There appears to be a typo on p. 143, 2nd column, starting on the 3rd line. The phrase, "subject or" should be scratched out where it appears twice in that sentence. This sentence should say "...because it emphasizes that you're comparing the performance of one group of subjects during an experimental condition with the performance of one group of subjects during a control condition."
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Principles of Behavior: Ch. 07
I teach courses in the principles and applications of Behavior Analysis, the science and technology of behavior, which is different from other approaches in psychology in that it takes behavior as a subject matter in its own right, rather than as a tool for studying something else, such as the mind. The main purpose of this blog is to be a supplementary means of communication with students who are taking my courses.Each post is assigned to a particular topic (see the list of topics below). Most topics refer to a textbook chapter from Principles of Behavior (Richard Malott, 2008) or Applied Behavior Analysis (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007). Click a topic's title to see all the posts under that topic. To comment on a post, click on the "comments" link at the bottom of the post.
The dead man test was devised by Ogden Lindsley in 1965 as a rule of thumb for deciding if something is a behavior. The need for such a test stems from the importance of focusing on what an organism actually does when attempting to understand or modify its behavior. My students and I probably remind each other of the dead man test more than any other concept we study. Malott and Suarez (2003, p. 9) characterize the dead man test as follows:
If a dead man can do it, it ain't behavior, and if a dead man can't do it, then it is behavior.
Patrick S. Williams, PhD
University of Houston-Downtown
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