Challenges to timing-based theories of operant behavior

Recent theories of behavior have proposed that associative learning principles be replaced by a theoretical framework that assumes the animal has a veridical record of the temporal relations between events. I argue here that such a theory omits critical features of learned behavior: functional differences between different types of temporal relations, the critical nature of response-reinforcer delays, and the necessity of conditioned value as a theoretical construct. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.