Skinner's major goal in writing The BehaviorofOrganisms (1938) was to extend the rigor, simplicity, and lawfulness of the study of spinal reflexes (Crozier & Hoagland, 1934; Magnus, 1924; Sherrington, 1906) to the study of purposive behavior. As Skinner (1938) notes, "the older study of spinal reflexes and the modern study of behavior are logically and to a great extent historically continuous"...

Rooted in behavioral theory, particularly the radical or selectivist behaviorism of B.F. Skinner (1953, 1954, 1966, 1968, 1974), the direct instruction (DI) approach to teaching is now well into its third decade of influencing curriculum, instruction, and research. It is also in its third decade of controversy. Our purpose is to present the DI model with the notion that the designer can and sho...

The present study describes a task testing the ability of rats to trigger operant behavior by their relative spatial position to inaccessible rotating objects. Rats were placed in a Skinner box with a transparent front wall through which they could observe one or two adjacent objects fixed on a slowly rotating arena (d = 1 m) surrounded by an immobile black cylinder. The direction of arena rota...

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of The Behavior of Organisms (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion appears to have been a genuine eureka experience for ...

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is most commonly modelled in rats via injection of the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) into the medial forebrain bundle. Assessment of lateralised choice reaction time is usually conducted in the 9 hole box, a highly specialized apparatus that is not widely available in many behavioural laboratories. The retractable lever Skinner box on the other hand ...