SPCE 609

Inclusive It must account for a substantial quantity of behavior. An explanation has limited usefulness if it fails to account for the bulk of human behavior and thus makes prediction and systematic change of behavior impossible Verifiable We should be able to test in some way that it does account behavior Predictive utility It should provide reliable answers about what people are likely to do under certain circumstances, thereby giving the practitioner the opportunity to change behavior by...

Operant Extinction responding that meets the reinforcement contingency no longer produces the reinforcer and, as a result, it falls to baseline (no-reinforcer) levels. Can be used to eliminate problem behavior Page 169-171 B.F. Skinner and The Behavior of Organisms After each of the rats had pressed the lever and earned food about 100 times, Skinner disconnected the feeder so the lever pressing no longer produced this reinforcer. This introduced an extinction contingency. IF lever pres...

Group Experimental Designs evaluate if the behavior of a treatment group (independent variable ON) is statistically significantly different from that of a control group (independent variable OFF). If so, then the difference is attributed to the independent variable Four weaknesses of group experimental designs 1- when independent variable is therapeutic, no one wants to be in the control group 2-focusing on behavior of a group means not studying the individuals which is a part of the definit...

A-B Design (chapter 7) A two-phase experiment consisting of a pretreatment baseline condition followed by a treatment condition Affirmation of the Consequent (chapter 7) A three-step form of reasoning that begins with a true antecedent-consequent (if-A-then-B) statement and proceeds as follows: (1) If A is true, then B is true; (2) B is found to be true; (3) therefore, A is true. Although other factors could be responsible for the truthfulness of A, a sound experiment affirms several if-A-the...

Permanent Product Change in environment lasting for measurement. Natural Permanent Product Measurement Assessing behavior through lasting environmental changes. Behavior Definition Precision Clarity in defining behaviors for measurement. Percentage of Opportunities Ratio reflecting behavior response frequency. Human Error Main threat to data accuracy in analysis. Cumulative Record Graph showing total responses over time. Steeper Slope Indicates higher response rate on cumulative rec...

Provide no more than three verbal warnings before putting the individual in timeout. The textbook outlines four guidelines for effectively using timeout from positive reinforcement. Which of the following is NOT one of those guidelines? timeout from positive reinforcement Most people today have first-hand experience with the negative punishment technique known as _______________________________. This method of punishment was pioneered in the animal lab and adapted for use by applied behavior ...

placebo control a procedure that prevents a subject from detecting the presence or absence of treatment variable procedural fidelity the extent to which procedures in all phases & condition of an experiment, including baseline, are implemented correctly What is replication in an experiment? Repeating conditions within an experiment to determine the reliability of effects and increase internal validity. What is generalization in an experiment? Repeating whole experiments to determine the g...

Discrete Trial any operant whose response rate is controlled by a given opportunity to emit the response Behavior Altering Effect An increase or decrease in behavior due to the reinforcement history. Behavior the portion of an organisms interaction with the environment that involves some movement of the organism Automatic Reinforcement Reinforcement that occurs in the absence of social consequences Continuous Measurement Measurement procedures that capture every occurence of a behavior ...

Behavior analysis goals 1. Useful to accurately predict behavior (our own and others) 2. Useful to understand behavior so well that we could positively influence actions contributing to that solution. Page 47 Independent variable A publicly observable change, controlled by the experimenter, which is anticipated to influence behavior in a specific way. The thing the researcher believes will change behavior if it is manipulated. Page 47 The "jury" in behavioral science Compose...

Repeatability Refers to the fact that a behavior can occur repeatedly through time Temporal extent refers to the fact that every instance of behavior occurs during some amount of time Rate A fundamental measure of how often behavior occurs expressed as count per standard unit of time (frequency/time) Artifact An outcome or result that appears to exist because of the way is it measured but in fact does not correspond to what actually occurred Time sampling A measure to of the presence or...