FRED S. KELLER, UM REFORÇADOR CONDICIONADO GENERALIZADO

This tribute to Fred S. Keller describes how he dedicated his career to applying scientific knowledge about behavior to the improvement of education. In his later years he acknowledged his disappointment at the failure of his Personalized System of Instruction to be generally applied in universities and in school systems, and pointed out reasons why education has remained untouched by applications of the science of behavior. He realized that science must go beyond the study of individual behavior and must seek an understanding of behavior in whole cultures, adding to its many successful remedial techniques procedures that extend in scope to total populations.Key words: Fred Keller, Personalized System of Instruction, PSI, applications of the science of behavior, educationEste tributo a Fred S. Keller descreve como ele dedicou sua carreira a aplicar conhecimento científico sobre o comportamento para o avanço da educação. Em seus últimos anos ele externou seu desapontamento com o fracasso da aplicação de forma generalizada em universidades e no sistema escolar de seu Sistema Personalizado de Instrução, e apontou as razões porque a educação permaneceu intocada por aplicações da ciência do comportamento. Ele reconheceu que a ciência deve ir além do comportamento individual e deve procurar um entendimento do comportamento na cultura, acrescentando, a suas técnicas remediativas bem sucedidas, procedimentos que ampliem seu alcance a populações como um todo.Palavras-chave: Fred Keller, Sistema Personalizado de Instrução, PSI, aplicações da ciência do comportamento,educaçã

O IMPACTO DA CIÊNCIA NA APLICAÇÃO: RUA DE MÃO ÚNICA?

The relation between basic research and application is not a one-way street. As in every science, basic behavioral research is concerned with phenomena that are available to everyday observation. Everybody knows that people learn, that they remember, that symbols play important roles in our lives, that rewards and punishments influence what we do, that we interact socially, that we communicate through spoken and written words, and so on. These phenomena are as obvious to everybody as the rising and setting of the sun, the relation between clouds and rain, the dependence of life upon food, the fall of unsupported objects, and so on. Science does not accept the everyday descriptive language or the everyday techniques of observation that such phenomena have generated, but no science that ignores the phenomena and language of everyday life will keep on receiving public support. A science of behavior analysis must continue to derive its inspiration for basic research from phenomena that we observe outside the laboratory.Keywords: science, applied psychology, basic researchA relação entre pesquisa básica e aplicação não é uma rua de mão única. Como em toda ciência, a pesquisa comportamental básica está preocupada com fenômenos que são accessíveis à observação no dia a dia. Todo mundo sabe que as pessoas aprendem, que se lembram, que símbolos desempenham papeis importantes em suas vidas, que recompensas e punições influenciam o que fazem, que interagimos socialmente, que nos comunicamos por meio de palavras faladas e escritas, e assim por diante. Esses fenômenos são tão óbvios para todos como o nascer e o pôr do sol, a relação entre nuvens e chuva, a dependência da vida da alimentação, a queda de objetos não sustentados e assim por diante. A ciência não aceita a linguagem descritiva ou as técnicas de observação do dia a dia que esses fenômenos geraram, mas nenhuma ciência que ignora os fenômenos e a linguagem da vida quotidiana continuará recebendo apoio público. Uma ciência de análise do comportamento deve continuar a retirar sua inspiração, para a pesquisa básica, de fenômenos que observamos fora do laboratório.Palavras-chave: ciência, psicologia aplicada, pesquisa básic

A ANÁLISE DO COMPORTAMENTO HUMANO EM CONTEXTO*

Does the name of this special interest group, “The Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior,” imply that those who analyze the behavior of human animals must organize themselves apart from those who analyze the behavior of nonhuman animals? Is the use of nonhumans in experiments really not relevant to the analysis of the behavior of humans? If so, then something must have changed. Many differences exist, of course, between the behavior of humans and nonhumans – humans, for example, cannot fly under their own power — but have we really isolated differences in principle, differences that require separate organizations for the study of each? I will try to indicate why I believe this is a serious concern, where the concern comes from, and what, perhaps, might be done to maintain what was once a flourishing bidirectional relation between research with humans and nonhumans, in both basic and applied research. Key Words: human behavioral research, nonhuman behavioral research.Deve-se inferir do nome deste grupo de interesse especial, “A Análise do Comportamento Humano”, que aqueles que analisam o comportamento de animais humanos devem se constituir em um grupo separado dos que analisam o comportamento de animais não humanos? É o uso de não humanos em experimentos irrelevante para a análise do comportamento em humanos? Se assim é, alguma coisa deve ter mudado. Muitas diferenças existem, é claro, entre o comportamento de humanos e de não humanos – humanos, por exemplo, não podem voar por si sós – mas detectamos diferenças de princípios, diferenças essas que requeiram organizações separadas para seu estudo? Vou tentar mostrar porque acredito que essa é uma preocupação séria, de onde ela surge, e o que, talvez, possa ser feito para manter o que era, outrora, uma florescente relação bidirecional entre a pesquisa com humanos e com não humanos, tanto na pesquisa básica como  na pesquisa aplicada.Palavras-chave: pesquisa comportamental com humanos, pesquisa  comportamental com não-humanos.*Traduzido por Maria Silvia Ribeiro Todoro

Walk well:a randomised controlled trial of a walking intervention for adults with intellectual disabilities: study protocol

Background - Walking interventions have been shown to have a positive impact on physical activity (PA) levels, health and wellbeing for adult and older adult populations. There has been very little work carried out to explore the effectiveness of walking interventions for adults with intellectual disabilities. This paper will provide details of the Walk Well intervention, designed for adults with intellectual disabilities, and a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test its effectiveness. Methods/design - This study will adopt a RCT design, with participants allocated to the walking intervention group or a waiting list control group. The intervention consists of three PA consultations (baseline, six weeks and 12 weeks) and an individualised 12 week walking programme. A range of measures will be completed by participants at baseline, post intervention (three months from baseline) and at follow up (three months post intervention and six months from baseline). All outcome measures will be collected by a researcher who will be blinded to the study groups. The primary outcome will be steps walked per day, measured using accelerometers. Secondary outcome measures will include time spent in PA per day (across various intensity levels), time spent in sedentary behaviour per day, quality of life, self-efficacy and anthropometric measures to monitor weight change. Discussion - Since there are currently no published RCTs of walking interventions for adults with intellectual disabilities, this RCT will examine if a walking intervention can successfully increase PA, health and wellbeing of adults with intellectual disabilities

An adjusting avoidance schedule

A shock-avoidance schedule is described in which the animal accumulated 5 sec of safe time whenever it pressed a lever. With this schedule, the animal was not differentially reinforced for long pauses between responses; and, consistent with this property of the schedule, the probability that the animal would press the lever was not related in any regular way to the amount of time that had elapsed since its preceding lever press. Other features of the performance are also described. If the animal was given a warning stimulus whenever it came within 5 sec of a shock, it tended to spend more time in the close temporal vicinity of the shock and less time at the maximum temporal distance from shock

Classical Avoidance without a warning stimulus

White rats were scheduled to be shocked every 15 sec; but they were given a limited time interval between shocks when they could prevent the next scheduled shock from occurring if they pressed a lever. The duration of this limited avoidance period was varied, as was its location within the interval between scheduled shocks. Response rate, shock frequency, and the temporal distribution of lever presses were examined. Conditions were generated in which the formation of a temporal discrimination prevented the animals from maintaining successful avoidance behavior