider four trends reflected in the following papers that potentially add to our appreciation of how ecology and evolution are involved in conditioning: (1) Exploring an adaptive basis for Pavlovian conditioning; (2) Clarifying the relation of Pavlovian and operant conditioning; (3) Relating preexposure and sensory preconditioning to the organization of exposure learning; and, (4) Integrating models of Pavlovian conditioning.