Association for Behavior Analysis International

Choice is at its core one of the most relevant topics that our field has, does, and must continue to address. The study of choice has been relevant since the beginning - of everything. The concept cuts across nearly every line of research in the field; from philosophical issues to schedule work, from maze work to self-management, from choosing what tie to wear to choosing what program to implement, from behavioral economics to the behavior of the scientist. There lies choice, at every turn. How you respond to the statement: “making a choice” might well define you as a behavior analyst – or a mentalist. The short discussion will cover a brief history of choice research and how it has changed, and not, current directions, and potential future work. I hope you choose to attend while I have a lecture on choice!

I have been a behavior analyst since my mother sat me down in a mall in the 80s and told me to “just watch people”. I formalized that education with undergrad work at Eastern Washington University and graduate study under Thomas Armon Brigham at Washington State University. I focused on experimental evaluations of applied self-management programs, and of course, behavior analysis in general. I later worked internationally doing university development work across Africa and Afghanistan. It is there that I developed an appreciation for open educational resources. I hung up my soft money hat and returned to teach at my alma mater (i.e., EWU). Several years ago, after leaving academia, I joined the team at Northwest Autism Center and am currently the Operations Support Analyst - functionally doing OBM type work in an ABA setting. In my spare time (and that of my friend and colleague, Mr. Brad Bishop) we focus on bringing ABA to the world via YouTube. PsychCore was formed as a vehicle to bring change to how ABA is taught and disseminated. We have thousands of subscribers and ~700 videos covering specific issues related to ABA, EAB, and Behavior Analysis in general. Our success in teaching is not our own - we are students of Behavior Analysis first - and we seek to apply those principles at every level of our delivery of content. I currently reside in Spokane, Washington with my wife and four children, 2 dogs, a cat, and a bunch of fish.

Students who avoid academic work often have long and complicated histories that have established school-based tasks as aversive. Although problem behavior in the presence of academic tasks might be maintained by escape, interventions based on escape (e.g., allowing breaks contingent on work completion, escape extinction) may be counterproductive, even for those who are capable of undertaking the work. This presentation will discuss how the ways we approach interventions for work avoidance may affect students’ choices to attempt academic tasks, as well as how much work they do. Data collected from high school students will demonstrate how interventions designed to match the functions of work avoidance may negatively impact students’ choices about undertaking work, as well as their perceptions about the aversiveness of academic tasks. The presentation also will address the potential importance of incorporating choice into various aspects of intervention delivery for work avoiders, as well as how consideration of more remote reinforcement (and punishment) histories may be helpful in promoting students’ choices to engage with learning opportunities at school.

Jennifer L. Austin, Ph.D., BCBA-D has been applying the science of behavior analysis to improve outcomes for children and their teachers for over 20 years. Both her research and clinical work focus on how behavior analytic assessment and intervention strategies can be applied with typically developing children, as well as examining what adaptations may be necessary for making our science “work” in mainstream classrooms. She has worked with numerous schools in the US and the UK, focusing primarily on those in disadvantaged communities. Dr. Austin received her PhD from the Florida State University and currently serves as Professor of Psychology and Head of Behavior Analysis at the University of South Wales. Prior to moving to the United Kingdom, Dr. Austin served as faculty at the University of South Florida, California State University, Fresno and the University of Houston, Clear Lake. She is the President of the UK Society for Behaviour Analysis and a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavior Analysis in Practice.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

When provided with the opportunity to select between conditions in which multiple responses may produce reinforcement or conditions in which one response produces reinforcement, human and non-human animals more often select (i.e., display preference for) the conditions associated with multiple response options (i.e., choice-making conditions). However, this finding is neither static within, nor universal across participants. This data-based presentation will discuss learning histories and variations in choice presentation methods which impact these preferences.

Dr. Tiger is an associate professor of psychology and the behavior analysis program director at Marquette University. He completed his Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology at the University of Kansas under the guidance of Greg Hanley and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Nebraska Medical Center with Wayne Fisher. Dr. Tiger is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and licensed behavior analyst in the state of Wisconsin. He has served on the board of editors of Behavior Analysis in Practice and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) and is a current Associate Editor for JABA. He also received the B. F. Skinner New Researcher Award in 2012, awarded by Division 25 of the APA. Dr. Tiger’s research emphasizes the development of effective intervention practices for individuals with developmental disabilities, while extending our knowledge of the basic processes that result in behavior change. Some examples of his research include evaluating the value of choice-making opportunities, developing stimulus control over social behavior through multiple schedule arrangements, and teaching braille related skills to individuals with and without visual impairments.

Relative to nondrug reinforcers, illicit drugs may be uncertain or variable in terms of their availability, quality, price, and time and effort to obtain. Thus, variability may be an important aspect that differs for illicit drugs relative to nondrug alternatives. Research has demonstrated that reinforcers available under variable schedules of reinforcement are generally chosen over reinforcers offered under fixed schedules. As such, illicit drugs may more effectively compete with more predictable, nondrug alternatives, perhaps due to an inherent variability of the conditions associated with the acquisition of illicit drugs. Conversely, drug choice could be reduced by making nondrug reinforcers available under variable schedules. To examine these issues, male and female rhesus monkeys are given choices between fixed and variable schedules of cocaine or food. In control conditions, both schedules are a fixed-ratio (FR) 50, 100, or 200. In test conditions, the schedule of cocaine or food delivery is changed to a mixed-ratio (MR) 50, 100 or 200 on one lever and an equal on average FR on the opposite lever. At sufficiently large MR values, choice of cocaine or food under an MR schedule tends to be greater than choice of the same reinforcer under an FR schedule. However, we see individual differences in the degree to which MR schedules are chosen across different cocaine doses and schedule values. Our findings suggest that variable availability could contribute to excessive allocation of behavior toward procuring illicit drugs at the expense of more predictable, nondrug alternatives, and this effect appears likely to persist during periods of scarce drug access.

Dr. Sally Huskinson is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Neurobiology and Behavior Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. As an undergraduate, she worked with Dr. Erin Rasmussen at Idaho State University where she earned her bachelor’s degree (2007) in psychology. She went on to earn her master’s (2011) and doctoral (2012) degrees in psychology at West Virginia University with the mentorship of Dr. Karen Anderson. In 2012, Dr. Huskinson went to the University of Mississippi Medical Center to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology with Dr. William Woolverton until his untimely death in 2013. Dr. Huskinson finished her postdoctoral training with Drs. Kevin Freeman and James Rowlett, also at the University of Mississippi Medical Center where she currently resides. Her research interests are in drug abuse with an emphasis on drug self-administration and choice procedures, including delay discounting and uncertain drug access.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

The discipline of behavior analysis is experiencing rapid growth, which is especially noticeable in recent the increase of university programs offering training in behavior analysis. There are currently two mechanisms for university training programs to be recognized: accreditation of degree-granting programs and verification of course sequences. This panel will present these systems, including their procedures for obtaining and maintaining recognition along with their respective goals. This session is designed for current VCS coordinators, program directors of ABAI-accredited programs, and those interested in applying for either system of recognition.

From a behavioral selectionist perspective, it is not the individual who chooses, but the consequent stimuli (e.g., reinforcers) that select out responding. New reinforcers are learned throughout the lifespan, just as new responses are learned. When new reinforcers are acquired, stimuli that do not function to reinforce are transformed such that new stimulus control is established. The question is: How do stimuli that did not have value come to be transformed into reinforcers, or, how are new reinforcers learned? This presentation will describe three ways in which new reinforcers are established with children: stimulus-stimulus pairings, operant procedures, and observational conditioning-by-denial procedures. These procedures have been successful in altering the value of stimuli leading to changes in a) musical preference and “appreciation,” b) food preferences, c) social reinforcers, d) educational reinforcers, e) foundational verbal developmental cusps, such as observing responses, and f) stimulus control for social learning.

Dr. Jessica Singer-Dudek is the Director of Transdisciplinary Programs in ABA at Columbia University Teachers College. She also serves as a Senior Behavior Analyst Consultant to schools implementing the Comprehensive Application of Behavior Analysis to Schooling (CABAS®) model, and serves as the CABAS® Professional Advisory Board Secretary/Treasurer. Dr. Dudek’s research interests include component analyses of successful behavior analytic models of education, teacher and supervisor training, verbally governed and verbally governing behaviors, establishment of early observing responses, verbal behavior development, conditioned reinforcement, and observational learning.

Classic models of signal detection assume that subjects set a criterion on a similarity dimension, calling all events below that S1 and all above S2. The criterion should be set at the point that maximizes the expected (long run) payoffs. This tutorial describes that model and the effect of discriminability (d’) on the ability to accurately position the criterion. It is shown that the forces driving the criterion toward optimal are too weak and complicated to ever work when discriminability is poor. How do subjects do it? They don’t: They deviate systematically from optimality. Why? What do they actually do? Will any model successfully predict their behavior? How is Gerd Gigerenzer relevant? These questions will be answered, and those answers questioned.

Peter received his doctorate in 1969 under the perplexed gazes of Howie Rachlin, Dick Herrnstein, and Fred Skinner. His first (and only) position was at Arizona State University (in the department Previously-Known-As Fort Skinner in the Desert). He has studied choice behavior and schedule-induced responses like polydipsia, reinforcement schedules, timing, and delay discounting. His reinforcers include the Poetry in Science Award; the APA Div. 25 Med Outstanding Researcher Award; the Hilgard Award for the Best Theoretical Paper on Hypnosis (!); the F. J. McGuigan Lecture on Understanding the Human Mind (!!); Presidents of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior, and the 3rd International Seminar on Behavior (SINCA). A year at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Oslo birthed a paper that received The Faculty of 1000’s “Must Read” for its behavioral energetics theory of ADHD. His statistic prep was an Emerging Research Front Feature on Thomson Reuters Sciencewatch. He has written oodles of screeds on Choice; his first, now receiving social security, showed that pigeons were indifferent between free food and schedules where they had to work for it https://goo.gl/E8gzSo; his last was a deep dive into the logistics of choice https://goo.gl/y9GjJG. What matters in his golden years is family and friends, the well-being of behavior analysis, and thinking deep thoughts. He is urging our field to turn some of their efforts to understanding the role of emotions in behavior, and bridging to the outer world through embodied cognition. About these you will hear more at the presidential address.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Conceptually, “choice” can be theoretically fraught for radical behaviorists because of its incompatibility with strict determinism. Pragmatically though, choice has been an important and popular topic in behavior analysis research and practice. Broadly defined, choice is consistently among the most popular topics at this conference and in behavioral journals. It has yielded some of the most significant conceptual and empirical advances in behavior analysis. From substance abuse to consumer activities to problem behavior, few areas of behavior analysis have escaped the influence of choice. Choice is a critical variable in mathematical elaborations on the matching law that serve as the foundation for quantitative models of behavior and client preference assessments alike. This panel follows six individual presentations about key concepts, cutting edge research, and contemporary thinking about choice in behavior analysis education, research, and practice. In this panel, three distinguished behavior analysts will reflect on the value of choice for behavior analysts and offer their thoughts about where the field might go in the future. The panel is also an opportunity for an interactive discussion with the audience about the future of choice in behavior analysis.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

Since the industrial revolution, we have witnessed a steady decline in the need for unskilled labor as the workplace has become progressively more automated. This continuing trend has led to a greater value for new types of workplace behaviors, particularly those that contribute to employee creativity and organizational innovation. As such, modern researchers and supervisors need to investigate strategies that promote such valued novelty at work. This talk will draw upon the lessons from the science of behavior to explore factors that managers can practically influence.

Generativity is the study of the conditions that produce novel responding in new circumstances, without directly programing them. This conceptualization has driven our Generative Instruction model of teaching and learning in educational settings. The thrust of Generative Instruction is to engineer discovery learning by arranging instruction of key component skills, facts, concepts and principles in such a way that students will engage more frequently in novel complex academic behavior without direct teaching, a process we call contingency adduction. We have discovered that complex behavioral repertoires emerge without explicit instruction when well-selected component repertoires are appropriately sequenced, carefully instructed, and well-rehearsed. In this presentation I will report our discoveries and investigations of generative responding in academic skill development as well as thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving development. The data that we will share have come from many classrooms across the United States, as well as an associated instructional design company. Our descriptive data show such consistent patterns that we want to share them with the wider behavioral community, in the hopes that other practitioners will join us in our inductive explorations, and that researchers will join us by conducting controlled studies of the contingency adduction in a variety of settings.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

There are no undebated definitions of “creativity” and any definition will reflect how this rich topic is treated. Nearly 20 years ago I discussed how behavior analysis might contribute—or not—to an understanding of creativity. I revisit this topic, expanding on some issues and reconsidering others. As before, I focus on scientific and mathematical accomplishments which tie closely to Weisberg’s placement of creative achievements in the domains of problem-posing and problem-solving. From the massive empirical, theoretical, and historical literature at least three essential and interlocking dimensions of significant creative achievements emerge: talent, expertise, and motivation. I emphasize “interlocking” because the productive expression of each of these elements depends on the others. The role of behavior analysis in these elements is modest, at best. It has nothing to say about talent—and even in some cases might deny its role altogether. As for expertise, with some notable exceptions, behavior analysis has had little to say about the acquisition of truly complex performances; this has been left to other fields. As for motivation, one must go well beyond naïve “pleasure and pain” accounts to more elusive, yet more powerful and pervasive behavior-consequence relations.

Creativity is goal-directed variation and selection. It is one tool in a problem-solving toolbox. If there are effective algorithms to solve problems, creativity is unnecessary and often counter-productive; few people want creative brain surgeons. The world however is unpredictable, and often algorithms, or learned habit patterns, or well-conditioned operant chains, fail. Then alternative routes to a goal must be found, and efficient production of and effective selection of alternative solution paths constitutes creativity. The pleasure in creative problem solving is so great for some individuals that they become artists, writing novels and composing music and painting scenes, where almost every move sets a problem, and ensuing ones solve it. Creativity itself can be created; there are both algorithms and heuristics that foster it. This talk will outline a number of those, embed them in a behavioral framework, and test your use of them with problems.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

In addition to being able to follow existing protocols, students of behavior analysis should also be able to design solutions based on the needs of their learner. However, this requires students to both understand basic principles and to have a particular set of skills and tools. This presentation will introduce you to a tabletop teaching game called PORTL (the Portable Operant Research and Teaching Lab). PORTL provides a versatile environment where students can learn how to engineer creative solutions in the context of both designing teaching programs and designing research experiments. Students are taught a series of component skills which later can be built on and recombined when designing novel solutions to problems. This presentation will describe the curriculum that we use to teach these skills. As well, it will feature video examples of student products illustrating both teaching programs and research experiments.

Jesús Rosales-Ruiz is an associate professor at the University of North Texas in the Department of Behavior Analysis. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1995, under the mentorship of two pioneers in the field of behavior analysis, Donald M. Baer and Ogden R. Lindsley. Jesús is one of the few scientists in the world studying animal training from both the theoretical and applied perspectives. He, along with his students, has greatly contributed to the understanding of the science and practice of animal training. Jesús also studies the antecedent control of behavior, generalization, behavioral cusps, fluency-based teaching, treatment of autism, teaching of academic behavior, rule-governed behavior and contingency-shaped behavior. He has served on several editorial boards, including the Journal of Precision Teaching, the European Journal of Behavior Analysis, and the International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy. He has also served as a reviewer for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, Behavioral Processes, and PLOS ONE. Jesús is a fellow of the Eastern Psychological Association, a trustee of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and a member of the Association for Behavior Analysis International.

Creativity can be defined in many ways, including the extent to which behavior occurs under certain circumstances, results in desirable outcomes, and perhaps varies along one or more dimension of behavior. In this talk, a brief overview of the operant and respondent components of creativity will be discussed, including antecedent conditions, variations and coordination of behavior, and temporal aspects of consequences. Examples will be provided from art, literature, and other realms to provide a context for the audience to make contact with the analyses from a behavioral lens.

Board certified behavior analysts; licensed psychologists; graduate students.

This panel features the six speakers from the "creativity" thematic sessions and will include a question and answer period with the audience.

A meeting of board members to discuss the annual convention program.

ABAI members who donated to the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis (SABA) in 2017 and 2018 are invited to a reception in honor of their contributions and commitment to the field. We are grateful for the generosity of those who support the activities of ABAI and SABA.