Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior (SQAB)

Drossell, Claudia - Early experimentalists such as Arzin,Ferster, Sidman and many more, had a vision of exploring laboratory-derived operant principles to clinical practice settings. Syetematically exploring the possibilities inherent in behavior analytic assessments and interventions, these pioneers and their students markedly raised the standards of care, most notably in areas li mited to mere custodial or restraint-based services at the time, where progress had been deemed beyond clinicians' reach. Fast forward to more then a half a century later: What do consumers in general clinical practice settings need today? How are the advances in the experimental analysis of behavior used to meet our most pressing public health concerns? This tutorial will link current public health issues with advances in the operant analysis of behavior. It will illustrate how an experimental approach to clinical questions, assessments, and interventions is relevant and timely in today's healthcare environment, both as a problem-solving tool and a source of clinical innovation.

Gottlieb, Daniel - Last year, I talked about the bredth of the Pavlovian process before discussing the different types ofPavlovian stimuli and how they might not all be equally amenable to intervention. This year, my focus is on how Pavlovian processes may be a driving forcein a number of areas in which people are failing to properly regulate, leading to such problems as obesity, drug addiction, immune system dysfunction, anddisorders of attention. these problems are likly the result of exposure to stimuli that were not present in the environment in which modern humans evolved. because a characteristic of Pavlovian learning is an indifference to instrumental contingencies, dysfunction relating to pavlovian conditioning is likly going to be ill-served by current behavior analytic methods. Although it is not clear how to treat methodological and conceptual tools of which few outside the field are aware. General options for moving forward will be discussed in light of these recent advancements.

Friman, Patrick - Interpreting common child behavior problems as evidence of psychopathology is routine in mainstream psychology. The practice is so widespread that when investigators fail to obtain clinically significant levels of behavior problems, as indexed by standard scores on assessment instruments, they usually (almost always) reanalyze their data in terms of raw scores and then argue that any statistically significant elevation is evidence of pathology. Four representative common child behavior problems are encopresis, enuresis, thumb sucking, and hair pulling and psychopathological interpretations of each are easy to find. Three of the most common tests of psychopathology are: 1) clinically significant levels of co-occurring behavior problems; 2) resistance to direct treatment; and 3) symptom substitution. An abundant amount of research shows that each of the four representative behavior problems fails all three tests. Two possible reasons for the existence and persistence of the psychopathology interpretation, despite readily available data to the contrary, are Berkson’s and textbook case biases. Berkson’s bias involves the influence data obtained from hospitalized subjects with compound problems has on the interpretation of isolated problems in outpatient or nonreferred subjects. Textbook case bias involves textbook reliance on complex, resistant, multiproblem cases for teaching while the majority cases are simple, responsive, and involve relatively isolated problems. Regardless, the routine interpretation of child behavior problems as pathology presents an enormous opportunity for behavior analysis. Specifically, most parents of children with common behavior problems are reluctant to seek professional help from clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, due in no small way to their aversion to the pathological view. Because the conceptual framework for behavior analysis does not include a pathology construct, behavior analysts could focus on the assessment and treatment of common child behavior problems and potentially capture a virtually unlimited market for their services.

Kukekova, Anna - Domestication as a special form of evolution offers valuable insights into how genomic variation contributes to complex differences in behavioral and morphologocal phenotypes. The genetics-centered view of the domestication is supported by experimental selection of farm-based foxes (Vulpes vulpes).that begun at the Russian Institute of Cytology and Genetics in the 1950s. Selection of foxes for either tame or aggressive behavior, has yeilded two strains with markedly different, genetically determined behavioral phenotypes. Tame-strain foxes communicate with humans in a possitive manner and are egar to establish human contact. Foxes from the aggressive strain are aggressive to humans and difficult to handle. Althought the foxes were selected solely for behavior, changes in physiology, morphology, and apperance with significant parallels to characteristics of the domestic dog, were observed in tame-strain foxes. These two fox strains provide a rich resource for investigating the genetics of complex social behaviors. Although the focus of our work is on the genetics of domestication in the silver fox, there is a borader context. in Particular, one expectation of the silver fox research is that it will be synergistic with studies in other species, including humans, to yield a more comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms and evolution of a wider range of social interactive behaviors.

Gottlieb, Daniel - Bringing Pavlov's Science to Behavior Analysis - Recent research in Pavlovian conditioning has led to an increasingly expansive view of Pavlovian processes and a growing appreciation for their sophistication. Unfortunately, there has been very little progress in applying this knowledge toward the promotion of mental and physical well-being. it is clear, however, that Pavlovian processes are more important for more than phobias and drug relapse. Their influence extends to a variety of biological systems important for maintaining homeostasis and fighting illness, and they appear to play an important but overlooked role in response allocation. This tutorial will describe a variety of health-relevant Pavlovian phenomena from a contemporary perspective. The discussion will involve a description of the different types of Pavlovian stimuli, the circumstances that behavior analysis's have had great success in modifying behavior through principles of reinforcement and punishment, it is only when Pavlov's science is also brought into the fold that the full promise of promise of behavioral intervention can be achieved.

Green, Leonard. and Myerson, Joel. - IImpulsivity, Imaptience, and Risk Taking: A Discounting Perspective - People discount the value of delayed or uncertain outcomes, and the same mathematical function describes both delay and probability discounting. The degree to which individuals discount is thought to reflect how impulsive they are. from this perspective, steep discounting of delayed outcomes (which fails to maximize long-term welfare) and shallow discounting of probabilistic outcomes (which fails to adequately take risk into account) reflect similar decision-making processes and also the same trait of impulsivity. However, several manipulations selectively affect delay and probability discounting, and correlational studies show that how steeply one discounts delayed rewards is relatively independent of how steeply one discounts probabilistic rewards. Thus referring to both delay and probability discounting as measures of 'impulsivity' may serve only to indicate that real behavioral problems can involve either kind of discounting. This tutorial will highlight the similarities and differences between delay and probability discounting as well as the implications of both experimental and correlational findings on discounting and impulsivity.

Donahoe, John - Reinforcement: History and Current Status - The following topics will be among those discussed; (1) implications of Darwinian thinking (selectionism) for selection by reinforcement, (2) the problem of “circularity” and its treatment by the probability- differential (Premack) and response-deprivation (Timberlake & Allison) hypotheses, (3) the Rescorla- Wagner model of conditioning and its operant-respondent distinction as viewed by UPR, (6) implications of UPR for phenomena such as those identified in studies of behavioral momentum, conditioning of behavior-systems, and temporal coding, (7) issues in the experimental analysis of the free-operant procedure and their implications for the molar-molecular debate, (8) neural-networks as a means of interpreting the effects of reinforcement, and (9) the role of neuroscience in the formulation of the reinforcement principle.

Pitts, Raymond – Behavioral Mechanisms of Drug Action: What Are They, How Will We Know One When We See It, and How Might Quantitative Models Help? - Over 45 years of research in Behavioral Pharmacology has shown quite clearly that environmental variables are powerful determinants of the behavioral effects of drugs. Unfortunetly, providing a coherent, behavior-analytic framework within which to characterize the roles of environmental context, behavioral history, schedule of reinforcement, type of reinforcer, and deprivation level (to name a few) has proven to be quite a challenge. It has been suggested that effects of these and the myriad other environmental determinants might be viewed within a conceptual framework referred to as “behavioral mechanisms” of drug action. In this tutorial, I describe the notion of behavioral mechanisms of drug action and review some of the sorts of data that have been said to illustrate them. I focus on the potential for quantitative models as a set of tools for elucidating behavioral mechanisms. I conclued by exploring the applied/translational implications of the concept.

Domjan, Michael – Pavlovian Conditioning: It Is Not About the CR, But About Modification of a Behavioral System- Pavlovian conditioning is typically thought of in terms of the common example of a dog salivating to a cue that occurs reliably before the delivery of meat powder. Conditioned salivation (the conditioned response or CR) was viewed ad reflecting an association of the cue and the meat powder, and Pavlovian conditioning became a favorite method of scientists whose primary interest was to elucidate the mechanisms of association learning. Investigators worked hard to find situations in which the conditioned response was convenient to measure and occured reliably. They focused on iidentifying experimental conditions which would predictably increase or decrease the target CR. I will argue that this focus on a target conditioned response misses the broader biological significance of Pavlovian conditioning, which is to enable organisms to interact more effectively with significant biological events or unconditioned stimuli (Uss). The broader perspective suggests that Pavlovian conditioning, produces a wide range of behavioral and physiological adjustments that enable the orgsnism not only to better prepare for the impending occurence of the unconditioned stimulus but to also deal with the US more effectively at both the behavioral and physiological level. Thus, Pavlovian conditioning produces a reorganization of the biobehavioral system that is activated by the US. This broader perspective will be illustrated with examples from appetitive, aversive, and sexual conditioning.

Machado, Armando – An Invitation to Probability With Spreadsheet Simulations – In this tutorial I will review some fundamental ideas concerning the theory of probability. I will concentrate on the Poisson, Exponential, and Gamma random variables, review their properties, show how they are interrelated, illustrate their uses in modelling behavior and learning, simulate them in a spread sheet. I will conclude with some notes concerning the Poisson Process and apply in timing and concurrent choice.

Nevin, John – Behavioral Models of Conditional Discrimination: Detection and Matching to Sample - Quantitative Models of conditional discrimination performance, based on well-established behavioral processes such as matching to relative reinforcement, effects of reinforcement on resistance to change, and stimulus generalization, can account for many findings of studies with nonhuman animals in signal-detection and matching-to-smaple paradigms. This turotial will provide a guided tour of these models as they have developed since 1978, explain thier quantitative structure, and discuss their strengths and limitations in their confrontation with systematic data sets. The models to be discussed will be available as spreadsheets so that students and researchers can explore their properties and apply them to thier own data.

Rachlin, Howard – A Behavioral Analysis of Altruism - Alturistic acts may have been defined as costly acts that confer economic beneifts on others. (In Behavioral term: punished acts that reward others.) In prisoner's dilemma games, with human players, a significant number of players behave altruistically; their behavior benefits each of the other players but is costly to them. I propose that such altruism is based on a straightforward balancing of discounted costs to themselves againmst discounted benefits to others (social discoounting). I will describe two experiments, using the prisoner's dilemma games, that test this explanation of altruism. In one experiment, costs were held constant but thte number of others (benefiting from cooperation) varied. In another experiment, with only two players, costs were again constant but the amount of other players benefits varied directly. In both experiments, cooperation increased as benefits to the other player(s) increased.

Blampied, Neville – Single-Case Research Designs: Useful Tools for 21st Century Applied Research - The tutorial will outline some contemporary challenges facing applied psychological research, e.g., establishing the effectiveness as well as the efficacy of interventions. It iwll then review the histiry of the development of the standard model of psychological research, based on Fisher's Null-hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST), and will present some critical evidence indicating that HST has serious problems and limitations, especiallt for applied research and for the scientist-practitioner model of applied psychology. The tutorial will summarise the origins of single-case research from its origins in the experimental analysis of behavior and show how the standard suite of applied single case designs emerged. Reversal, Multiple-Baseline, Changing-criterion, and Alternating-treatments desugns and their visual analysis will be discussed in sime detail, along with their strenghts and limitations, Recent innovations in single-case designs will be presented, including ways of adapting them for evaluating group interventions. Finally, the general utility of single-case designs for meeting challenges of contemporary applied research in phychology.

Lattal, Kennon – Facets of Operant Extinction – Operant extinction is a cluster of procedures, all of which reduce the targeted response often while generating other responses. Procedures for reducing operant responses that have been laleled extinction include the removal of the reinforcer, removal of the response-reinforcer relation, and rendering ineffective the reinforcer used to establish the responses. These different procedures are differentially effective in both eliminating the targeted response and in generating other responses. These generative effects include operant response bursts, spontaneous recovery, response induction, generalization, and recurrence phenomena such as reinstatement and resurgence. This tutorial reviews the varied effects of extinction on an operant behavior; compares such effects to those of other procedures such as reinforcing other responses, punishment, satiation; and critiques historical and contemporary research on those topics.

Odum, Amy – Delay Discounting: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How? - Delay discounting is the decrease in the present value of an outcome when its receipt is remote in time. Many problematic behaviors (e.g., drug action, obesity, gambling) can be conceptualized as problems of extreme delay discounting. Delay discounting has been extensively studied in humans and non-humans, using a variety of procedures, populations, and outcome types. Most (but as yet not all) of the basic findings in the area have been substantial generally across these features. In this tutorial I will describe how to conduct research in delay discounting. I will give examples of illustrative procedures to measure delay discounting and evaluate their unity in different research situations. I will then provide a step-by-step description of how to use quantitative modeling to analyze the resulting data. I will explain different models and their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I will provide a summary of major finding in the literature and possible future directions for the feild.

Stephens, Mia – Exploration, Visualization and Data Analysis with JMP - JMP, developed in the late 1980's by a SAS Institute, is desktop software for data exploration and analysis. JMP is a stand alone product, with point-and-click graphical user interface. However, JMP can also be integrated with SAS, providing an easy to use and flexable front end. Intuitive, interactive and graphical, JMP lets researchers move quickly from numbers to meaningful statements about findings and results. JMP provides a complete array of statistical procedures, from basic to advanced, providing a vast framework for making rational decisions from data. All JMP output is dynamic and visual, making it easy to graphically explore data and interpret statistical results. In this tutorail Mia will demonstrate popular JMP tools for exploratory data analysis, including graph linking, Tabulate, Graph Builder®, Bubblr Plots, the data filter, and new mapping tools. She will provide an overview of inferential methods commonly used by behavior analysts, and will introduce JMP tools for modeling, data mining and simulation.

Davison, Michael – What “Reinforcers” do to Behavior, II: Signposts to the Future - Over the last few years, it has become increasingly evident that the process of reinforcement may well have been misnamed and misunderstood. Events like contingent food for a hungry animal do not simply increase or maintain the probability of responses that they follow, they don't strengthen behavior. Rather, they may act as signposts to future events, guiding behavior through the learned physical and temporal maze of life. This signposting is not to be seen as additional to these events as reinforcers; Signposting is the reinforcement effect. This realization puts reinforcement right back into the purview of stimulus control. Events that we usually consider "reinforcers", on the other hand, have more or less value to the organism-so, signposting is additional to value. Thus, the next step is to ask whether organismically-valuable stimuli have any special properties when they signal future events. I will briefly discuss some research that starts the process of experimentally investigating what food delivery can, and cannot, signal in the time following such an event. I will try to reorganize some of what we think we know in these terms, and to suggest how this approach may provide a new understanding of behavior-analytic practice.

Fowler, Stephen – Dynamics of Response: Uninterrupted Measurement of the Behavior Stream – This tutorail ill show 1) how the behavior analytic reach of operant conditioning methods can be increased by examining force, duration, and time integral of force (effort) of individual operant responses and 2) will describe a non-video method (i.e., force-plate actometer as the floor of an operant chamber) for tracking and otherwise quantifying behaviors that occur during interresponse times. Measurement of operant response force, durationand effort introduces new levels of complexity and apparatus considerations that are not present when responses are treated as intermittent, dimensionless event. These issues will be addressed in the context of selected behavioral pharmacology experiments with emphasis on the drugs that affect brain dopamine systems. Tracking and measuring drug-induced behaviors with a force-plate as the floor of an operant chamber will be illustrated in two different paragrams: 1)rats self-administering cocaine and 2) rats performing on the 72-s differential reinforcement of low rate schedule of reinforcement under baseline and amphetamine-treatment conditions. Recent pertinent work conducted between the writing of this abstract and the convening of the annual meeting may also be described.

Macphail, Robert – Environment, Behavior and Pollution: Quantifying Risk - This tutorial will describe past and current studies on behavior in the field of environmental toxicology, an area of inqury that has a remarkably longer history than generally recognized. Toxicology bears much in common with Pharmacology in that both fields investigate the effects of chemicals on living organisms, organs or tissues. Whereas pharnracology most often focuses on therapeutic or abused agents, environmental toxicology deals with a broader array of chemicals including atmospheric pollutants, water contaminants, pesticides, metals and a range of naturally occurring toxins. Numerous poisoning episodes have highlighted the diverse behavioral impacts of exposure to toxic chemicals. Given the limitations of epidemiological research, laboratory studies are needed for linking exposure (i.e., dose) and effect unequivocally. A much more challenging issue is using these data to then estimate the risk of an adverse (toxic) effect. This requires a Cocoon the variability in response to chemical exposure. Examples will be provided of both traditional approaches for estimating risk, and some newer approaches that specifically incorporate variability in response. The implications for understanding the effects of environmental pollutants on the health of humans (and other animals) will be explored.

Shook, Gerald - The Behavior Analyst Certification Board and the Behavior Analyst Profession - The tutorial will explore the development of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) including the growth of the BACB since its inception a decade ago; the process used by the BACB to develop degree, coursework, and supervised experience requirements to qualify for the examinations; the development of the examination content and construction of the examinations; the spread of certification to countries outside of the United States; and future development of BACB behavior analyst credentialing. The presentation will examine the role BACB certification has within the larger context of the behavior analytic field and the contributions that the BACB has made to the growth and development of the field. The tutorial will focus on how Behavior Analyst Certification Board certifications can help individuals have fulfilling careers as professional behavior analysts and will provide examples of career paths that are available for behavior analysts with Board Certified Behavior Analyst and Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst certifications.

Baum, William – Dynamics of Choice - This tutorial examines the centrality of choice to the understanding of behavior. By reexamining the concept of reinforcement and relating it to behavioral allocation, the dynamics of choice may be seen as the process of shifting allocation. Skinner's assertion that the law of effect is not a theory was correct, even if his theory of reinforcement was incorrect. Research of the last forty years suggests that the events called "reinforcers" affect behavior in two ways: induction and contingency. Reinforcers induce activities related to them by life history or phylogeny, and reinforcers add value to the situations in which they occur. By linking particular activities with particular results, contingencies both constrain behavior change and add value to those activities. Seen this way, the dynamics of choice may be construed as optimization, a tendency to move toward the highest value possible. These dynamics may be seen sometimes on a short :me scale and sometimes on a longer time scale. Some recent research by Davison and Aparicio and myself, as well as some earlier experiments, support these ideas.

Myerson, Joel – Cognitive Aging: A Behavior Theoretic Approach - As people get older, their behavior on many different kinds of tasks tends to become slower, less accurate, and more variable. I will describe a theoretical framework that focuses purely on the behavior emitted by younger and older adults performing response-time and memory span tasks. Our findings support some distinctions in the cognitive psychology literature but not others, and our approach provides empirical bases for deciding which distinctions need to be made and which do not. For example, data on age-related behavioral slowing support the distinction between verbal and visuospatial processing, with the latter being much more sensitive to the effects of age. Within the verbal and visuospatial domains, however, there is little support for distinguishing between different kinds of information-processing operations, at least from an aging perspective. Similarly, data on age-related declines in working memory are also consistent with greater effects of age on memory for visuospatial information, but within each domain performance on simple span tasks declines as rapidly as performance on complex span tasks. Finally, the increased variability in older adults' performance turns out to be an indirect consequence of the fact that they are slower, and not a direct effect of aging at all.

Shahan, Timothy - Conditioned Reinforcement - The notion that stimuli associated with primary reinforcers may themselves come to function as reinforcers has served a central role in the analysis of behavior and its applications outside the laboratory. However, a long history of research has raised the possibility that stimuli associated with primary reinforces may have their effects by some other means. This tutorial will provide an overview of the concept of conditioned reinforcement, review the role of conditioned reinforcement in quantitative theories of choice, and discuss remaining questions about how putative conditioned reinforcers have their effects.

Stout, Steven – Cue Competition in Pavlovian Conditioning - In recent decades researchers in the field of Pavlovian conditioning have focused on how conditioned responding to a target conditioned stimulus (CS) is affected by the presence of non-target CSs. A common observation is that target and non-target CSs compete for control over conditioned responding in the sense that their response potentials are in-verse1v correlated. In the three and a half decades since the theoretical model of Rescorla and Wagner inspired a wealth of research into cue competition, investigators have uncovered a number of interesting empirical regularities. Unfortunately, the dissemination of these regularities to a wider community outside associative learning circles has been obscured by the tendency of Pavlovian investigators to discuss their research in a heavily theory-laden language. The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce undergraduates to the field of cue competition who have been otherwise put off by constructs sue: as positive and negative associations, memorial representations, and comparator processes. In particular, I will consider what happens to conditioned responding when non-target CSs are presented before, interspersed among, or after the target CS-US pairings, and whether those non-target CSs are discrete or contextual. Conditions under which cue competition, or its opposite, cue facilitation, are observed will be discussed.

Staddon, John - Behavior Analysis Since 1960 - How did quantitative behavior analysis begin? What is its relation to the rest of psychobiology? What has it accomplished and where has it failed? I describe the scientific movements that influenced the development of the quantitative analysis of behavior, and a few that did not, but should have.

Gallistel, Randy - The Hierarchical Organization of Behavior - Elementary units of behavior are assemblages of neural, endocrine, and muscular components sufficient to explain naturally occurring actions. All such assemblages require an initiator component, where the neural signals that ultimately drive the action originate, conductor components that relay the signals from the initiators to the effectors, and effector components that translate the signals into movements and secretions. Some elementary units also contain computational elements, which perform basic computational operations like coordinate transformations, and some units contain memory elements, which hold the values of control variables, such as the angular velocity of a target. Neural circuits carrying timing signals and specifying the values of operating parameters, such as pacemaker periods, coordinate the operation of elementary units to form complex units, which are themselves coordinated to form still more complex units, yielding a hierarchical control structure. The behavioral expression of the units active high in the hierarchy exhibits many different forms, because different values for control parameters lead to different patterns from the same unit, and because much of the coordination is achieved by the selective potentiation and depotentiation of lower unit, so that the spectrum of potentiated lower units achieved on a given occasion depends on occasion-specific trigger stimuli.

Kacelnik, Alex - Facts and Theories in Decision Making: Sturnus vulgaris vs. Benjamin Franklin - Understanding decision-making involves many disciplines, including Evolutionary Biology, Economics, Psychology and Quantitative Behavioral Analysis. In this tutorial I review recent experiments on choice between different combinations of amount and delay to food that used starlings as experimental animals. The results are contrasted with predictions from theoretical models originating in these disciplines (including those advocated by B. Franklin). I show that while some models are better at data fitting they can be weaker in other respects. My overall message is that the worth of theoretical models is not identical to their predictive performance (how well they fit the data): Theories and models are validated by the accuracy of their predictions but should be judged by many additional criteria, including their value to guide research, and to place observations within broader fields of knowledge.

McDowell, Jack -Uniformity, Chaos, And Complexity: Mining Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" - Stephen Wolfram's massive self-published tome, "A new kind of science", has been criticized by various reviewers as overwrought, repetitive, egocentric, insufficiently documented, megalomaniacal, too Mathematica-focused nothing new, self-indulgent, the raving of a crackpot, and false. Whether or not one wishes to believe Wolfram's occasional extravagant claims, such as that continuity and motion in the physical world are illusions, or that the universe is a simple computer program, his manic but endlessly fascinating 6 lb behemoth of a book is a treasure trove of mathematical and computational ideas and techniques that is well worth mining for its possible relevance to problems in quantitative behavior analysis. Wolfram's point of departure is that complex behavior can be produced by the repeated application of simple rules (nothing new); the rest of the book is a rococo elaboration of this theme. From cellular automata and Turing machines to iterated function systems and prime number sequences, there is enough raw material in this volume to keep a scientific miner digging and happy for a long time. In this tutorial I will discuss some of the raw material I have mined from Wolfram's book that might be of interest to quantitative behavior analysts, with a special focus on cellular automata.

Balsam, Peter – Time, Uncertainty and Anticipation - Even in the simplest of conditioning procedures animals learn about temporal relationships between events, sometimes over long delays. The encoding of temporal information seems to be automatic and occurs from the very start of learning. The temporal information affects how long it takes for conditioned responses to emerge and the form and timing of the learned behavior. Formal information theory applied to temporal signals provides an accurate description of the speed with which anticipation develops. The sense of time may even be the scaffolding on which experience is encoded.

Cook, Robert – Stimulus Control - Stimulus control is one of the essential features of behavior, as animals learn to differentially behave to specific stimuli in a remarkably wide variety of settings. This important capacity allows animals to adaptively organize their behavior to both present and future situations. This tutorial will I provide an overview of this topic, its fundamental methods, established principles and mechanisms, and outstanding problems and issues. These themes will be illustrated in part by new advances in the study of object perception, the relationship between stimulus-specific and relationally-controlled modes of behavior, and the organization of behavior over time.

Grace, Randolph - A simple framework for understanding how quantitative analyses may be helpful for behavior analysis.

Killeen, Peter - The Law of Affect - Skinner divorced the Law of Effect from Thondike's satisfiers. and remarried it to a change in the frequency of the response being reinforced; the Operant Canon holds that reinforcers need not be pleasurable. But why then was our ability to be pleasured selected for over our evolutionary history? Is it in fact generally to our evolutionary advantage to increase the frequency of responses that are reinforced? Thorndike operationally defined satisfiers as a state of affairs that an animal does nothing to avoid, often doing things to attain and preserve. This tutorial urges to replace Skinner's version of the law with Thondike's; it reinterprets common experimental and applied methods and analyses in Throndike's terms; it invites us to take pleasure in taking pleasure back into our analyses, and to savor the possibilities of old fashioned revolution in our analyses.

Killeen, Peter - The relative frequency of realizable events predicts winnings over multiple games and demonstrates the irrelevance of expected value based on limiting probabilities.

MacDonall, James - Getting Started in Quantitative Analyses of Behavior - The purpose of this tutorial is to help those who are interested in attempting quantitative analyses. As an organizing theme I will use my experiences to provide some suggestions for how to get started. Included will be suggestions for organizing data using several common computer programs for data analyses, and for avoiding some of the pitfalls that await the unwary. While there will be something for everyone, I am going to focus on providing guidance to those not already engaged in quantitative analyses.

Burgos, Jose - Neural-Network Modeling in Conditioning Research - This tutorial is a primer to neural-network modeling in conditioning research. After a brief historical introduction to this kind of modeling and philosophical disquisition on model plausibility in empirical science, the elementary concepts of neural processing element, connection, activation function, and learning function, are presented. Emphasis is made on the concept of a neural network as a set of (inter)connected realizations of a neurocomputational model. Then three well-known models (McCulloch-Pitts, perception,and back-propagation) are reviewed and judged as neuro-behaviorally too implausible. The model proposed by Donahoe, Burgos, and Palmer (1993; JEAB, 60, 17-40) is presented as a more plausible (albeit admittedly incomplete) alternative. Its behavioral plausibility is exemplified through simulations that have implications for persistent conceptual issues in behavior science, such as the operant-respondent dichotomy. To show its heuristic value, two novel predictions for Pavlovian conditioning are discussed.

Catania, Charles -Creating Artificial Behavior: A Tutorial on Modeling - A model that generates good approximations to real behavior can help us see how behavior works. Both moment-to-moment features of behavior as shown in cumulative records and global input-output functions as derived from parametric studies of reinforcement schedules can be simulated by a variant of Skinner's Reflex Reserve. Skinner's model, in which reinforced responses added to a reserve depleted by later responding, could not handle the higher rates maintained by intermittent than by continuous reinforcement, but would have worked if not just the last but also earlier responses preceding a reinforcer, each weighted by a delay gradient, contributed to the reserve. With this modification. reinforcement schedules generate steady states in which reserve decrements produced by responding balance increments produced when reinforcers follow responding. Some recommendations about modeling follow from this example: 1.) Be explicit about the terms, units and dimensions that enter into the model; (2) Study intermediate details of the simulation, not just end-products, but keep things simple by minimizing inferred entities; (3)Avoid transformations that distance behavior from contingencies or reduce absolute measures to relative ones; and, (4) Design the model so variables can he tinkered with much as experimenters tinker with them in the laboratory.

Newland, Christopher & Donlin, Wendy - Applied Modeling and the Identification of Behavioral Mechanisms of Action - A good model will reduce behavior to its fundamental elements. If successful, then this distillation can be exported to other research domains to address mechanistic questions. In our case, for example, the goal is the understanding of how environmental contaminants disrupt operant behavior. We describe our application of models to address the behavioral consequences of exposure to methylmercury: Models of choice using the matching relationship and Shull's mathematical model of behavior as a pattern of engagement bouts. We describe how we selected these models and then the stages of application. For example, with Shull's model we replicate it, extend it to high-rate behavior under percentile and DRH schedules of reinforcement, reproducing its essential features, scale it up and automate parameter estimation it so that it can be applied with a large number of conditions and subjects. Finally, using multiple regression, we test the application to confirm that the model parameters provide independent descriptors of behavior under these reinforcement schedules. The model's parameters can then he used as dependent measures to parse two distinctive effects methylmercurv: alterations in reinforcer efficacy and motor competence. in a sense, this application represents, we think, a variation of another model, namely, Pennypacker's, model of of technology transfer.

Shimp, Charles - Explicit Methods and Implicit Human Values in Quantitative Behavioral Models - Quantitative models of behavior will be described, sorted, and informally categorized in terms of their underlying metaphors, including geometric, mechanical, hydraulic, electromechanical, statistical, computer, cosmological, philosophical, political, ecological, and logical metaphors. They will also be categorized in terms of the purposes for whic1they are constructed, including to summarize data, predict new phenomena, to identify basic mechanisms, and to integrate diverse phenomena in terms of similar underlying mechanisms. The diverse means by which they are evaluated will also be described, for example, in terms of parsimony, descriptive accuracy against data, descriptive accuracy compared to

Cerutti, Daniel - Temoral Regulation of Choice - In the simplest example of temporal control, animals responding on a fixed interval (Fl) schedule show a characteristic pause-and-respond pattern-the Fl "scallop." Parametric research on FT schedules reveals a lawful relationship between post-reinforcement-pausing and the inter-food interval (IFI), pausing is a fixed proportion of IFI. If temporal control of any sort is common to all schedules of reinforcement, it should play a role in conditioned reinforcement (chained schedules), choice (concurrent schedules), and choice for different magnitudes of reinforcement (self-control). Empirical studies confirmed informal predictions of differential pausing in concurrent and concurrent-chain schedules, with greater pausing shown on schedules with longer average IFIs. Thus, rates of responding on concurrent schedules may derive from differential pausing. The most parsimonious model to fit choice data is one that assumes a single representation of time from the last reinforcer, ignoring the response that produced it, with pauses on each response proportional to the corresponding last IFI, constant running rates after pauses. Subsequent findings confirm that pigeons' responding on concur-rent schedules is timed from the last reinforcer, but further suggest that behavior on concurrent schedules can be under-stood better as a temporal-stochastic process in which (a) the overall reinforcement delay determines the overall rate of behavior and (b) the individual schedules' reinforcement delays determine the allocation of responses to each alternative. Take together, findings suggest that animals responding on simple schedules learn when to respond, and animals responding on choice tasks learn when to respond where.

Church, Russell - Simulation of Quantitative Models of Behavior - Quantitative models of behavior have been developed that may be compared to observations of behavior. Simulated data comes from the interaction of a procedure and the quantitative model; observed data comes from the interaction of a procedure and an animal. The evaluation of a simulation is based on a comparison of the observed and simulated data, and on the simplicity and generality of the model. This talk will focus on how to simulate data, and why it is useful to do so.

Galbicka, Gregory - Response Shaping and Percentile Schedules - or "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Rank Orders" - In the Behavior of Organisms, Skinner detailed a process of differential reinforcement of successive approximations to a terminal response, subsequently termed 'shaping,' to create novel behaviors. Despite its fundamental nature in operant conditioning, shaping has little been studied, in either the laboratory or more applied settings. Owing to the dynamic nature of the interaction between shaper and responder, the 'rules' of shaping as typically practiced are qualitative in nature only, and shapers themselves are more often selected than shaped. Percentile schedules provide one means of formalizing these rules, generating as a consequence a more consistent arrangement between responses and reinforcements that may form the basis for an experimental analysis of the parameters involved in shaping, as well as easing the need to clearly delineate criteria a priori in applied settings. This formalization requires little mathematical ability. It does. however, depend on a perspective of viewing operant responses not as unitary events but rather as a population of behaviors clustered in time. This perspective is, I believe, in many regards closer to Skinner's original intent in defining operants.

Grace, Randolph -Choice and Value - Herrnstein's (1961) discovery that response allocation matched relative reinforcement rate in concurrent schedules - 'the matching law' - began a tradition of research on behavioral choice. Subsequently, however, theoretical explanations for the matching law proliferated, with no clear resolution. I argue that the problem has been that the concurrent schedules procedure is unable to answer the questions it was originally meant to. The more complex concurrent-chains procedure overcomes this difficulty, and in the last decade, research has shown that the matching law provides an integrative quantitative framework for concurrent chains and other choice procedures. We now know that stimuli acquire value according to a temporal discounting process with generality across species; that choice as well as resistance to change is determined by relative value; and that effects of different aspects of reinforcement such as delay, probability, and magnitude on value are additive. These results confirm the utility of the matching law for understanding behavioral choice.

Marr, Jackson - What Good Is Mathematics?: Modeling in Behavior Analysis - The principles and methods of behavior analysis have revealed remarkable orderliness in behavior, unique in the psychological sciences. As such, the quantification of behavioral phenomena is ubiquitous and has attained considerable sophistication. The primary purpose of this tutorial is to give a general overview of the enterprise of mathematical modeling as it has been applied to behavior analysis. Some features of modeling will be presented along with examples of particular approaches to indicate the range of mathematical techniques needed to address behavioral phenomena.

Mazur, James - Choice and the Hyperbolic Decay of Reinforcer Strength - Results from a variety of species suggest that as a reinforcer's delay increases, its strength decreases according to a hyperbolic function. This tutorial will review how a hyperbolic decay equation can account for choice in self control situations, choice with probabilistic reinforcers, preference for variability. procrastination. and other Some unresolved unresolved puzzles about the effects of delayed reinforcers will also be examined.

McDowell, Jack - Fitting Equations to Data: A Case Study in Mathematical Theory Testing - Classic matching theory consists of four equations entailing two parameters. Three of these equations apply to concurrent schedules, one to single schedules. Modern matching theory consists of five equations entailing eight parameters; four equations apply to concurrent schedules, one to single schedules. The three concurrent-schedule equations of classic matching theory can be fitted simultaneously to a single data set by minimizing an appropriate combination of residual sums of squares obtained from the separate sources of variance to which the individual equations apply. The overall percentage of variance accounted for by the ensemble, combined with an examination of the residuals left the fit. constitute a test of classic matching theory. The four concurrent schedule equations of modem matching theory can be tested in the same way. This method of theory testing is illustrated using a large data set from four human subjects responding on concurrent VI VI schedules. The data provide two, ten, and twenty individual sources of variance for the ensemble fits, thereby illustrating the suitability of this method for both elementary and elaborate sets of data. Testing classic and modern matching theory's account of behavior on single schedules often entails the special problems of equation degeneracy and parameter indeterminacy. It is important to recognize these conditions when they occur because they make y testing impossible. The methods and problems discussed here are applicable in general to mathematical theory testing in behavior analysis.

Perone, Michael -Behavior Variability: Control, Description, and Analysis - Variability is fundamental to the analysis of behavior. Both basic and applied behavior analysts emphasize systematic variability, the kinds of behavioral changes they bring about by manipulating environmental factors in laboratory or field settings. They are inclined to eschew statistical evaluations of these changes in favor of demonstrations of experimental control. But behavior analysts cannot avoid statistical methods entirely. At the very least, they need to them to quantify the degree of unsystematic variability ("noise" or "error") in their results. Indeed, the description of unsystematic variability underlies the evaluation of experimental control: If every factor relevant to the behavior under study could be identified and controlled. unsystematic variability would be eliminated. This tutorial will: (a) review and evaluate behavior analysts' use experimental and statistical methods to control, describe, and analyze variability, and (b) compare the underlying_ logic of behavior analytic methods to that of conventional group-statistical methods. My approach to these matters will be pragmatic, not dogmatic

Williams, Ben - The problem solving needed to maximize clinical outcomes in medicine would be facilitated by the adaptation of behavior analytic concepts.

Killeen, Peter – IRTs, Rts, andTs - Come one, come all. See the spaces between behavior. Strange beasts revealed: Hazard survival with IRTs per Op. Tran-substantiate probabilities into rates. Pit Palya machines against Shull machines. See what else the dead white statisticians Gumbel, Poisson, Bernoulli and Erlang have in common. Luced [sic] expositions on distributions. Free to every guest, a whizzo spreadsheet that chops slices and dices; just insert data and you're only a click away from seeing if the tails are heavy, the probabilities constant, the values extreme. Money-back guarantee!! Come in, come in and see the show!

Machado, Armando - Probability: Basic Ideas, Techniques, and Applications - In the first part of this tutorial, I will introduce the basic ideas of probability theory (e.g., sample spaces, events, the axioms of the theory) and then illustrate their application in a variety of practical situations some of which related to the psychology of learning. In the second part of the tutorial, I will present a few techniques that may help in solving specific problems, techniques that include counting events, using indicator variables, and constructing simple recurrence relations. Throughout the tutorial I will put the emphasis on intuition and examples, not on formalism and proof.

Reid, Alliston -Understanding response sequences - Even though chaining theory has serious problems, it remains the most common explanation for behavioral sequences. Chaining theory combines several variables known to affect behavior, such as conditioned reinforcement, discriminative stimuli, and the delay-of-reinforcement gradient. Yet, as a verbal model, it cannot predict the quantity of behavior in any situation. Can current quantitative models of these individual processes (e.g. Delay Reduction Theory, Hyperbolic Value Added model, Markov chains. etc.) be applied to simple response sequences? This tutorial explores what we need to know to create a quantitative replacement for chaining theory, and what forms such a replacement might take. This tutorial will serve as an introduction to a research area with much potential for progress.

Wixted, John - Utility of Signal Detection Theory - Signal-detection theory has been around for decades, but its ability to help one think productively about a wide array of issues is not as widely appreciated as it should he. Seemingly unrelated issues are often revealed to have a common denominator when they are considered in light of detection theory, and the flaws in some otherwise intuitively appealing ideas can be fully appreciated by contrasting those ideas with a detection theory account. This tutorial will consider the utility of slightly advanced (but still simple) signal-detection techniques, like ROC analysis, to illustrate these points.