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I want to begin by summarizing Critchfield's responses to the first question posed by Dr. Sig (McEwan largely agrees with Tom, so my comments apply to his contributions as well). First, Dr. Sig asked us to identify the most important accomplishments made within the EAHB. Critchfield suggests that our main accomplishment is to be taken seriously either by animal researchers or by journal editors. The universality of this acceptance of EAHB is certainly debatable (see for example the commentaries surrounding the Baron, Perone & Galizio, 1991 paper published in The Behavior Analyst) but I believe most would grant Critchfield that our position is stronger than it was in the 1970s. If Tom is right and these groups of experimentalists take us seriously, then why do they do so? Is it because of polemic position papers by Baron and colleagues or is it because we have at times met the benchmark criteria of any of the biological and physical sciences--establish experimental control and replicate your findings both between and within subjects? If we have succeeded in meeting the criteria of the so-called "hard sciences", then where have we done so? As Critchfield and McEwan note, there are a number of studies that have shown interesting findings but never serve as the baseline procedure for subsequent human experimental analyses. Is this because the findings were not replicable or is it because, as Critchfield and McEwan note, the difficulty and expense of human research either prohibits further experimentation or leads some to turn to animal subjects. A third possibility was discussed in the "laboratory lore" series of paper published in the spring, 1988 issue of The Behavior Analyst: the lack of standardized hardware (and software), consequences, stimuli, etc. in human operant research has set a precedent for the researcher to design a new experimental context for each new experiment. If some subset of human experimentalists had met the "hard science" criteria, then wouldn't others have adopted their procedures because they would lead to replicable baselines and a systematic expansion of the laws of human behavior? This was the "selection by consequences" process that I was always taught occurred in the animal literature. The human literature, given its lack of systematic procedures, looks like the gray ooze of variability from which a new species of experimental procedures has yet to evolve. So, where are our successes? I could list my favorite articles in EAHB that many would agree are powerful demonstrations of experimental control (e.g., Galizio, 1979; LeFrancois, Chase, and Joyce, 1988; Weiner, 1969) but I thought I would look to a neutral source to see what EAHB findings are deemed important by those outside EAHB. A good source of information about the important and replicable findings in the experimental analysis of animal behavior is undergraduate learning texts; they cover historically important studies as well as important contemporary findings. If EAHB has made significant contributions to our understanding of human behavior, then those contributions should be summarized in these texts as well. I randomly selected one of the seven learning texts I have on my shelf and selected the latest edition of the Mazur's (2002) Learning and Behavior. In my informal survey of Mazur's chapters summarizing the major findings in the operant conditioning literature (chapters 6-10, & 14), I found substantially more references to human work published in JABA or other applied journals than any laboratory work published by those working within EAHB. EAHB references were primarily found in Mazur's discussion of either single or concurrent schedules of reinforcement. Several references are provided summarizing human-animal similarities and differences on FI schedules of reinforcement (Baron & Leinenweber, 1994; Barnes & Keenan, 1993; Leander et al., 1968; Lowe, 1979; Lowe et al., 1978, 1983; & Weiner, 1964). Some discussion is then given to rule-governed behavior as a potential explanation for these differences (Bentall & Lowe, 1987; Catania et al.,1982; Pouthos et al., 1990; Matthews et al., 1985; Wearden, 1988). Human studies related to the matching law and maximization theories receive considerable attention (Beardsley & McDowell, 1992; Conger & Killeen, 1974; Jacobs & Hackenberg, 1996; Neef et al., 1992; Savastano & Fantino; Shaw et al., 1989), as do studies on self-control & impulsivity (Bickel et al., 1999; Green et al., 1994; Mitchell, 1999; Rachlin et al., 1991; Schweitzer & Sulzer-Azaroff, 1988) but, surprisingly, references to human studies of stimulus equivalence are limited to the Sidman and Tailby (1982) paper. Rounding out the miscellaneous section are two studies published in the behavioral economics literature (Bickel et al., 1995; DeGrandpre et al., 1992) and two in the errorless discrimination literature (McIlvane et al., 1995; Zygmont et al., 1992). Interestingly, cognitive psychologists conducted many of the human laboratory studies summarized in these same chapters. Seligman's major findings in the human learned helplessness literature are summarized (e.g., Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Hiroto & Seligman, 1975; Maier & Seligman, 1976) as are traditionally cognitive issues in stimulus control such as peak shift (McLaren et al., 1995; Thomas et al., 1991). The work of cognitive psychologists studying concept formation received some attention (Franks & Bransford, 1973; Rosch, 1973) as did work on cognitive factors in impulsivity (Cournoyer & Trudel, 1991; Mischel, 1961, 1966, 1974,1981, 1983; Mischel et al., 1972, 1989; Mischel & Ebesen, 1970; Olson et al., 1990; Silverman & Ragusa, 1990). Of course, strong statements about what we should make of this would require a more systematic analysis of more texts, but several themes do tentatively stand out: (a) most of the evidence that suggests operant principles may be applied to humans comes from studies conducted in non-laboratory settings or casual observations of everyday behavior (there were many of these behavioristic interpretations in the Mazur text), (b) much of the important work conducted in EAHB relates to rule-governed behavior and quantitative models of choice, (c) cognitive psychologists have contributed importantly to the body of work to which those in EAHB contribute, and (d) the relation between stimulus equivalence and human behavior is apparently of limited importance (given that only one human study was cited, compared to the five animal studies cited). Perhaps different conclusions would be reached if I had randomly selected a different text (perhaps another online discussant will conduct such an analysis), but given that Mazur was schooled in behavior analysis and regularly attends ABA, I wonder if this text doesn't over-report the contributions of EAHB. This analysis suggests the following answer to Dr. Sig's first question: The most important contributions to EAHB have been (a) to suggest that some schedules of reinforcement (most notably FI schedules) engender different response patterns in humans when compared with animal behavior (I say "suggest" because Barnes & Keenan, 1993 demonstrated conditions under which adult human FI behavior tended to accelerate within the inter-reinforcement interval), (b) experimenter-provided and self-generated rules can have a profound impact on human behavior and may help to explain human FI schedule responding and human insensitivity to changing contingencies of reinforcement, (c) humans conform to Herrnstein's matching law, (d) humans discount the value of delayed rewards in much the same way as animals, and (e) humans demonstrate stimulus equivalence while animals have yet to formally demonstrate equivalence. All researchers in the EAHB literature are unlikely to agree with the accuracy of this summary (e.g., there is considerable debate about the role of self-generated rules in human insensitivity to contingency changes [e.g., Horne & Lowe, 1993; Perone, Galizio, & Baron, 1988], there are a number of experiments demonstrating that humans do not conform to the matching law [e.g., Pierce, Epling & Greer, 1981; Schmitt, 1974], and some believe that stimulus equivalence has been demonstrate in nonhumans [McIntire, Cleary, & Thompson, 1987 and Vaughan, 1988]), but it does provide a window on which of our contributions outsiders to EAHB are likely to be aware of. Because this commentary is perhaps longer than I had originally intended, I will turn my attention finally to Dr. Sig's last question: What questions should we be attempting to address in the next five years? Critchfield answers this question by saying (a) there should be more, and more interesting research conducted in the analysis of verbal behavior, (b) that researchers should collaborate with those outside of behavior analysis and (c) researchers should stick with a coherent line of research even when the only questions that remain are the difficult ones. These are good suggestions, and to these I would add that we must establish standard procedures that engender experimental control. Those contributing to the stimulus equivalence literature have done the best job of this within EAHB. These standard procedures have yielded a large body of replicable findings and have generated much interest in young researchers. I know that looking at procedural variables with an eye toward standardization is not terribly sexy stuff, but I wonder if standard procedures in areas of EAHB outside of stimulus equivalence would yield research activity approximating that in the equivalence literature. Baron, A., Perone, M., & Galizio, M. (1991). Analyzing the reinforcement process at the human level: Can application and behavioristic interpretation replace laboratory research? Behavior Analyst, 14, 95-105. Galizio, M. (1979). Contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior: Instructional control of human loss avoidance. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 31, 53-70. Horne, P. J., & Lowe, C. F. (1993).
Determinants of human performance on concurrent schedules. JEAB,
59, 29-60. Mazur, J. E. (2002). Learning and Behavior (Fifth Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. McIntire, K. D., Cleary, J., & Thompson, T. (1987). Conditional relations by monkeys: Reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity. JEAB, 47, 279-285. Perone, M., Galizio, M., & Baron, A. (1988). The relevance ofanimal-based principles in the laboratory study of human operant conditioning. In G. Davey & C. Cullen (Eds.), Human operant conditioning and behavior modification (pp. 59-85). Chichester, England: Wiley. Pierce, W. D., Epling, W. F., & Greer, S. M. (1981). Human communication and the matching law. In C. M. Bradshaw, E. Szabadi, & C. F. Lowe (Eds.), Quantification of steady-state operant behaviour (pp. 345-348). Amsterdam: Elsevier/North Holland Biomedical Press. Schmitt, D. R. 91974). Effects of reinforcement rate and reinforcer magnitude on choice behavior of humans. JEAB, 21, 409-419. Vaughan, W. (1988). Formation of equivalence sets in pigeons. JEP: ABP, 14, 36-42. Weiner, H. (1969). Controlling human fixed-interval
performance. JEAB, 12, 349-373. |
