Using a conditional discrimination procedure, pigeons were exposed to a nonverbal analogue of qualifying autoclitics such as "definitely" and "maybe." It has been suggested that these autoclitics are similar to tacts except that they are under the control of private discriminative stimuli. Instead of the conventional assumption…

The effects of two types of mands on participants' adherence to instructions were examined across two groups using procedures based on Hackenberg and Joker ("Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior" 62:367-383, 1994). Participants were presented with instructions describing a pattern of responding for producing points later…

A theory of attending and reinforcement in conditional discriminations (Nevin, Davison, & Shahan, 2005) is extended to working memory in delayed matching to sample by adding terms for disruption of attending during the retention interval. Like its predecessor, the theory assumes that reinforcers and disruptors affect the independent probabilities…

An integrated study of Shine's actualized and pure single-subject behavior functions can produce more information than studying only one function. After summarizing the mathematics behind Shine's viewpoint, an ordinary regression analysis approach to the actualized behavior function is integrated with a time-series analysis approach to the pure…

Staddon and Motheral derived a mathematical model of responding in concurrent variable-interval--variable-interval schedules. Their derivation ignores a fundamental aspect of the concurrent schedule contingency. A reinforcer can occur following two consecutive responses on the same schedule or following a switch between the two schedules.…