Latency‐based functional analysis in schools: Correspondence and differences across environments

Functional analyses were conducted for problem behavior of three girls with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Analyses conducted under analog conditions measured rate and latency. Latency‐based functional analyses were conducted in a classroom setting in multielement and reversal designs. Correspondence was identified between the standard functional analysis and the two latency analyses for one participant. Partial correspondence was found with the other two participants. These results are discussed in light of research on adaptions for functional analysis in classroom settings.     

Conceptual approaches and issues

The experimental analysis of behavior has lagged far behind mainstream psychology, particularly cognitive psychology, in the study of complex behavior—remembering, thinking, imaging, problem solving, and the like. Yet it is the study of these kinds of behavior that will provide the greatest justification of our continued existence in the community of behavioral scientists. Focusing primarily on remembering as a complex performance, aspects of (1) radical behaviorism, (2) the methodology of the experimental analysis of behavior, and (3) the special contributions of B. F. Skinner are assessed as explicitly or implicitly discouraging the experimental treatment of such complex behavior. Although there are encouraging signs of advancement into the present domains of cognitive psychology, future success of the experimental analysis of behavior in this endeavor will require aggressive pursuit by investigators and more effective training of their students.     

Intractable properties of responding under a fixed-interval schedule

The behavior engendered by the fixed-interval schedule is characterized by its variability within and across intervals. The present experiment was designed to assess further the magnitude of interval-to-interval dynamics and to explore conditions which might enhance control by response number for subsequent output. Pigeons were exposed to three experimental manipulations after responding had stabilized under a fixed-interval five-minute schedule. First, a discrete five-stimulus counter was added so that the key color changed after a fixed number of responses. Then additional grain presentations were made at the end of the interval so that high response output was differentially reinforced in the presence of the counter stimuli. Finally, the counter stimuli were presented as an irregular clock (i.e., independently of responding), but the durations were yoked to performance under the counter condition. The data show that response number can exert influence from one interval to the next, but this source of control is weak and not influenced by the experimental manipulations. Results from the clock arrangement indicate that behavior is controlled largely by the stimulus conditions prevailing at the time of interval onset.