The Pursuit of Experimental Analysis

I thank all of the commentators for the time they gave to reviewing the issues I raised in my 1981 discussion paper. Though some areas of disagreement remain, it is heartening to see a substantial level of support for some of the original arguments. It would be impractical for me to respond to each commentator separately. Along with various miscellaneous topics, their commentaries include a number of themes along several significant dimensions, such as the distinctions between experimental and quantitative analyses, between analysis and synthesis, between contingencies and contiguities, between selection and association as engines of behavior change, and especially between molar and molecular dimensions of behavior. Most likely I have left some concerns unanswered, and for that I apologize in advance. I close my review of the various issues by examining a contemporary example that involves contrasting implications of the generalized matching law and of simulations of the effects of delayed reinforcers. The example raises some questions about the respective advantages of top-down or molar versus bottom-up or molecular approaches to the analysis of behavior. A combination of experimental and quantitative analyses has the potential for resolving such questions. I am especially pleased that so many recognize that my argument was that experimental analyses and quantitative analyses should supplement each other and not that either should supplant the other. Perhaps my case would have been even better received if I had been able to approach Killeen’s and Sidman’s eloquence. Those who explicitly supported the argument include de Rose, Goyos & Escobal, Leslie, Schlinger, Vargas, and Zigurdardottir; Debert and Leigland did so by contrasting the 1981 paper with one of my more recent reviews (cf. Catania, 2008). Some treated my arguments mainly as they bear on relative rates and other derived measures (e.g., Fields, Pellon, Petursdottir). In the context of quantitative analysis, those measures were particularly appropriate, but I did not intend to exclude others. Even the shift from a baseline, as in behavioral contrast, is a relative measure, so the baseline criterion is relevant, but in fact any change qualifies because it is always a change from something else. Furthermore, the distinction between rate and resistance to change as orthogonal measures, in Nevin’s behavioral momentum (Petursdottir), was not as widely appreciated at the time (Nevin was not a participant at the Manchester conference). Schlinger, by the way, correctly assumes that I would not disagree with his quoted passage from Nevin. In operant analyses, the operant is defined at a level that produces orderly changes, and however difficult it may be to provide a formal definition of the orderliness of data, we usually know it when we see it (see also de Rose, Mechner). Others extended the arguments to a variety of different domains, such as equivalence classes (de Rose, DeSouza, Mellon), electrophysiology (DeSouza), natural foraging (Dickins), signal detection (Dickins), ADHD (Mechner), variability (Mellon), verbal behavior (Dickins, Palmer), and the The Pursuit of Experimental Analysis