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BEYOND INFERENCE BY EYE
The way behavior analysts report quantitative information is changing (slowly)
In Beyond inference by eye: Statistical and graphing practices in JEAB, 1992-2017, we evaluated how behavior analysts use inferential statistics and graph data when publishing in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB). Authors are increasingly likely to report confidence intervals and p values. There is more variation in types of graphs published in JEAB today than in the previous century, and the proportion of JEAB graphs that represent variability graphically (e.g., with error bars) is also increasing.
Kyonka, Mitchell, & Bizo, 2019
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A NEW TAXONOMY
Selection by scientific consequences
In Selection by scientific consequences in the ecology of behavior analysis (Kyonka, May 2018), I argued that behavior analysts can and should apply ideas from other behavioral sciences, using behavioral ecology as an example, to our own work and our own professional behavior. For instance, the ease with which the audience discriminated at a glance figures published in JEAB from those published in JABA demonstrates the speciation of the experimental analysis of behavior forecast almost 30 years ago. Models of population dynamics generate predictions about the fate of each (sub)species of behavior analyst. A new taxonomy of behavior analysis research provides guidelines regarding where to publish. The ideal free distribution is a version of the matching law that could be used in strategic decision making about what to study.
Behavior analysts don’t have a monopoly on behavior principles. Ideas from ecology and other behavioral sciences can be applied our work and to our behavior in productive ways. If you are an educator, consider the population dynamics of your students. If you are a researcher wondering where to publish your work, consider the research subjects, setting, stimuli and target behavior. If you are trying to decide what your next experiment will be, go where the reinforcers are and your competition isn’t. But no matter what kind of behavior analyst you are, for the time being at least, we’re all in this together. |
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A NEW TAXONOMY
Translating behavior analysis: A spectrum rather than a road map
Behavior analysts have a tendency to label any research that is not pure basic experimental analysis of behavior or pure applied behavior analysis as translational. This is a mischaracterization of translation, which is actually the processes of making expedient practice out of good science and vice versa.
This mischaracterization creates confusion about what 'counts' as translational research, delaying publication of some results for reasons that are unrelated to the scientific merit of the work and perhaps discouraging intellectual and methodological diversity in behavior analysis journals. It's time to think differently about how we classify behavior analysis research. In the journal Perspectives on Behavior Science, we proposed a new taxonomy of behavior analysis with five tiers. It classifies empirical research based on whether the research subjects, target behavior, study stimuli and research setting are experimentally convenient or socially significant, applying a standard of substitutability to the distinction. Kyonka & Subramaniam, 2018
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