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Contingencies, Opportunities, Accidents and Miracles. A. Charles Catania NCABA, February 2014. First, let’s get the miracles out of the way. CHAOS THEORY. Darwin’s butterfly Now think of all the butterflies. ...and now on to some less outrageous improbabilities.
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Contingencies, Opportunities, Accidents and Miracles • A. Charles Catania • NCABA, February 2014
CHAOS THEORY • Darwin’s butterfly • Now think of all the butterflies....
Growing up in New York City • The corner 5 & 10-cent store • comics • science fiction
Growing up in New York City • The corner 5 & 10-cent store • comics • science fiction • Dianetics
Growing up in New York City • The New York Public Library • More science fiction • Science, philosophy, language
Growing up in New York City • Ethnic Neighborhoods • The NYC Hospital System • Harlem Hospital • Bronx Municipal Hospital Center and its psychiatric wards
Columbia College • Fred Keller’s Introductory course • 1st Semester: the rat lab • 2nd Semester: the human lab • Nat Schoenfeld’s courses in Experimental Psychology • 1st Semester: Discrimination • 2nd Semester: Motivation
Reinforcement • Reinforcing responses or reinforcing organisms?
Thinking Behaviorally • Circular reasoning in everyday accounts of the causes of behavior • Attitudes • The language of emotions and feelings • Hunger as a cause of behavior • Anger as a cause of behavior • Skinner’s pecking order demonstration
Columbia College • Senior Year • Fred Keller’s seminar on teaching • Keller, Schoenfeld and Hefferline’s seminar on verbal behavior • Teaching assistantship
ANTECEDENTS • BEHAVIOR • (WORDS) • CONSEQUENCES
Encounters with Skinner • NYC and Cambridge, MA • First encounter: The NYC Public Library • Columbia College and a Skinner colloquium at Barnard • Harvard and a third encounter
The Harvard Pigeon Lab • and not Teaching Machines
The Harvard Pigeon Lab • ...and the Psychoacoustics Lab • Smitty Stevens • Georg von Bekesy • visitors: Ratliff, Hartline, Land....
The Contemporary Significance of Psychophysics (Sensation and Perception) for Behavior Analysis • Examples: • DD and sensory deficits • hearing loss and recruitment • effects of high DB levels (especially in children) • intraocular events
The Harvard Pigeon Laband SK&F • Peter Dews and the Three Major Principles of Psychopharmacology • Enough of anything blocks anything • No drug has a single action • You can’t learn much without a dose-response curve
More about Venues • UMBC • The UMBC ABA MA • KKI and learning about extinction, reinforcement, and free reinforcers