Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 1 | 2009 | Number 1
Science Board Update
By Dr. Timothy Hackenberg
The Science Board was constituted in May 2008 to promote behavior science. Current members include Randy Grace, Greg Hanley, and Amy Odum, Tom Critchfield Greg Madden, and Ray Pitts.
The specific goals of the Science Board are organized into three broad categories: Research Support, Research Dissemination, and Scientific Education.
Research Support
One of the primary goals falling under research support is to work with other organizations to reduce burdensome research-related regulations. To that end, we established (thanks to Council approval and funding) a Task Force to study and make recommendations to the latest revision of the Guide to the Care and Use of Animals in Laboratory Research by the Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources (ILAR). The Task force was composed of Steve Dworkin (Chair), Marc Branch, Chris Newland, Karen Anderson, Ray Pitts, and myself. We met in Atlanta in late October 2008, just prior to the SEABA meeting, to discuss and draft a set of recommendations. Working in conjunction with several other groups, including AAALAC (the main accreditation organization in laboratory animal research), FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), and APS (American Physiological Society), we submitted our recommendations in January, 2009.
Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge
The Science Board established a special track on Translational Science for the 2009 ABAI Convention. The objective was to highlight cutting-edge translational research, providing generally accessible overviews of specific research domains that span the continuum from science to application. Sessions were organized on choice, behavioral economics, relational learning in instructional contexts, delay discounting, complex stimulus control and equivalence, and token reinforcement. The keynote event in this track was a pair of sessions, jointly sponsored by the Science and Practice Boards, on behavioral momentum (with presentations by Tony Nevin, Bud Mace, and Jennifer McComas) and stimulus control in autism (presentations by Bill McIlvane, Mark Sundberg, and Robert Koegel). The presenters from these two sessions have been invited to submit written versions of their talks for publication in The Behavior Analyst.
The Science Board has also been organizing a Science-based mini-conference series, patterned on the model of the annual Autism conference. The broad theme of the series is Behavioral Research and Translation, with a more specific focused theme for each conference. The first such conference is planned for March, 2011, in Chicago with a behavioral economics theme.
Scientific Education
The Science Board, in conjunction with the ABAI Student Committee and the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior (SQAB) organized a practicum on quantitative methods for the upcoming ABAI Convention (see attached Practicum on Quantitative Analysis). Led by Randy Grace, the purpose of the session was to provide hands-on instruction in exploratory data analysis and curve fitting. The session was held on the first evening of the convention, and attracted approximately 30 participants.
The Science Board also submitted a preliminary proposal to organize a summer research internship for students interested in pursuing careers in behavior science. This is still in the discussion and planning stage, with a tentative launch date of summer 2011.