Liz Kyonka, Ph.D.

I study operant conditioning, temporal learning, and behavioral mechanisms of choice  and decision making. My students and I use human and nonhuman animal laboratory models of choice adaptation and temporal learning to discover how individuals reason and make decisions in our complex, unpredictably changing world. A better understanding of behavior adaptation can be used to develop strategies for facilitating rational or healthy choices in individuals.

My doctoral thesis (2009) was about the convergence of temporal learning and choice in concurrent chains and since completing it I have studied aspects of choice, timing and stimulus control in birds and mammals (including humans).

I am originally from Toronto, Canada, and have also lived in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. Currently, I am an Education Specialist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and an adjunct lecturer with the University of New England, Australia.

My research interests

My goals are to understand the laws that govern behaviour and to be able to apply them under both well-regulated and somewhat chaotic (i.e., naturalistic) circumstances.

Read about some of my work on interval timing, gambling, scientific behavior, or statistics, my Google Scholar profile here, or my ResearchGate profile here.

Teaching

University of New England

• PSYC 101, Introduction to Psychology
  
• PSYC 202, Research Methods and Statistics
  

West Virginia University

•  PSYC 202: Research Methods in Psychology
  
• PSYC 424: Learning and Behavior Theory
• BIOL 337/PSYC 426: Physiological Psychology
• PSYC 511: Research Design and Data Analysis I
• PSYC 531: Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• PSYC 731: Research Issues in Behavior Analysis
• PSYC 733: Stimulus Control and Memory
• PSYC 736: Advanced Experimental Analysis of Behavior 

Read about the courses I taught at WVU.

Service

Select recent service to psychology and behavior analysis

Conference boards and committees
President - Southeastern Association for Behavior Analysis, 2014-2015
Secretary - Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior, 2010-2014
Coordinator, Experimental Analysis of Behavior - Association for Behavior Analysis International Program Committee, 2015-2019

Editorial service for professional journals
Associate Editor
The Psychological Record, 2017-present
Journal of Gambling Issues, 2019-present
 
Guest Associate Editor
Behavioural Processes, 2019
 
Board Member
Analysis of Gambling Behavior, 2017-present
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2010-2012, 2018-2020
Perspectives on Behavior Science, 2018-2020