**Tolman and Sensory Preconditioning**

**Background on Tolman**
Edward C. Tolman was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to the field of cognitive psychology. He is best known for his work on learning and behavior, particularly his research on rats and their ability to navigate mazes.

**Sensory Preconditioning**
Sensory preconditioning is a psychological phenomenon that involves the association of two previously unrelated stimuli. In this process, the pairing of two neutral stimuli in a series of trials leads to the conditioning of a response to one of the stimuli, even in the absence of direct reinforcement.

**Tolman's Contribution**
Edward Tolman conducted extensive research on learning and behavior using rats in mazes. One of his notable experiments involved the concept of sensory preconditioning.

In his experiments, Tolman first exposed rats to a series of two neutral stimuli, such as a light and a tone, without any reinforcement. This initial phase was called the "preconditioning phase." The rats were simply exposed to the stimuli without any consequences.

After the preconditioning phase, Tolman then introduced a new phase called the "conditioning phase," where one of the stimuli (e.g., the light) was paired with a reinforcement (e.g., food). The other stimulus (e.g., the tone) was not paired with any reinforcement.

Finally, Tolman tested the rats in a "test phase" where both the light and the tone were presented. He found that the rats showed a conditioned response to the tone, even though it had never been directly paired with reinforcement. This demonstrated that the association between the light and the tone during the preconditioning phase had resulted in the conditioning of a response to the tone.

**Significance of Tolman's Work**
Tolman's research on sensory preconditioning challenged the prevailing behaviorist view at the time, which focused on the role of reinforcement in learning. He argued that learning involves more than just the association between stimuli and reinforcement; it also involves the formation of cognitive maps and the ability to make inferences and predictions.

Tolman's work laid the foundation for the development of cognitive theories of learning, which emphasize the role of mental processes in acquiring and organizing knowledge. His research on sensory preconditioning highlighted the importance of cognitive factors in learning and paved the way for further investigations into the complexities of human and animal learning.