Association for Behavior Analysis International

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.