Choice may be defined as the allocation of behavior among activities. Since all activities take up time, choice is conveniently thought of as the allocation of time among activities, even if activities like pecking are most easily measured by counting. Since dynamics refers to change through time, the dynamics of choice refers to change of…

Delay discounting is the decline in the present value of a reward with delay to its receipt. Across a variety of species, populations, and reward types, value declines hyperbolically with delay. Value declines steeply with shorter delays, but more shallowly with longer delays. Quantitative modeling provides precise measures to characterize the…

Charles Sherrington identified the properties of the synapse by purely behavioral means--the study of reflexes--more than 100 years ago. They were subsequently confirmed neurophysiologically. Studying reflex interaction, he also showed that activating one reflex often facilitates another, antagonistic one: "successive induction," which has since…

"Pure basic" science can become detached from the natural world that it is supposed to explain. "Pure applied" work can become detached from fundamental processes that shape the world it is supposed to improve. Neither demands the intellectual support of a broad scholarly community or the material support of society. Translational research can do…

Contact or touch detectors in which a subject acts as a switch between two metal surfaces have proven more popular and arguably more useful for recording responses than capacitance switches, photocell detectors, and force detectors. Components for touch detectors circuits are inexpensive and, except for some special purpose designs, can be easily…

At one time, "JEAB" editorial policy was perceived by some to consist mainly of dogmatically enforcing a Skinnerian interpretation of all findings reported in the journal. Partly in response to that undeserved reputation, the journal explicitly defined itself as the place to publish research on the behavior of individual organisms, and not as a…

The experimental content areas represented in "JEAB" in its first volume (1958) and fifty 50 years later in Volume 87 are in many ways similar with regard to research on schedules of reinforcement, research with human subjects, and several other topics. Experimental analysis has not been displaced by quantitative analysis. Much less research on…

Behavior analysis has been thriving by continuing to make important theoretical and empirical contributions to a wide array of problems, as well as by contributing to interdisciplinary research. Applied research in behavior analysis is flourishing. Despite these positive signs there may be an erosion of support for basic research in animal…

Evidence of how behavioral research and technology have evolved together abounds in the history of the "Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior" ("JEAB"). Technology from outside the discipline (exogenous) from such disciplines as electronics and computer science has been adapted for use in behavioral research. Technology from within the…

The "Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior" was founded in 1958 by a group of male psychologists, mainly from the northeastern USA and connected with either Harvard or Columbia. Fifty years later about 20% of both editors and authors reside outside this country and almost the same proportion is women. Other changes in the…

Zentall and Singer (2007) challenge our conclusion that the work-ethic effect reported by Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, and Zentall (2000) may have been a Type I error by arguing that (a) the effect has been extensively replicated and (b) the amount of overtraining our pigeons received may not have been sufficient to produce it. We believe that our…

"JEAB"'s first decade featured control of individual behavior by operant contingencies, where the experimenter could interact with a subject in real time and obtain fairly immediate evidence of control, with the possibility of direct extension to applied settings. In subsequent decades, emphasis shifted toward long-term parametric studies with…

The contributions of Joseph V. Brady to behavioral pharmacology span more than 50 years and range from early studies using the Estes-Skinner ("conditioned emotional response") procedure to examine drug effects and various physiological processes in experimental animals to the implementation of mobile methadone treatment services and to small group…

Despite its avowed goal of understanding individual behavior, the field of behavior analysis has largely ignored the determinants of consistent differences in level of performance among individuals. The present article discusses major findings in the study of individual differences in intelligence from the conceptual framework of a functional…

Roger T. Kelleher, rightly known as one of the foremost contributors to behavioral pharmacology, also made many important contributions to the experimental analysis of behavior. He participated significantly in the development of the discipline, through both his research and his editorial contributions to this journal. This article summarizes his…