The Experimental Analysis of Behavior track of ABAI's annual meeting is 90% scheduled. Who's ready for San Diego?

My watchwords this year were 'minimize competition.' I grouped symposia thematically so as not to schedule talks that cover similar topics at the same time, limited the number of submissions scheduled opposite EAB invited speakers, and made sure at most one EAB event offers CEUs at any given time so they don't compete with each other. As much as possible, I also tried to restrict the events at 8am, noon and 6pm to avoid competing with meals. San Diego is shaping up to be a great conference and I'm excited to see what the other program areas have to offer!

Our local roo's joey is getting big.

On Tuesday, Daniel Bell-Garrison passed the oral defense of his thesis entitled Signaling changes in reinforcer ratios facilitates adaptive forgetting. Way to go, Daniel!

On Friday, Matt Eckard successfully proposed his thesis entitled Effects of Differential DRL Exposure on Interval Timing: Information vs. Inhibition. Congratulations, Matt!

Congratulations to Dr. Nathan Rice, 2016 recipient of the SEAB Basic Dissertation Award.

Nathan's dissertation, “Reinforcing Effects of Near Wins in Extinction and Concurrent-
Chains Procedures” was selected by a panel of experts for the award, which is given by Division 25 of the American Psychological Association.

In their latest episode, Robert and Joe of Stuff to Blow Your Mind explore the history and psychology of the one-armed bandit. They mentioned near wins and losses disguised as wins and some talk-aloud research published in the  Journal of Gambling Studies and the Journal of Psychology. They didn't talk about how rats and pigeons seem to be vulnerable to some of the same effects, but it reminded me of Stephanie and Nathan's podcast from Stimulus Control and Memory a while back!

Congratulations to Shrinidhi Subramaniam on passing her BCBA exam. Shrinidhi will be the first lab member to become a board-certified behavior analyst!