The target paper by Barba (2012) raises issues that were the focus of the author's first two publications on operant variability. The author will describe the main findings in those papers and then discuss Barba's specific arguments. Barba has argued against the operant nature of variability. (Contains 2 figures.)

We quantified the effect of first experience on behavior in operant learning and studied its underlying computational principles. To that goal, we analyzed more than 200,000 choices in a repeated-choice experiment. We found that the outcome of the first experience has a substantial and lasting effect on participants' subsequent behavior, which we…

The experimental analysis of behavior (EAB) is in trouble. Financial support for basic operant-conditioning research is difficult to obtain; teaching and research positions in colleges and universities are few; and bright undergraduates join other fields for graduate study. One reason for the difficulty is that EAB basic research does not focus…

Following from an earlier analysis by B. F. Skinner, the present article suggests that the verbal processes in science may usefully be viewed as following a three-stage progression. This progression starts with (a) identification of basic data, then moves to (b) description of relations among those data, and ultimately concludes with (c) the…

Amid the novel terms and original analyses in Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", the importance of his discussion of multiple control is easily missed, but multiple control of verbal responses is the rule rather than the exception. In this paper we summarize and illustrate Skinner's analysis of multiple control and introduce the terms "convergent…

The production of verbal operants not previously taught is an important aspect of language productivity. For Skinner, new mands, tacts, and autoclitics result from the recombination of verbal operants. The relation between these mands, tacts, and autoclitics is what linguists call "analogy," a grammatical pattern that serves as a foundation on…

This article presents an interpretation of autoshaping, and positive and negative automaintenance, based on a neural-network model. The model makes no distinction between operant and respondent learning mechanisms, and takes into account knowledge of hippocampal and dopaminergic systems. Four simulations were run, each one using an "A-B-A" design…

Memories can have different strengths, largely dependent on the intensity of reinforcers encountered. The relationship between reinforcement and memory strength is evident in asymptotic memory curves, with the level of the asymptote related to the intensity of the reinforcer. Although this is likely a fundamental property of memory formation,…

Following Walter Nord (1969), the present article contains a predictive model of individual behavior based on both operant conditioning and management literatures. The behavior of an organizational member is seen as a function of the reinforcement contingencies applied by various groups in his environment and of his cognitive assessment of such…

Darwinian selection by consequences was instantiated in a computational model that consisted of a repertoire of behaviors undergoing selection, reproduction, and mutation over many generations. The model in effect created a digital organism that emitted behavior continuously. The behavior of this digital organism was studied in three series of…

Pigeons' choice in concurrent chains can adapt to rapidly changing contingencies. Grace, Bragason, and McLean (2003) found that relative initial-link response rate was sensitive to the immediacy ratio in the current session when one of the terminal-link fixed-interval schedules was changed daily according to a pseudorandom binary sequence (e.g.,…

The philosophies underlying the learning and structural theories used in psychology are described in this article. It is argued that a dialectical view provides some ways to breach the chasm between learning theory and the study of human development. (Author/DB)

It is suggested that the theory of behavior based on conditioning processes can be reconciled with new data, but only by revising certain tacit behaviorist assumptions about the parameters of the conditioning process. (Author/AM)

To replicate a study purporting to show positive effects of facilitative interpersonal functioning in a conditioning paradigm, 32 subjects were verbally conditioned within an experiment designed to vary preexperiment interview, facilitative level of the experimenter, and contingency of reinforcement. The present study failed to substantiate the…

Results indicate that Ss have a strong tendency to imitate a model, whether or not the model is reinforced or is successfully learning the task. (Author)