Association for Behavior Analysis International

The study of music in behavior analytic accounts constitutes a poorly addressed area of application due to conceptual incongruities in the field and a general lack of common ground between the disciplines of music and behavior analysis. This paper will review various, sometimes conflicting attempts to translate music in terms of Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior and propose clarifications of verbal behavior constructs to account for the conceptual similarities and differences between musical and verbal behavior. The musical concepts of mimicry, relative pitch, and absolute pitch are discussed from the perspective of verbal behavior and implications of this view form a basis for recommendations concerning further study.

Several authors have stated the importance of the behavior of the critic with respect to the understanding of creativity, but had opposed the study of it given its elusive nature (Epstein, 1980; Marr, 2003; Carpio, 1999). From naturalistic psychology, Kantor (1982) argued that it is necessary to understand cultural behavior, including the behavior of the critic, in terms of the responses of the individual.. The purpose of this presentation is to show a naturalistic instrument developed to capture the behavior of the critic and how it can be used to understand the behavior of the critic in terms of the individual responses. To test this instrument, 30 participants from three different cultural groups (art, science and various trades) were asked to organize pictures according to how creative they considered them to be. Data was analyzed using the Q-method software showing individual differences as well as similarities within the participants. This instrument shows promise in furthering the understanding the behavior of the critic from a psychological perspective, complementing the promising research done with respect to the behavior of the creator.

Many non-vocal students communicate using voice output communication devices. However, there are few formal training procedures available for teaching students to engage in verbal behavior using these systems beyond basic mand training. Aided Language Stimulation is one often-recommended strategy from professionals in the fields of Speech-Language Pathology and Augmentative and Alternative Communication that has little evaluation within the behavior analytic literature. This strategy requires a communication partner to use visual symbols, paired with spoken words, to express his or her own verbal behavior in order to provide a symbol-based model to the student, just as vocal students receive incidental vocal models throughout the day. Proponents suggest that this procedure will promote increased comprehension and use of symbol vocabulary by device users. This paper will evaluate the available literature regarding this strategy and will provide a behavioral interpretation of the procedure. By interpreting this strategy through behavioral principles, we hope to show that experimental analysis of this strategy is warranted to determine its application to communication training for non-vocal students.