The Future of Behavior Analysis

Diary
Feb. 10, 2012: Behavior scientists observed locomotion in an operant lab! [1]
This is exciting; though their data and methods differ from what I had in mind.

Feb. 12, 2012: Shortlived excitement. They write as follows:

   The equivalence between lever-pressing and foraging may depend on similarities between the

    two; both involve paws and legs to gather food. Will operant behavior that is more dissimilar to

    the behavior involved in foraging show such equivalence?  For example, is a pigeon’s key –

    pecking equivalent to search, even though search involves legs and eyes, not a beak?  Other

    questions remain unanswered: Under what conditions might equivalence break down? - - - - -

    Further comparisons between behavior and foraging are needed to support the ecological

    validity of the operant analogue.[1]

They imagine foraging with body parts, not whole individuals going from A to B, B to C, C to A
- back and forth - and, depending on the type of itinerary, staying wherever they like.

Skinner is the only person who saw locomotion as a second dependent variable, monitored
as motion of all bodyparts; the limbs and the receptors in the head: tongue, nose, ears, eyes.
This is what he wrote:

                                                  A Definition of Behavior
    Behavior is what an organism is doing - or more accurately, what it is observed by another organism
as doing. --- It is only because the receptors of other organisms are the most sensitive parts of the outside
world that the appeal to an established interest in what an organism is doing is successful.
    By behavior, then, I mean simply the movement of an organism or of its parts in a frame of reference
provided by the organism itself or by various external objects or fields of force. [2]
 
I made cumulative records and was confronted by the reality of a sentient animal traveling
from key to key; or stationary for lever-pressing. Big questions begging for answers were:
What moves them from a distance? What is it that keeps them staying in a single location?
No way could I answer those questions except by combining behavior-analytic terminology
with mentalistic language, which brings thoughts and feelings into causal explanations.
Ever since I guessed how "Mrs Rat" felt and thought in a lab where locomotion is possible,
my belief is the future of behaviorism hinges on a combined functional analysis of this kind. 
That is Why I Am A Radical Behaviorist. In fact, most of my posts deal with What Is Right
in Behavior Analysis. Now I wish to report my respect for Alice Miller's psycho-analysisI
Please read my next blog, which I actually started a few days ago; a personal example of
what I mean by conceptual revision: finding words, phrases and sentences, to match what
is visible and audible, as you listen to parents and children, students and teachers, as well
as discovering how scientists and subjects interact and communicate.
    
________________________

[1] C. F. Aparicio and W. Baum (!997) Comparing locomotion with lever-press travel in an
     operant simulation of foraging. JEAB, 68, 177-192
[2] B.F. Skinner (1938) The Behavior of Organisms, page 6.