Unit 1 Flashcards
Behavior analysis
A natural science that studies functional relations between behavior and environmental events
Two different areas of focus in behavior analysis
Science and technology
Behavior
everything an organism does
6 critical attributes of behavior
Behavior is a biological phenomenon, involves movement, can only be done by a living organism, observable, measurable, involves interaction with the environment.
Two tests to determine whether a phenomenon is behavior
“What am I doing?” and “Dead-persons test”
The what am I doing test
must be a specific action that is measurable
Dead-persons test
if a dead person can “do” it, it is not behavior
Public Behavior
Behavior that can be observed by others, even if special instrumentation is required
Private Behavior
Behavior that is only accessible to the organism who is engaging in the private event and cannot be observed by others
Private Events
A broader termfor private behavior that includes private behavior and private environmental events
Response
A specificinstance of behavior
Response cycle
The beginning, middle, and endof a response
Behavior is a collective term
Behavior refers to more than one occurrence of a specific behavior (multiple responses)
Property
A fundamental quality of a natural phenomenon
Fundamental propertiesof behavior
Temporal Locus, Temporal Extent, Repeatability
Temporal Locus
A single response occurs in time; associated with latency
Temporal Extent
A response occupies time; associated with duration
Repeatability
A response can reoccur; associated with countability
Dimensional quantities
A quantifiable aspect of a property
Latency
The amount of time between a stimulus and a response; associated with temporal locus
Duration
The amount of time between the beginning and the end of the response cycle; associated with temporal extent
Countability
The number of responses or number of cycles of the response class; associated with repeatability
IRT(Interresponse Time)
The time betweentwo successive responses; associated with repeatability and temporal locus
Rate
The ratio of the number of responses over some period of time; associated with repeatability and temporal locus
Celeration
Change in one of the other dimensional quantities of behavior over time; associated with repeatability and temporal locus
Topography
Configuration, form, or shape of a response
Function
The effects or results of a responseon the environment
Magnitude and Intensity
Topographical properties of a response class used to define behavior
Response class
A grouping of individual actions or responses that share those commonalities included in the class definition
Topographical Response Class
A collection of two or more responses that share a common form
Functional Response Class
A collection of twoormore topographically different responses that all have the same effect on the environment, usually producing a specific class ofreinforcers
Environment
The total constellation of stimuli and conditions thatcan affect behavior
Stimulus
A change in the environment, which can affect behavior
Types of Human receptors
Vision, hearing, smell, taste, cutaneous sense, organic sense, kinesthesis, vestibular sense
Stimulus class
A group of stimuli that share a certain characteristic (along formal, temporal, and/or functional dimensions)
Functional relation
Changes in an antecedent or consequent stimulus class consistently alter a dimension of a response class
4 critical attributes of functional relations
Orderly relations between stimulus andresponse classes, changes in one variable (IV) result in changes in the second variable (DV), value of the behavioral dimensions (DV) changes in an orderly fashion, functional relations demonstrated through systematic manipulations
