Analyzing behavior change

What are defining features and assumptions of behavior?

behavior is an individual phenomenon, dynamic and continuous, determined, and variability is extrinsic to the organism

What does it mean that behavior is an individual phenomenon?

groups of people don’t behave, individuals do

What does it mean that behavior is dynamic and continuous?

you are always behaving

What does it mean that behavior is determined?

universe is lawful and orderly, nothing happens at random

What does it mean that variability is extrinsic to the organism?

variability is an intrinsic characteristic of the organism

What are research questions?

questions the investigators want to answer

What are the four types of research questions?

demonstration, parametric, component, and comparative

What does demonstration mean in relation to research questions

how much will the behavior change

What does parametric mean in relation to research questions

does more or less of the intervention work better

What does component mean in relation to research questions

how effective is the intervention when various components are added or taken away

What does comparative mean in relation to research questions

comparing two or more interventions against each other to see which is more effective

What are single case designs?

experimental logic for detecting and analyzing functional relations between environmental variables and behavior change (each subject acts as its own control)

Is the behavior the independent or dependent variable?

dependent

Is the intervention the independent or dependent variable?

independent

What is experimental design?

seeks to discover the differential effect of a range of values of the IV

When is experimental control achieved?

when predictable change in behavior is reliably produced by a manipulation of some aspect of the environment

What is internal validity?

when an experiment convincingly shows that the changes in the DV are a function of the IV

What is external validity?

The degree to which a study’s results are generalizable to other subjects, settings and/or behaviors

What are confounding variables?

uncontrolled variable known or suspected to exert an influence on the IV

What is steady state responding?

a pattern of responding that exhibits relatively little variation in its measured dimensional quantities over a period of time

What are the three elements that steady state responding entails?

prediction, verification, and replication

What is steady state strategy?

obtaining a pattern of responding before moving to the next condition

Why do we take baseline data?

allows us to look at antecedents and the consequences and pick treatments that are going to affective

When are you not allowed to intervene on a behavior?

when the behavior is unsteady

What is prediction?

the projected results of presently unknown measurement

What are practice effects?

improvement in performance resulting from repeated opportunities to emit the behavior so that baseline measurements can be obtained

What is affirmation of the consequent?

inductive logic behavior analysists employ that is enabled by the predictive power of stead state responding (if A is true, then B is also true)

What is verification?

effectiveness of the IV is proven when the variable returns to baseline values AFTER the IV is removed

What is replication?

when you reintroduce the IV and the results are similar to previous outcomes in previous treatment conditions

Is verification seen in baseline or intervention?

baseline

Is replication seen in baseline or intervention?

intervention