|
International Development Brunch |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
1:00 AM–11:20 AM |
Centennial Ballroom III |
Chair: Simon Dymond (University of Wales, Swansea) |
The international development brunch is scheduled on the first day of the convention to welcome the international members and review the international development of behavior analysis. |
|
|
|
|
Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
7:00 AM–11:20 AM |
International Ballroom South |
Chair: Randolph C. Grace (University of Canterbury) |
Attendees to SQAB events must register for the SQAB conference in addition to the ABA convention. Visit http://sqab.psychology.org/ for more information. |
|
|
|
|
Newcomers' Session |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
9:30 AM–10:20 AM |
Cairo |
Chair: John L. Michael (Western Michigan University), W. Scott Wood (Drake University) |
An overview of ABA, its history, structures, and functions as an international locus of the field of behavior analysis. Awards, special interest groups, and other features will also be dealt with. Drs. Michael and Wood, two of ABA's original members, will review the origin and organization of ABA as well as describe the principles of behavior analysis that form the scientific foundation of the field. |
|
|
|
|
Opening Event: Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis Awards - 2006 SABA Awards |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
11:30 AM–12:50 PM |
Centennial Ballroom I & II |
|
Award for Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis: James A. Dinsmoor, Ph.D. |
Abstract: (Awarded posthumously) Dr. Dinsmoors award will be accepted by Mrs. Kay Dinsmoor. |
|
PHILIP N. HINELINE (Temple University) |
|
Dr. Philip Hineline (Temple University) will deliver an address titled In Honor and Memory of James A. Dinsmoor.
Jim Dinsmoor was at the core of behavior analysis from its very beginnings and remained so throughout his career. He participated in the very first “proto-ABA convention,” the Conference on the Experimental Analysis of Behavior at Indiana University nearly sixty years ago. As a graduate student under Keller and Schoenfeld at Columbia, he provided advice on research strategy to Murray Sidman. Moving to the Midwest, he took up the flag for behavior analysis in the Psychology Department at Indiana University while Kay, his wife, ran the back office for the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Over the years, Jim accomplished a remarkable series of incisive research projects focused upon key conceptual issues. The first of these was a struggle to untangle the complex contingencies of escape and avoidance conditioning, the interpretation of which is a matter of contention to this day. The most notable project, in my view, served to unmask the cognitivist interpretation of conditioned reinforcement. He showed that a conception in terms of “information” was a misleading characterization of the processes involved. Concurrently, Jim was a political activist, supporting controversial causes through his reputation for personal integrity. And of course, Jim was prominent in the action first at EPA, at MPA, at MABA, and at ABA; where he could be counted on for good humor as well as supportive and provocative wisdom. |
|
Award for International Dissemination of Behavior Analysis: Joseph E. Morrow, Ph.D. |
Abstract: This paper raises the issue of bringing behaviorism to our culture and to the world. It examines the question of vehicles that are available to us to reach this goal. Certain vehicles are specified and elaborated on. Finally, the issue of why behavioralize the world is addressed. It is argued that, given our understanding of contingencies of reinforcement, it may be time for behaviorists to begin talking about such important issues as war and poverty. |
|
JOSEPH E. MORROW (Applied Behavior Consultants) |
|
Dr. Joseph Morrow received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Washington State University in 1965. Since that time he has taught at California State University, Fullerton; Indiana University, South Bend; and California State University, Sacramento, from which he recently retired. For the past nineteen years he has been president of Applied Behavior Consultants (ABC), a 300-person firm providing Applied Behavior Analysis Services. ABC operates day schools and provides home services throughout California for children with autism and other special needs. In the last few years, ABC has opened behavioral schools in China and Bahrain as well as providing services in several other countries. Dr. Morrow will give a presentation titled Behavioralizing the World. |
|
Award for Public Service in Behavior Analysis: Robert H. Horner, Ph.D. |
Abstract: The potential value of applied behavior analysis for society is most likely to be realized if behavior analysts focus on expanding our unit of analysis, increasing the range of our outcome measures, and improving the accessibility of our technology. This will require a blending of rigorous behavioral science with a practical transfer technology. Six recommendations will be offered for how applied behavior analysts may extend impressive demonstrations of individual behavior change to demonstrations of large-scale social change. The basic thesis is that applying the principles of behavior analysis at scales of social significance will not occur from an awakening of society to the value of behavior analysis, but through efforts of behavior analysts to reach out and make behavior analysis relevant to the needs of society. |
|
ROBERT H. HORNER (University of Oregon) |
|
Dr. Robert Horner is a professor of special education at the University of Oregon. He took his undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University, his master’s degree in experimental psychology from Washington State University, and his doctorate in special education at the University of Oregon. His research during the past 25 years has focused on the design of instructional technology for individuals with severe intellectual disabilities, generalization, stimulus control, and, most recently, positive behavior support. During the past 12 years Dr. Horner has worked with Dr. George Sugai on implementation of school-wide positive behavior support, an application of behavior analysis at the whole-school level. This approach currently is being implemented in over 3000 schools, and, when blended with academic interventions, is associated with improvements in both social and academic gains of students. Dr. Horner is a former associate editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, a past editor of JASH (The Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps), and current co-editor of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions. His professional awards include the 1996 APA Fred Keller Educational Researcher Award and the 2002 AAMR Education Award. Dr. Horner will give a presentation titled Implementing Applied Behavior Analysis at Scales of Social Importance. |
|
Award for Impact of Science on Application: Nathan H. Azrin, Ph.D. |
Abstract: Laboratory studies of operant conditioning have justifiably been judged to provide the scientific basis for applied behavior analysis. Close examination of the specific procedures, methods of measurement, and behavioral generalizations reveals that very many of these laboratory procedures and findings have had little relevance to the procedures used in the area of applications. Successful applications have not been a direct translation of operant procedures but rather an exclusion of many of these operant procedures, a focus on several of the methodological features and development of several new procedures that have little or no relation to the laboratory programs. This analysis suggests that applied behavior analysis will continue to devise new treatments for complex, socially significant problems by continuing to develop new procedures that have not been central to the laboratory procedures and findings. The elements common to both endeavors appear to be specification, standardization, quantification, and experimental evaluation. |
|
NATHAN H. AZRIN (NOVA Southeastern University) |
|
Dr. Nathan Azrin is a professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He received his Ph.D. under B. F. Skinner at Harvard University in 1956. Azrin began his career doing basic laboratory research in operant conditioning, later shifting his focus to applied psychology, in which he has been a pioneer in establishing the field of applied behavior analysis. Many of the treatment/training programs he developed are now in widespread usage. Specific examples are the Token Economy or Point Reward Program (with Dr. Ayllon); use of time-out; and effective self-care programs for retarded persons including toilet training, nocturnal enuresis, dressing, proper mealtime skills, self-stimulation, aggression, and self-injury. He also developed programs for non-retarded persons including alcoholism, drug use, medication adherence, tics, stuttering, Tourette’s Disorder, Trichotillomania, marital dysfunction, classroom management, toilet training, nocturnal enuresis, the Job Club method for securing employment for the chronically unemployed, parent-youth problems, and Major Depressive Disorder. The great diversity of problems he has studied reflects his conviction that applied behavioral analysis is a rich conceptual strategy with unlimited avenues of treatment applicability. Dr. Azrin will give a presentation titled Impact of Science on Applied Behavior Analysis. |
|
Award for Enduring Programmatic Contributions in Behavior Analysis: Behavior Analysis and Therapy Program of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale |
Abstract: Tony Cuvo, Ph.D. will accept the award on behalf of the Behavior Analysis and Therapy Program. In 1955, Guy Renzaglia founded the Rehabilitation Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC). The goal of the Institute is to serve as an academic home for training professionals in various branches of rehabilitation. In the same year, Israel Goldiamond joined the faculty of SIUCs Department of Psychology. Iz was instrumental in recruiting Nathan Azrin to Southern Illinois to become the founding director of the Behavior Research Laboratory at Anna State Hospital, located some 20 miles south of Carbondale. Guy and Nate collaborated in 1965 to form the first Masters degree program in Behavior Modification in the United States, The program became one of several graduate programs within the Rehabilitation Institute. Ed Sulzer was hired as the Behavior Modification Programs founding coordinator. Since its inception, there has been a close working relationship between the academic program on campus and the former Anna State Hospital, now named the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center. The state Hospital provided the program with the initial faculty and a site for students to acquire research and clinical experience. Ed Sulzer and Nate Azrin, along with Don Hake and Ted Ayllon (both also from Anna), designed the original academic curriculum. Subsequently, Richard Foxx and other behavior analysts provided supervision to program students in their positions at the state hospital. In 1982, the name of the program was changed to Behavior Analysis and Therapy to reflect, not only our evolving disciplinary terminology, but also the comprehensive nature of the curriculum. The program is accredited by the Association for Behavior Analysis. A doctoral program in Rehabilitation, including a behavioral specialty, was also added during the early 1980s. Students have been able to receive education and training in both basic and applied behavior analysis, as well as behavior therapy. Some areas of specialization over the decades have included developmental disabilities, child abuse and neglect, acquired head injury, gambling, stimulus equivalence, school intervention, behavioral medicine, sexual behavior, community behavior analysis, organizational behavior management, functional analysis of challenging behavior, and other topics. Two major clinical training and community service programs have been externally funded for a number of years... |
|
N/A N/A (N/a) |
|
|
Award for Effective Presentation in the Mass Media: James Kauffman, Ed.D. |
Abstract: In this presentation, I raise concern about a new racism often mistaken for cultural sensitivity and cultural competence. It is characterized by the assumption that skin color or heritage, usually said to designate a culture, makes an individual responsive or unresponsive to particular therapies, educational methods, or other efforts to teach, heal, or help. Markers of the new racism include misleading statements and hyperbole, the creation of politically charged but scientifically and logically questionable categories or groups, the assumption that group identity is more important than individual characteristics, and the use of inappropriate proxies in making treatment decisions. Better science is our best hope of combating the new racism, and I hope that applied behavior analysts will play an important role in checking out the idea that skin hue and heritage determine how someone responds to behavioral operations. |
|
JAMES M. KAUFFMAN (University of Virginia) |
|
James M. Kauffman, Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Virginia, received his Ed.D. degree in special education from the University of Kansas in 1969. He is a past president of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (CCBD). Among his honors are the 2002 Outstanding Leadership Award from CCBD and the 1994 Research Award from the Council for Exceptional Children. Besides the book Education Deform, published in 2002, he is author, editor, co-author, or co-editor of numerous publications in special education and related fields. One of his textbooks, Characteristics of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders of Children and Youth, is widely adopted in special education and is now in its eighth edition. His most recent co-authored books are Special Education: What it is and Why We Need It; Learning Disabilities: Foundations, Characteristics, and Effective Teaching; Children and Youth with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: A History of Their Education; the fourth edition of Managing Classroom Behavior: A Reflective Case-Based Approach; and the 10th edition of Exceptional Learners: Introduction to Special Education. Dr. Kauffman will give a presentation titled Concerns about a New Racism. |
|
2005 International Grant Awards |
Abstract: The International Development Fund provides for three $1,000 International Development Grants to be awarded annually, through a competitive process. In 2005, the grants were awarded to support the following projects: Behavior Analysis Training in a Clinical Psychology Context, developed by Aldo Hernandez Barrios and Vladimir Bernal Alfonso (Universidad Catlica de Colombia, Unidad de Servicios Psicolgicos, Colombia) A University Training Program in Applied and Clinical Behavior Analysis in Tampere, Finland developed by Dr. Martti T. Tuomisto (Institute for Extension Studies, University of Tampere, Finland) Development of a BCBA Masters Degree Program, developed by Dr. Denis OHora (University of Ulster, Northern Ireland) 2006 Fellowship Awardees SABA Fellowships are awarded to doctoral students by way of a competitive process in two areas of concentration: Child Development and Experimental Analysis of Behavior. The Sidney W. and Janet R. Bijou Fellowship provides an annual fellowship to a doctoral student investigating child development from a behavior analyst perspective. Recipients in 2006 are Elizabeth Adams (University of Florida) and Sarah OConnor (National University of Ireland, Maynooth). The SABA Experimental Analysis of Behavior Fellowship provides an annual fellowship to a doctoral student in psychology or behavior analysis who is conducting research in the experimental analysis of behavior. The 2006 recipient is Bethany Raiff (University of Florida). |
|
N/A N/A (N/a) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
SQAB 2006 Tutorial: Explicit Methods and Implicit Human Values in Quantitative Behavioral Models |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
1:00 PM–1:50 PM |
International Ballroom South |
Area: EAB; Domain: Basic Research |
Chair: Randolph C. Grace (University of Canterbury) |
Presenting Authors: : CHARLES P. SHIMP (University of Utah) |
Abstract: Quantitative models of behavior will be described, sorted, and informally categorized in terms of their underlying metaphors, including geometric, mechanical, hydraulic, electromechanical, statistical, computer, cosmological, philosophical, political, ecological, and logical metaphors. They will also be categorized in terms of the purposes for which they are constructed, including to summarize data, predict new phenomena, to identify basic mechanisms, and to integrate diverse phenomena in terms of similar underlying mechanisms. The diverse means by which they are evaluated will also be described, for example, in terms of parsimony, descriptive accuracy against data, descriptive accuracy compared to that of other models, whether they can submit to a critical test, and the breadth of data to which they apply. Evaluative tools such as clarity, elegance, intuitive accessibility, biological plausibility, practical relevance, and the persuasiveness of the arguments advanced by their inventors, will be described. The relevance to model evaluation of historical trends, fads, and technological limitations will also be addressed. A sense in which quantitative models have only the appearance of being quantitative will be discussed. |
|
CHARLES P. SHIMP (University of Utah) |
Charles Shimp began his scientific career believing that science, especially quantitative science, offered a path to important knowledge about the human condition that was fundamentally different from those offered by art, literature, and music. Over the course of his career, he has come to question that belief. He now believes there are implicit and unevaluated |
|
|
|
|
International SQAB 2006 Tutorial: Neural-Network Modeling in Conditioning Research |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
2:00 PM–2:50 PM |
International Ballroom South |
Area: EAB; Domain: Basic Research |
Chair: Jeffrey L. Elman (University of California, San Diego) |
Presenting Authors: : JOSE E. BURGOS (Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro de Estudios e I) |
Abstract: This tutorial is a primer to neural-network modeling in conditioning research. After a brief historical introduction to this kind of modeling and philosophical disquisition on model plausibility in empirical science, the elementary concepts of neural processing element, connection, activation function, and learning function, are presented. Emphasis is made on the concept of a neural network as a set of (inter)connected realizations of a neurocomputational model. Then three well-known models (McCulloch-Pitts, perceptron,and backpropagation) are reviewed and judged as neuro-behaviorally too implausible. The model proposed by Donahoe, Burgos, and Palmer (1993; JEAB, 60, 17-40) is presented as a more plausible (albeit admittedly incomplete) alternative. Its behavioral plausibility is exemplified through simulations that have implications for persistent conceptual issues in behavior science, such as the operant-respondent dichotomy. To show its heuristic value, two novel predictions for Pavlovian conditioning are discussed. |
|
JOSE E. BURGOS (Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro de Estudios e I) |
Dr. José E. Burgos holds a License in Psychology (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, 1983), an M.S. in Experimental Analysis of Behavior (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 1989), and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Behavior (University of Massachussetts/Amherst, 1996, under the advisement of Dr. John W. Donahoe). During his undergraduate studies he discovered Skinner and became a Skinnerian bulldog (much to the detriment of his social relationships with his peers). His undergraduate thesis was on the effects of cyclic AMP injected to the nucleus accumbens on FR and FI performance in rats. His Master’s thesis was on autoshaping and automaintenance in pigeons. His current scientific work sprung from his doctoral dissertation, a massive set of computer simulations of the phylogeny of Pavlovian conditioning. He has published numerous scientific papers on computer simulations of conditioning phenomena using a neural-network model devised with Dr. John W. Donahoe and Dr. David C. Palmer. He has also published papers on the metaphysics of behavior and neurobehavioral epistemology of neurobehavioral science. He also is interested in human behavior and has started a research line on counterfactual thinking. Currently he is Full Professor and Researcher at the Center for Behavioral Studies and Research at the University of Guadalajara, member of the Board of Editors of Behavior and Philosophy, and Editor of the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis. His hobbies include playing classical guitar, listening to classical music, reading fiction, going to the movies, and playing computer games. He lives in Guadalajara with his lovely wife Rocío (no pets and no kids ... yet). |
|
|
|
|
SQAB 2006 Tutorial: Applied Modeling and the Identification of Behavioral Mechanisms of Action |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
3:30 PM–4:20 PM |
International Ballroom South |
Area: EAB; Domain: Basic Research |
Chair: Mark P. Reilly (Central Michigan University) |
Presenting Authors: : M. CHRISTOPHER NEWLAND (Auburn University), Wendy Donlin Washington (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) |
Abstract: A good model will reduce behavior to its fundamental elements. If successful, then this distillation can be exported to other research domains to address mechanistic questions. In our case, for example, the goal is the understanding of how environmental contaminants disrupt operant behavior. We describe our application of models to address the behavioral consequences of exposure to methylmercury: Models of choice using the matching relationship and Shull's mathematical model of behavior as a pattern of engagement bouts. We describe how we selected these models and then the stages of application. For example, with Shull's model we replicate it, extend it to high-rate behavior under percentile and DRH schedules of reinforcement, reproducing its essential features, scale it up and automate parameter estimation it so that it can be applied with a large number of conditions and subjects. Finally, using multiple regression, we test the application to confirm that the model parameters provide independent descriptors of behavior under these reinforcement schedules. The model's parameters can then be used as dependent measures to parse two distinctive effects methylmercury: alterations in reinforcer efficacy and motor competence. In a sense, this application represents, we think, a variation of another model, namely, Pennypacker's model of technology transfer. |
|
M. CHRISTOPHER NEWLAND (Auburn University), Wendy Donlin Washington (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) |
Dr. Chris Newland is an Alumni Professor at Auburn University where he and his students conduct research touching on behavioral toxicology, pharmacology, and EAB. He enjoys teaching at all levels and participates in Auburn's master's program in ABA/DD. Dr. Newland completed his doctoral work at Georgia Tech, with a joint minor in mathematics and neurobiology, and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University at Rochester in Environmental Health. His research has been funded by NIEHS, NIAAA, NIDA, and the EPA and he currently is a member of Neurotoxicology and Alcohol study section for NIH. He is a past president of the Behavioral Toxicology Society, SEABA, and is president elect of the Neurotoxicology Specialty Section of the Society of Toxicology. Dr. Newland claims to apply behavior-analytically derived models because it is helpful in appreciating mechanisms of action and in generalizing effects to humans, so important in Environmental Health. In truth, he does it because it's fun. Dr. Wendy Donlin recently completed her Ph.D. at Auburn University and is currently a post-doc with Ken Silverman in Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. She, too, enjoys working with mathematical models of behavior and initiated the application of models used in this talk. [supported by NIH-ES10865]. |
|
|
|
|
SQAB 2006 Tutorial: Creating Artificial Behavior: A Tutorial on Modeling |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
4:00 PM–4:50 PM |
International Ballroom South |
Area: EAB; Domain: Basic Research |
Chair: John E. R. Staddon (Duke University) |
Presenting Authors: : A. CHARLES CATANIA (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) |
Abstract: A model that generates good approximations to real behavior can help us see how behavior works. Both moment-to-moment features of behavior as shown in cumulative records and global input-output functions as derived from parametric studies of reinforcement schedules can be simulated by a variant of Skinner’s Reflex Reserve. Skinner’s model, in which reinforced responses added to a reserve depleted by later responding, could not handle the higher rates maintained by intermittent than by continuous reinforcement, but would have worked if not just the last but also earlier responses preceding a reinforcer, each weighted by a delay gradient, contributed to the reserve. With this modification, reinforcement schedules generate steady states in which reserve decrements produced by responding balance increments produced when reinforcers follow responding. Some recommendations about modeling follow from this example: (1) Be explicit about the terms, units and dimensions that enter into the model; (2) Study intermediate details of the simulation, not just end-products, but keep things simple by minimizing inferred entities; (3) Avoid transformations that distance behavior from contingencies or reduce absolute measures to relative ones; and, (4) Design the model so variables can be tinkered with much as experimenters tinker with them in the laboratory. |
|
A. CHARLES CATANIA (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) |
A. Charles Catania began his career in behavior analysis in Fall 1954, when he enrolled in Fred Keller’s course in introductory psychology. That course included a weekly laboratory on the behavior of rats, and Catania continued working with rats and pigeons and other organisms over subsequent decades. In Spring 2004, having closed his pigeon laboratory the previous summer, he celebrated his half century of animal lab activity with a rat demonstration in an undergraduate learning course. During those decades, he had examined the behavior engendered and maintained by a variety of reinforcement schedules, with an abiding interest in relating schedule performances to fundamental behavioral processes such as the delay-of-reinforcement gradient. He was also increasingly impressed by the striking parallels between biological accounts of evolution in terms of Darwinian natural selection and behavior analytic accounts of operant behavior in terms of the selection of behavior by its consequences. He regards the refinement and extension of selectionist accounts as crucial prerequisites for analyses of our own behavior as behavior analysts, including the verbal and nonverbal behavior that enters into our construction of theories and models. |
|
|
|
|
Presidential Scholar's Address: What's the Matter with Memory? |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
4:30 PM–5:20 PM |
Centennial Ballroom I & II |
Chair: Frances K. McSweeney (Washington State University) |
|
Presidential Scholar's Address: What's the Matter with Memory? |
Abstract: Suggestion can distort memory and also make people believe that they had experiences that they didn't have. People have been led to remember nonexistent events from the recent past as well as non-existent events from their childhood. They can be led to falsely believe that they have had familiar experiences, but also rather bizarre or implausible ones. They can be led to believe that they did things that would have been impossible (e.g., shaking hands with Bugs Bunny during a trip to Disneyland). They can be led to falsely believe that they had experiences that would have been highly traumatic had they actually happened. False beliefs have consequences for people, affecting later thoughts, intentions, and behaviors. For example, people who are led to believe that as children they got sick eating particular foods show avoidance of those foods later on. If false memories can be so readily planted in the mind, what does it say about the nature of memory? |
|
ELIZABETH LOFTUS (University of California, Irvine) |
|
Elizabeth Loftus is Distinguished Professor at the University of California - Irvine. She holds faculty positions in both Criminology, Law & Society and in Psychology and Social Behavior. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. Since then, she has published 20 books and over 400 scientific articles. Loftus's research of the last 30 years has focused on human memory, eyewitness testimony and also on courtroom procedure. She has shown that human memory is highly malleable; Details can be altered, and entire events can be planted into people's memories. These findings have important implications for the legal system and its use of memory as evidence. She has been recognized for this research with five honorary doctorates and election to the National Academy of Sciences. She has served as President of the American Psychological Society, and twice as President of the Western Psychological Association. |
|
|
|
|
|
Behavioral Bash |
Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
9:00 PM–12:00 AM |
Centennial Ballroom I & II |
Chair: Christy A. Alligood (West Virginia University) |
ABA welcomes you to Atlanta with a party to remember. You won't want to miss the local entertainers, door prizes, skit competition, and student committee awards. Bring your friends and colleagues and enjoy the festivities - be ready for a few surprises! |
|
|