Experimental analysis of behavior

The experimental analysis of behavior (EAB) is school of thought in psychology founded on B. F. Skinner's philosophy of radical behaviorism and defines the basic principles used in applied behavior analysis (ABA). A central principle was the inductive, data-driven examination of functional relations, as opposed to the kinds of hypothetico-deductive learning theory that had grown up in the comparative psychology of the 1920–1950 period. Skinner's approach was characterized by empirical observation of measurable behavior which could be predicted and controlled. It owed its early success to the effectiveness of Skinner's procedures of operant conditioning, both in the laboratory and in behavior therapy.

In classical or respondent conditioning, a relatively neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus) comes to signal the occurrence of a biologically significant stimulus (unconditioned stimulus) such as food or pain. This typically done by repeatedly pairing the two stimuli, as in Pavlov's experiments with dogs, where a bell was followed by food. As a result, the conditioned stimulus yields a conditioned response that is usually similar to the unconditioned response elicited by unconditioned stimulus (e.g., salivation in Pavlov's dogs).

Operant conditioning (also, "instrumental conditioning") is a learning process in which behavior is sensitive to, or controlled by its consequences. For example, behavior that is followed by reward (reinforcement) becomes more probable, whereas behavior that is followed by punishment becomes less probable. Many variations and details of this process may be found in the main article.

The most commonly used tool in animal behavioral research is the operant conditioning chamber—also known as a Skinner Box. The chamber is an enclosure designed to hold a test animal (often a rodent, pigeon, or primate). The interior of the chamber contains some type of device that serves the role of discriminative stimuli, at least one mechanism to measure the subject's behavior as a rate of response—such as a lever or key-peck switch—and a mechanism for the delivery of consequences—such as a food pellet dispenser or a token reinforcer such as an LED light.

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