Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-020-00269-5
ORIGINAL RESEARCH Open Access

On the “Strength” of Behavior

Carsta Simon 1 & João Lucas Bernardy 2 & Sarah Cowie 3

Accepted: 7 October 2020/ Published online: 10 November 2020

# The Author(s) 2020

Abstract
The place of the concept of response strength in a natural science of behavior has been
the subject of much debate. This article reconsiders the concept of response strength for
reasons linked to the foundations of a natural science of behavior. The notion of
response strength is implicit in many radical behaviorists’ work. Palmer (2009) makes
it explicit by applying the response strength concept to three levels: (1) overt behavior,
(2) covert behavior, and (3) latent or potential behavior. We argue that the concept of
response strength is superfluous in general, and an explication of the notion of giving
causal status to nonobservable events like latent behavior or response strength is
harmful to a scientific endeavor. Interpreting EEG recordings as indicators of changes
in response strength runs the risk of reducing behavior to underlying mechanisms,
regardless of whether such suggestions are accompanied by behavioral observations.
Many radical behaviorists understand behavior as a discrete unit, inviting conceptual
mistakes reflected in the notion of response strength. A molar view is suggested as an
alternative that accounts for the temporally extended nature of behavior and avoids the
perils of a response-strength based approach.

Keywords Responsestrength . Signposts . Strengthening byreinforcement . Discreteunits .

Response reservoir . Private events . Molar approach

The science of behavior focuses on functional relations among behavior and the
stimulating environment. As a natural science there is a focus on observable happen-
ings. Although this focus may seem simple enough at first glance, studying functional
relations among behavior and the stimulating environment involves a number of
nuanced complexities. One such complexity pertains to the alleged strength of a
behavior, whereby some behaviors are assumed to be strong (e.g., a loud vocalization,

* Carsta Simon
[email protected]

1
University of Agder, Postboks 422, 4604 Kristiansand, Norway
2
University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
3
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
678 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

a forceful jump, or highly efficient lever presses in the animal lab) and others weak
(e.g., briefly thinking about something, smiling slightly, speaking with uncertainty).
The notion that behavior might have strength is not new; behavior analysts have
discussed the topic of response strength for many years (de Villiers & Herrnstein,
1976; Herrnstein, 1961; Meehl, 1950; Nevin, 1974). Skinner (1938, p. 15) defines
response strength as encompassing all static properties of the response. Measures
proposed as indications of a response’s strength are the rate, latency, and resistance
to extinction (e.g., Killeen & Hall, 2001), as well as the response’s force, prepotency
over assumed competing responses, and related neural activity, such as that measured
by electroencephalographic (EEG) activity (e.g., Palmer, 2009). Skinner (1938, 1953,
1974) discussed strength in some of his most influential writings. The notion of
strength is today implicit in many behavior analytic theories (e.g., Nevin & Grace,
2000) and treatments (e.g., Cowdery, Iwata, & Pace, 1990). A hallmark of response-
strength–based accounts is that they treat behavior as discretized units.
The history of the currently omnipresent concept of strength began with the
Associationists or Connectionists, who thought of the strength of a bond between
one thought or movement and another (Timberlake, 1988). This origin shows itself
in Skinner’s (1948) superstition paper and his following work. When bond strength was
then tied to frequency, contiguity, and effect, strength seemed to have a referent in
observable features of the environment. Following Thorndike, Skinner started with
reflexes and S-R bond, but when he conceived of operant behavior in the absence of an
antecedent stimulus, response strength became troublesome. First, Skinner tried to
equate response strength with the number of responses made in extinction, but when
this proved an unreliable measure, he continued to write of response strength with no
clear referent. Since then, the field has made various attempts to rescue the concept of
strength (e.g., Nevin & Grace, 2000; Palmer, 2009; see Meehl, 1950; Postman, 1947;
Shahan, 2017, for detailed discussion) with relatively limited success (e.g., see Craig &
Shahan, 2016). Nevertheless, response-strength approaches to understanding behavior
remain at the heart of much theory and application.
In this article, in line with other recent commentary (e.g., Cowie, 2019; Cowie &
Davison, 2016; Killeen & Jacobs, 2017; Shahan, 2010, 2017; Simon, 2020), we argue
that the notion of response strength brings us no closer to understanding behavior from
a natural science perspective because it is unclear what response strength applies to, or
how it should be measured. Does response strength apply only to overt behavior? If so,
is response strength absolute frequency, relative frequency, resistance to disruption, or
stimulus control? If yelling is considered strong and whispering weak, what about
whispering to the person next to you for the entire duration of a lecture, versus yelling
out the answer to the lecturer’s question so others can hear you just once in the course
of your entire 4-year degree? Does the relative strength of these two responses reverse,
depending on the timescale on which they are measured? Does response strength also
apply to latent behavior? If so, does it apply to neurobiological or private events, and
what are these? The concept of response strength may generate questions, but its
ambiguity is a major barrier to providing definitive answers.
Indeed, behavior analysts’ struggle with response strength is highlighted by a recent
discussion of the topic by prominent researchers in behavior analysis (e.g., Killeen &
Jacobs, 2017; Shahan, 2017). The field is divided in its opinion on the place of response
strength in a science of behavior. On the one hand, behavior analysts have criticized the
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 679

notion of response strength (e.g., Baum, 2012; Bolles, 1975; Davison & Baum, 2006;
Longstreth, 1971; Rachlin, 1976; Shahan, 2010; Simon, 2020; Staddon, 1983, 2016;
Timberlake, 1988), largely as a result of its failure to predict or explain behavior. Other
behavior analysts regard strength as a necessary component. For example, Palmer
(2009) proposes that the notion of “response strength [does] more good than harm”
(p. 59). It is clear that there is need for discussion about the place of response strength in
a science of behavior.
Palmer (2009) suggests a way of overcoming the ambiguity considering both
measurement and definition of response strength. This conceptualization of response
strength attempts to account for control of behavior by multiple stimuli, and how
organisms handle time gaps between stimuli and responses. Palmer’s conceptualization
argues for response strength as a useful part of the explanation of behavior. Having
grown out of the discussion about limits to a simple conceptualization of response
strength, Palmer’s conceptualization is today likely to make explicit the mainstream
radical behavior analysts’ implicit views on response strength. Hence, in the following,
we discuss the perils of the concept of response strength per se, using Palmer’s
approach in particular because it is both one of the rare explications of implicit
mainstream views of response strength (Shahan, 2017) and an example of the adverse
consequences of adopting a response-strength–based approach. We first consider
Palmer’s conceptualization of strengthening by reinforcement in detail, and how it
might be used to bridge time gaps between explanatory variables by proposing
hypothetical latent events. The hazards of such an attempt are considered, including
why calling alleged latent events “behavioral” is not a workable resolution. Finally, we
consider a molar1 approach (Baum, 2013, 2016, 2018) as an alternative account of
behavior without response strength, and without the need to discretize behavior.

Palmer’s Conceptualization of Response Strength

Palmer (2009) suggests that an explanation of everyday behavior in complex environ-

ments requires the concept of response strength. He argues that the hypothetical
construct of response strength is useful in predicting future behavior, discussing the
status of absent behavior, and interpreting seemingly elementary cognitive phenomena
such as problem solving and recall. It is traditional to say a reinforcer strengthens a
response or stimulus–response connection when the reinforcer occurs contiguously
with a response (Skinner, 1948; Thorndike, 1911/2000 ). Changes in response strength
are thus assumed to occur as a consequence of a response being followed by a
reinforcer. As Timberlake (1988, p. 311) summarizes Skinner’s view:

learning consists of the strengthening of responding. . . . The strengthening

metaphor lived on in the focus on response-reward proximity and frequency. . .
. The influence of the strengthening assumption is nowhere clearer than in

1
In this article, we speak of Baum’s approach as a molar view. Following a suggestion from Hineline (2001),
Baum refers to this view as a molar multiscale view in his later writings. Because a discussion of the multiscale
aspects of the position would distract from our arguments, we simply use the terminology of Baum’s earlier
writings by calling it the molar view.
680 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

Skinner's (1948) analysis of superstitious behavior in the pigeon. In this proce-

dure pigeons were presented food periodically in a response independent fashion
(a fixed-time schedule), and some movement typically increased in rate. Skinner
attributed this result to reinforcement based on the assumption of differential
temporal contiguity between the food and the movement. In this use, reinforce-
ment was not related to any production operations, but was inferred solely from
an outcome and attributed to an unsubstantiated proximity relation between food
and an unspecified response candidate. This use of reinforcement seems uncom-
fortably similar to the invoking of mentalistic causes that Skinner himself argued
against so well.

In this contiguity-based approach, the response and an event that is assumed to function
as a reinforcer are observed, and because the response (given the presence of the
relevant discriminative stimuli) occurs more frequently in the future, we talk about a
larger response probability or response strength. This simple concept is difficult to
apply to situations where behavior comes under control of one or more stimuli that are
temporally distant from the behavior (e.g., Cowie, Davison, & Elliffe, 2017). Palmer
(2009) suggests expanding the application of the notion of response strength across
three “levels of behavior” (see Figure 1) to address various problems, including the
effect of the sequential onset of multiple stimuli on an organism’s behavior.
The first level consists of overt behavior, that is, behavior observed by an external
observer. The second level consists of covert behavior, that is, events inferred from an
introspector’s verbal behavior (e.g., “I’m thinking about going to the gym”). The third
level consists of latent behavior, that is, events which have not occurred whatsoever
(i.e., behavior that is not occurring either overtly [level 1] or covertly [level 2]). Note
that a change in response strength can occur on the third level without postulating that
the response has been or will ever be emitted (see Palmer, 2009, p. 53).

Fig. 1 Arrangement of palmer’s (2009) figures 1 and 2 showing the location of the bottleneck metaphor in the
domain of latent responses
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 681

Figure 1 shows a combination of Palmer’s (2009) Figures 1 and 2 in which the three
levels of behavior are depicted on the left. The proposed events on the third—latent—
behavioral level, in the gray box, are represented by his bottleneck metaphor on the
right. Circles on the bottom of the flask represent responses in an organism’s
behavioral repertoire. This repertoire has strong parallels to the idea of an
operant reserve, replacing the original idea of a reflex reserve (cf. Catania,
2005, 2017; Killeen, 1988; Timberlake, 1988; Skinner, 1940). Responses in the
repertoire are neither necessarily observed, nor emitted; they are only potential
behavior. If, owing to a history of exposure to contingencies of reinforcement,
an organism’s response has come under control of various independent vari-
ables, it becomes part of that organism’s repertoire. Palmer postulates a latent
competition of responses in the repertoire, the winner of which raises from the
latent behavior level to the overt or covert level, and is, thus, the emitted
response. The y-axis shows response strength, increasing from latent to covert
to overt responses and corresponding to response probability on the latent level.
Note that overt responses are not claimed to necessarily have a higher response
strength than covert or latent responses, as the arrangement in the figure might
imply. Whether or not a response with a certain strength is emitted depends
rather on the strength of the competing latent responses. The y-axis is not
supposed to imply that all responses are necessarily first latent and then covert
before becoming overt (Palmer, personal communication, July 2, 2016).
With growing response strength responses move to the emission threshold. When a
response is suddenly emitted, Palmer (2009) “believe[s] that the reason is that in many
contexts, the relevant responses already exist just below threshold strength. A small
increase in strength is sufficient for the response to be emitted” (p. 57). One-trial
learning may be explained as a result of this same process.
Palmer (2009) endorses and elaborates on the need for the concept of
response strength by suggesting that the concept has both practical value (i.e.,
in the prediction of behavior) and interpretative value (i.e., conceptualizing
behavior that is not observed). To Palmer, a response can have “a much higher
strength even though, in a sense, the response does not yet exist” (p. 50).
Behavior that is private or not yet observed is the source of much debate and

Fig. 2 A snapshot that is not enough to be sure what the rat is doing
682 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

controversy in behavior analysis. Indeed, although including such behavior

seems to broaden the scope of our interpretive efforts, at the same time it
threatens the fundamental assumption that behavior is amenable to confrontation
in the world of nature. If we assume a cause of behavior to be unobservable or
private by definition, we fall into a circularity. The only alternative for radical
behaviorists is to state that privacy is a practical problem, and “private events”
may be observed as soon as proper equipment is developed (Baum, 2011a). If
there were a machine that could print one’s thoughts after measuring physio-
logical activity, how could we assess the correspondence between the physio-
logical measure and the “private behavior” printed on the paper? If the partic-
ipant denied that they were thinking what the machine said they were, how
could we decide if the participant was lying? (see Baum, 2011a, for a
discussion). Assuming such a machine is possible implies neural identity
theory, that states that specific behavioral topographies are reliably related to
patterns of brain activity (see Rachlin, 2012, 2014; Skinner, 1938).
Arguments for and against including private behavior in a science of behavior have
been well-articulated over the years (e.g., Baum, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Hayes &
Fryling, 2009; Marr, 2011a, 2011b; Moore, 2009; Palmer, 2011; Rachlin, 2011), and
we do not intend to revisit them in detail. Rather, our goal is to address the concept of
response strength, where it results from a readiness to include private events in the
analysis of behavior.

Applying Response Strength to Account for Behavioral Phenomena

To Palmer (2009) the concept of response strength is, for example, useful for
explaining the notion of multiple control as exemplified by the sequential
occurrence of two stimuli leading to a different or faster occurring response
than the presentation of one of the stimuli alone. Priming studies, for instance,
show faster reactions to “robin” when the word “bird” was shown before. In
word association games, the answer “Darwin” might not be given when hearing
“famous male” alone but might occur when also hearing “natural selection.”
Thus, reading “bird” changes the response strength of “robin,” and reading
“famous male” and “natural selection” both have cumulative effects on the
response strength of “Darwin.”
The response strength notion applied to latent “behavior” allows the time gap
between stimulus and response occurrence to be bridged, maintaining the
assumption of momentary behavior change resulting from contiguous reinforce-
ment. If one is told in the morning to meet at the corner restaurant at 6 PM, the
stimulus in the morning is said to change the response strength of the (still)
latent response of going to the restaurant. Checking my watch at 5:45 PM
provides an additional stimulus, which increases the response strength of the
latent response of going to the restaurant until it becomes overt (Palmer,
personal communication, June 13, 2016). This example suggests that response
strength changes, especially when warranted by neurobiological events, repre-
sent a hypothesis about a mechanism at work in the organism, bridging the
time elapsing between stimulus presentation and response emission.
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 683

The Trouble with Palmer’s Conceptualization

The Ontology of Response Strength: A Hypothetical Construct or an Intervening

Variable?

Palmer (2009) explicitly calls response strength a hypothetical construct.

MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948) have pointed to the importance of distinguishing
“hypothetical constructs” from “intervening variables.” Failure to do so often leads to
fundamental confusions. The two notions have been distinguished in many ways (e.g.,
Moore, 1995; Turner, 1965; Zuriff, 1985). For the present purpose, we adopt the
distinction suggested by MacCorquodale and Meehl, which regards intervening vari-
ables as exhaustively defined, having no surplus meaning beyond the observations
from which they are derived. Hypothetical constructs, in contrast, label possibly
existing, hitherto unobserved entities or processes. They are not reducible to observed
phenomena, in the sense that they carry surplus meaning beyond the observed events
from which they are derived. As a reviewer of this manuscript noted, response strength
might not satisfy the definition of a hypothetical construct when it is used as a
descriptor of behavior, but response strength is often elevated in status from descriptor
to explanation. Further, “response strength” as a descriptor has no apparent advantage
over “probability” or “rate.”
Not all characteristics Palmer (2009) assigns to the notion of response strength point
to a hypothetical construct. This ambiguity weakens what might be the closest things to
a disambiguation of the concept of response strength adopted implicitly by most radical
behaviorists. It leaves both the ontological status of the concept and the functional role
“response strength” is supposed to hold in our explanations (Killeen & Hall, 2001)
unclear. Is response strength something that we may eventually observe, such as the
planet Neptune, which Adams and Leverrier (independently of each other) suggested to
exist in an attempt to explain why the orbit of Uranus differed from what Newton
predicted? Or is it something that we should not look for anywhere else but in an
equation of other overt variables, such as the concept of resistance in electricity (i.e.,
“when we say that the resistance of a wire is such-and-such, we mean that so-and-so
volts will give a current of so-and-so amperes"; MacCorquodale & Meehl, 1948, p. 2)?
In line with labeling response strength a hypothetical construct, Palmer (2009)
regards rate, latency, force, resistance to extinction, prepotency over assumed compet-
ing responses, and EEG data as “indications” or “measurements” of the underlying
factor of response strength. Reminiscent of, for example, personality or intelligence
“measurements” in cognitive psychology, this “measurement” of a common hidden
entity—not reducible to the measurements—supports the interpretation of surplus
meaning.
Palmer (2009) writes that “It is important to note that response strength is a
reflection of the status of the variables that control behavior and should not be viewed
as a property of the response as an independent entity” (p. 59; emphasis added). If
response strength is exclusively a function of the variables that control behavior, no
surplus meaning is involved and no predictions of behavior based on anything but the
observed controlling variables can be made. This resembles MacCorquodale and
Meehl’s (1948) definition of intervening variables rather than hypothetical constructs.
Then again, Palmer also states on the same page:
684 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

It is true that sometimes such responses might be controlled entirely by the

independent variables of which the putative behavior is a function, but in some
cases it appears that they are controlled more directly by a property of behavior
that remains below the threshold of emission. (p. 59; emphasis added)

This statement suggests that a per definition nonobservable response can contribute to
the control of overt behavior, which is problematic in a scientific endeavor aiming to
identify lawful relations between behavior and environmental factors. Palmer (2009)
also asserts that “there is presumably an important difference between a response that is
emitted and one that is not, regardless of their absolute levels of strength. Presumably
emitted responses have effects that can serve as controlling variables for subsequent
events” (p. 51; emphasis added). If latent events do not control subsequent events, the
question arises as to what function they do serve in our analysis.
To be sure, neither hypothetical constructs nor intervening variables are in general
problematic to explanations of behavior if used in a way that is logically consistent;
however, there should be no ambiguity about ontological assumptions of the response
strength concept. As Palmer (2009) is careful to point out:

Like all hypothetical constructs, a concept of response strength may invite

reification and subsequent circular reasoning [and . . . he] would be more
reluctant to invoke it if [he] were not persuaded that there are unifying physical
instantiations of response strength that do indeed play a role in the control of
behavior. (p. 59)

The danger of reification lies in reliance on explanatory fictions (Skinner, 1974) as

causes of behavior. Explanatory fictions are characterized by circular reasoning occur-
ring when the existence of an underlying factor is derived from an observation, which is
then ascribed to that underlying factor. Curiosity tends to rest, and the actual functional
relation between environmental variables and an organism’s behavior remains obscure
(Baum, 2017).
Ranging from priming effects to problem-solving behavior, Palmer (2009) gives
plenty of examples of behavioral change in which response strength change could be
used as an explanatory factor. He also argues that changes in response strength of latent
behavior may sometimes be “tacted” by “tip-of-the tongue”-phenomena. None of the
examples includes a clarification of the reinforcement contingencies, and thus the
relation between environmental factors and behavior remains unclear. The lack of the
remaining parts of the explanatory chains in the examples given illustrates one of the
risks one runs when including response strength as a part of an explanatory chain, even
if not intending to regard response strength as the behavior initiating factor.

Neurobiological Activity as Response Strength

Palmer (2009) explicitly states that “physical instantiations of response strength that do
indeed play a role in the control of behavior” (p. 59) persuade him of the importance of
response strength. He suggests changes in the N400 component of EEG recordings
(e.g., Barnes-Holmes et al., 2005; Haimson, Wilkinson, Rosenquist, Ouimet, &
McIlvane, 2009), which occur when words are repeatedly presented together, are
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 685

instantiations of response strength. A neural change following a presentation of a

discriminative stimulus in the absence of overt behavioral change may be interesting
from a neurobiological standpoint. Yet it remains unclear how amplitudes of N400
waves support the proposed process of latent response competition, the winner of
which increases in response strength until becoming observable. That is, brain activity
does nothing above what behavior would do to make latent response competition
measurable. Of course, to move, muscles require signals from the nervous system.
Nevertheless, as Skinner (1953) pointed out, the immediate efficient cause of behavior
is not inevitably the controlling cause. Trying to control behavior by eliciting one rather
than another amplitude of the neural waveform occurring about 400 ms after the
stimulus onset, is like trying to control a car by reaching inside and pulling the piston
instead of moving the steering wheel, the accelerator, or the brakes (Rachlin, 2015). As
the movements of the car are controlled at the border between the car and the
environment (in this case the driver), behavior is controlled by manipulation of
contingencies acting—if anywhere—at the border between the organism and the
environment. The N400 is but one of many components of brain activity elicited in
this case. If a series of stimuli lawfully precede a behavior change only when they are
presented together, it appears trivial from a behavioral point of view that each stimulus
changes some organismic variable. None of this is to say that the relation between brain
and overt behavior is not important, but one must not forget that both brain and
behavior require environmental inputs.
It would be risky to call the changes in N400 waves changes in covert responses or
response strength for at least two reasons. First, the amplitude of the N400 varies with
changes in how likely a stimulus is to occur in the context of the preceding stimuli (for
a review, see Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). Although this does not preclude the N400
from indexing the strength of a covert response, the N400 might equally well index
control by an extended pattern of environmental events in the absence of any change in
strength. Indeed, brain activity that follows the delivery of a reinforcer for overt
behavior also tends to be similarly influenced by the context in which those reinforcers
occur—that is, by the sequence of events that typically unfolded in the organism’s
learning history. The amplitude of various EEG frequencies is sensitive to contingency
in a way that is not readily understandable as changes in response strength (McGill,
Buckley, Elliffe, & Corballis, 2017). For example, McGill et al. (2017) showed that the
same reinforcers evoke different amplitudes of activity depending on whether they
occur in a context that also contains noncontingent reinforcers or one that also contains
neutral stimuli. At an even more basic level, dopamine neurons involved in reinforce-
ment learning (see Schultz, Dayan, & Montague, 1997) respond more to reinforcers
that are unexpected in the context of recent experience than to those that are expected
(e.g., Bayer & Glimcher, 2005; Hollerman & Schultz, 1998; Mirenowicz & Schultz,
1994; Schultz et al., 1997). At many levels of analysis, the brain activity that corre-
sponds with measurable reinforcer-related changes in behavior is not easily (or useful-
ly) explained as changes in response strength.
Second, referring to brain activity as a change in response strength is risky because
the functional concept of the operant is not shared with any particular electrophysio-
logical concept. One can readily conceive of behavioral regularities to which no
physiological regularity corresponds and vice versa. If changes in the N400 waves
corresponded to response strength changes, who would be doing the responding? The
686 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

brain is not responding; it carries out the subbehavioral activity that makes the more
molar concept of behavior possible. To be sure, there is empirical evidence that
behavior–environment interactions select activities measured by EEG (e.g., Miltner,
Larbig, & Braun, 1986; Sommer & Schweinberger, 1992), therefore perhaps EEG
activity could be satisfactorily treated as behavior. Nevertheless, EEG activity would
need to be activity of the whole organism, in the sense that such behavior is not
explained by other activities of or in the same organism and are instead part of
behavior–environment interactions. This is a theoretical premise that constrains the
concept of behavior: behavior is what the whole organism does, not what the brain does
using the whole organism (Bennett & Hacker, 2003). Furthermore, even if one is
interested in efficient causes of behavior, causation is not unidirectional from brain to
behavior but interactive from behavior-to-brain and the other way around (Schaal,
2003).
Even if we consider brain activity as behavior in the same sense as a lever press or
key peck, the brain’s behavior appears not to give any more insight into response
strength than nonbrain behavior. That is, regardless of one’s perspective on whether the
activity of the brain is behavior of the whole organism, to regard brain activity as an
indicator of response strength neither resolves the problem of observing latent response
competition nor the problems caused by the ambiguous use of the term “response
strength.”
We can be sure that the probability of a response’s emission has a physiological
correlate at any moment we may measure it, and with sufficient instrumentation, we
might at some point continuously identify neurobiological changes correlating with
changes in discriminative stimuli. However, hypothetical constructs serve to aggregate
correlated variables according to an underlying concept to reduce the dimensionality of
the data. It might be questionable whether a response’s rate, latency, force, resistance to
extinction, prepotency over assumed competing responses, and associated EEG data
should all be aggregated under an underlying concept of response strength. Rather, it
appears to be an empirical question to what extent rate, latency, force, and resistance to
extinction can be predicted by EEG images. Neurobiological patterns should be treated
as intervening variables with no surplus meaning.
Palmer’s bottleneck metaphor, illustrated in the lower right-hand corner of Figure 1,
suggests a competition of latent responses. This competition appears to result from a
conflation of ultimate and proximate explanations, in the sense that a mechanism,
which can at best explain how behavior comes about, is described in a behavior-
analytic vocabulary developed to answer the question why behavior occurs. Neuro-
physiology might outline the mechanisms someday, but will not be helped by hypo-
thetical neural mechanisms, running the risk of instantiation. Instead, identification of
electrophysiological mechanisms will require the study of function to know what such
mechanisms are trying to explain. After all, how does one know there are semantic
priming effects which correlate with distinctive N400 wave forms? The priming effect
is determined by the participant’s overt response to the overt stimuli.
It is evident that a behavioral scientist attempting to support the usefulness of the
concept of response strength by references to brain activity, as Palmer (2009) does,
would not go as far as suggesting that behavior does not constitute or contribute in any
way to what it means to have a mind (e.g., as Barrett, 2016, understands Berns, Brooks,
& Spivak, 2012). Neither would a behavior analyst subscribe to mind–body dualism or
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 687

claim that a scan of a motionless dog’s brain is more informative about the nature of its
mind than any aspect of its world that involves physical activity (Berns et al., 2012).
Nevertheless, Palmer’s (2009) argument that considering response strength as a
neurobiological phenomenon is necessary to explain complex human behavior such
as problem solving implies that the brain is what matters, and what we need to
speculate about, because it takes inputs, processes information, and computes outputs.
Too much focus on brain activity as an explanation of behavior could suggest that
problems are solved by the brain. However, problem solving requires the behaving
body, including a brain, and the environmental structures that we use to augment,
enhance, and support whatever internal processes operate to help getting us through the
day. After all, beavers build dams (Kemp, Worthington, Langford, Tree, & Gaywood,
2012) and tuna can swim faster than their own physical capacities allow because they
find natural water currents and then use their tails to generate vortices (Triantafyllou &
Triantafyllou, 1995). We use post-its and computer files and we put the keys where we
cannot overlook them when we leave the house. Our habits arrange the environment to
simplifying what would otherwise be demanding tasks (Barrett, 2016; Kirsh, 1995). If
we do not want to limit ourselves to identifying physiological mechanisms, an impor-
tant part of what makes us perform the way we do may thus be found outside our heads,
rather than within them. The alternative selectionist approach suggested below does
not, as Mace (1977) formulates it, attempt to clarify “what’s inside your head, but what
your head’s inside of” (the title of Mace 1977).
A clear distinction between mechanism and function might help to understand our
argument. If a change in response strength is treated as a link in a chain of events, it is at
best a description or umbrella term for the effect of preceding events. Thus, response
strength is synonymous with response probability. If so, it is unnecessary to conjecture
of changes of strength on a level of “latent behavior.” Even when changes in neuro-
biological activity were not used as indicators of response strength (leaving room for
speculations of what other surplus meaning this notion might have) but were instead
identified with response strength, one would still have to explain why such changes in
neurobiological activity occur. Pointing to the physiological mechanisms at work
between the presentation of two sequential stimuli and a response might at best shed
light on an aspect of the question how the response is produced. The answer to why
those two stimuli have an additive effect on behavior can only be found in phylogenetic
and ontogenetic selection processes. Palmer (2009) mentions latent response competi-
tion as one of the indicators of response strength. It is unclear to what the metaphor of
the bottleneck, in which the responses of a repertoire compete, translates. Do latent
responses reside somewhere when not being emitted, and what causal factor—if not
their response strength—makes for the emission of some but not of others?
From an evolutionary perspective, the process by which behavior becomes more
likely to occur (i.e., operant selection), may be assumed to be naturally selected
(Skinner, 1981; Simon & Hessen, 2019). In general, both natural and operant selection
function to enhance an organism’s fitness. It seems reasonable to assume that rein-
forcers are effective due to their consequences on an organism’s fitness (Baum, 2012).
Because the organism’s contact with its environment consists of its overt behavior,
selection acts on, or at least through, overt behavior. Thus, potential changes in covert
or latent behavior need to result from the overt behavior–environment interaction.
Indeed, in Palmer’s (2009) paradigm, latent behavior arises from the reinforcement
688 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

of overt behavior. As a matter of course, behavior changes go along with neurobio-

logical activity, but terming this activity “behavior” only invites confusion. Sometimes
a discriminative stimulus is presented and overt behavior does not occur. In Palmer’s
view (personal communication July 2, 2016), there is a momentary behavioral differ-
ence between the presentation of a neutral stimulus and the presentation of a discrim-
inative stimulus, even if no change in overt behavior is observable. In our view, the
discriminative stimulus may or may not induce a certain change in neurobiological
activity; to speak of behavioral change, the stimulus must change extended overt
behavior, either immediately or after some delay. To identify the relation between a
neurobiological activity pattern and overt behavior requires an identification of overt
behavior in the first place.

An Alternative

Response strength as an explanation of behavior, as exemplified by Palmer’s (2009)

conceptualization, has led to more problems than benefits for a science of behavior.
Response strength cannot be measured directly; depending on how the term is used,
response strength as an explanation is either a hypothetical or intervening variable. If
used simply as a description that equates to probability, rate, or some other measure of
behavior, it is superfluous and invites conceptual confusion. Two problems arise: first,
response-strength–based explanations like Palmer’s tend toward the unobservable—in
Palmer’s case, competition among latent responses to leave a bottleneck. Second, a
reliance on response strength pushes explanations toward physiological events, poten-
tially distracting the field’s focus on understanding the relation between behavioral
outputs and environmental inputs. We consider here whether an approach that is not
based on response strength can overcome these weaknesses associated with a response-
strength account of behavior.
Reliance on response strength stems largely from a conceptualization of behavior as
a series of discrete events. The approach we consider here—the molar approach (Baum,
2012; Baum, 2015; Baum & Davison, 2014; Hineline, 2001, 2011; Rachlin, 1999,
2000, 2003, 2007; Simon, 2020)—differs from Palmer’s (2009) because 1) it does not
invoke any notion of response strength; and 2) it views behavior as extended activities
in time, rather than as discrete units. The molar approach regards operant selection as
resulting from a competition between activities for an organism’s time (Baum, 2015).
The total time that an organism can spend behaving is limited. An organism’s activities
correlate differently with adaptively relevant events (Baum, 2012). Thus, contingencies
between those activities and adaptively important events determine how much of an
organism’s time each activity takes up. There is no need for hypothetical constructs or
intervening variables.
As reflected in Skinner’s (1969) concept of stimulus control, molar approaches
emphasize that subsequent behavior is not merely determined by its consequences
but also by the stimulus context. The stimulus properties of reinforcers function as
signposts, guiding or inducing behavior (e.g., Baum, 2012; Baum & Davison, 2014;
Cowie & Davison, 2016; Shahan, 2010). It is important to note that the molar approach
does not invoke any notion of response strength—hence we consider it here as an
alternative to Palmer’s approach. The molar approach builds on less unfalsifiable
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 689

assumptions and is therefore more parsimonious than the problematic notion of

strengthening discussed above. As particle physics provides little information about
responses on fixed ratio schedules, the molar approach acknowledges that processes at
higher levels of integration may act as units differently from the lower-level processes
of which they are composed (Schaal, 2003). Here, we first explore the potential merit in
viewing behavior as a temporally extended occurrence, and then we assess whether the
molar approach overcomes the problems associated with a response-strength account—
namely, the temptation to focus on the unobservable (latent bottlenecks) and/or phys-
iological events (EEG instantiations of response strength) as the explanation for
behavior.

The Trouble with Discretizing Behavior

Hypothetical constructs like response strength appear necessary to an explanation of

behavior in part because of a focus on behavior as a discrete event. We would typically
treat a blink of the eye or a gunshot as discrete events, that is, events whose duration is
regarded as insignificant compared to the time passing between those events. Most
often, unobserved variables are included to bridge the ostensive time gaps between
those events and are conjectured to map on physiological characteristics, frequently
located in the brain. The concept of strength was necessary to bridge the gap between
discrete responses and the measure actually studied—response rate. With the under-
standing that behavior is necessarily temporally extended, the need for a concept like
strength disappears, along with all its problematic properties. There is no need to talk
about strengthening of extended activities: they just increase and decrease (Baum,
personal communication, June 12, 2019).
In Palmer’s example mentioned above, for instance, where one is told in the
morning to meet at a restaurant at 6 PM, the concept of response strength is used to
explain why the stimulus in the morning changes the response strength of the (still)
latent response of going to the restaurant. The additional stimuli provided by checking
my watch at 5:45 PM increase the response strength of the latent response of going to
the restaurant until it becomes overt. This example suggests that response strength
changes, especially when warranted by neurobiological events, bridges the time elaps-
ing between stimulus presentation and response emission via a mechanism at work
inside the organism. One might question whether a response-strength change following
the first stimulus is a satisfactory explanation for why I check my watch at the right
time (5:45 PM). Instead of turning to hypothetical events inside the organism, one might
consider that in the course of our ontogeny, behavior has been selected to discriminate
between different periods of time, and most of us have learned to place in our
environment reminding stimuli that will lead to the appropriate response. Without the
habit of checking our calendars or watches, many of us forget appointments or
birthdays. If we have acquired the habit of placing stimuli appropriately, the likelihood
of the response increases. In our upbringing, our behavior has contacted both social and
nonsocial reinforcers and punishers contingent on placing reminding stimuli where and
when we will need them. The concept of response strength would add nothing but
confusion to such an explanation. How we acquired the habit in our history cannot be
tested for ethical reasons, but hypotheses about per definition latent behavior cannot be
tested in principle, because a measurement would make the behavior public.
690 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

Neurobiological changes might be measured, but there is no need to relate them to the
ambiguous concept of response strength.
No researcher denies that all behavior takes time, but few use apparatuses that allow
for measurements of variables with temporal extension. Throughout their history
behavior analysists have used key pecks and lever presses, which discretize rats’ and
pigeons’ continuous flow of behavior into countable events forming the basis of
response rates. Had Skinner focused more on wheel running then pecking disks and
pressing levers to which microswitches where attached, a different tradition might have
developed. Sometimes a research question might be answered most straightforwardly
by an analysis of a response rate consisting of counts; however, all interaction between
an organism’s behavior and the environment—may it be the behavior of the
researcher—is based on temporally extended behavior because if we were to regard
behavior as momentary, an epistemological problem would arise. An example taken
from Baum (2002) illustrates this problem. Looking at our snapshot depicted in
Figure 2, can we tell what the rat is doing? Is it exploring? Is it sniffing the wall? Is
it pressing the lever? Is it doing all or none of those activities? If this capture is to be the
only controlling stimulus occasioning an observer’s verbal response, we will find the
observer to be unsure about what the rat is doing. If, however, more of an animated
sequence of which Figure 2 only is a part, is watched, certainty about the rat’s activity
will increase. If we see what the rat did before and what it will do next, our verbal
behavior will come under the control of those temporally extended stimuli. We do not
know if someone sitting in a room with music playing is listening, or deaf and
daydreaming, unless we observe them long enough to see if they, for example, start
moving according to the music’s rhythm, or if their behavior remains unaffected if the
music suddenly stops. The longer we observe the person’s activity, the more certain we
can be of the activity’s function. Our understanding of the function of someone’s
behavior does not only guide our everyday reactions but is also a prerequisite to
formally analyzing an activity’s interaction with the environment. Baum (1997) makes
an analogy with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. To know a pattern of behavior
means to observe behavior for a period, the duration of which depends on the pattern
being investigated. Exactly how much temporal precision and we need, or how much
averaging is appropriate, depends on the research question and the measurement
process.
According to the molar view, to analyze behavior means to analyze a sample of a
temporal extended activity. As Baum (1997, p. 49) states it, “We cannot decide what a
creature is doing without an adequate sample of its movement.” That is, in order to
observe behavior, we need to observe the ongoing activity of an organism in a context,
and that necessarily takes time. Carving behavior into discrete units may help to make it
more easily quantifiable, but discretizing is likely to detract from our ability as scientists
to explain and predict the behavior’s occurrence. To be sure, the concept of response
strengthening, which most radical behaviorists implicitly subscribe to and which
Palmer (2009) explicates, is a consequence of discrete response measurement, but
measurement of discrete responses is neither particular nor original to Palmer’s view.
A view of behavior in terms of discrete events has a direct impact on research.
Considering behavior as a discrete variable, even if implicit, affects research questions.
When facing time gaps between discrete events, they are sometimes filled with
hypothetical constructs such as “private events” and “response strength.” These events
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 691

are allegedly present in the “changed organism” in some kind of presentism that
struggles with the extended nature of behavior. At best, these theories could lead us
to an empirical agenda based on physiological variables. At worst, they become
instances of dualism.

Can a Strength-Free Framework Avoid the Unfalsifiable?

In a temporally extended framework, dispositions or response probabilities

become actual instead of hypothetical. Imagine we examine two locomotives.
Both are sitting still, but one goes 100,000 miles in a year, and the other goes
50,000 miles in a year. Standing in the barn where the locomotives are kept,
looking at them at a particular moment in time, we cannot tell the difference.
Would the mileage be latent? Both rates are real and the only thing that matters
from a pragmatic point of view—let’s say, to answer to maintainer’s question
about whether worn parts need to be replaced (Rachlin & Frankel, 2009). Of
course, an analysis of the locomotive’s mechanics may reveal that a particular
gear had not worn out and does not have to be replaced; this, however, does
not tell us anything about the locomotive’s behavior at a moment. Instead, the
working gear reveals what might correspond to an organism’s current morpho-
logical characteristics, which are a function of both its behavior over time and
its physiology, not of a hypothetical construct. Or as Ryle (1949) puts it:

To possess a dispositional property is not to be in a particular state, or to undergo

a particular change. . . . My being an habitual smoker does not entail that I am at
this or that moment smoking; it is my permanent proneness to smoke when I am
not eating, sleeping, lecturing or attending funerals, and have not quite recently
been smoking. (p. 31)

Does that mean Ryle is not a smoker when he is asleep or that smoking is
latent when lecturing? The assumption of momentary behavior inevitably drives
one to hypothetical constructs with only tenuous relations to actual behavior.
Understanding response strength as an intervening variable, synonymous with
response probability, would avoid the risk of reification. Then, a response’s rate
does not indicate its strength but instead determines it. Such conceptualization
as an intervening variable, rather than a hypothetical construct, would make
locating response strength on different “levels of behavior” superfluous. It could
not be positioned anywhere except from in the function of preceding variables.
Because we may classify responses by their function or their topography,
observed differences in force or resistance to extinction might be regarded as
dependent variables in their own right. After all, if one would like to under-
stand why one frequently talks silently or seldom talks loudly, it is of little
help to regard the loudness and rate of talk as resulting from a common
strength of a talking response. Whether we jump into a conversation depends
not only on whether we have a point to make, but also on social contingencies
requiring that we wait our turn. In this example, talking or not is not explained
by the response’s strength, but by the contingencies of both talking and
competing responses with so-called reinforcers.
692 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

Can a Strength-Free Approach Explain Behavior Independent

of Physiology?

The molar approach is an alternative to the radical behaviorist’s reliance on contiguous

momentary behavior and its phylogenizing. The molar view factors in the temporal
extension of behavior and the environmental events inducing it. The molar view is in line
with epistemological arguments for regarding the behavior of whole organisms as the
subject matter of behavior analysis as a selectionist science. The molar approach assumes
that many conceptual mistakes interwoven with the concept of response strength arise from
discretizing behavior (Baum, 2002). In this view, priming and additive effects of multiple
sources of control by stimuli presented either sequentially or simultaneously, are no more in
need for an explanation based on physiological or hypothetical events than other examples
of stimulus control over behavior. There are physiological measures (e.g., EEG) that are
correlated with a history of priming versus nonpriming procedures and the subsequent
probability of a response, but these findings are interesting in their own right, not because
they are interpreted as indicators of an ambiguous concept such as response strength. At the
same time, empirical observations of behavioral patterns arising in priming procedures are
interesting and complete for us without reference to proposed covert or latent mechanisms.
In line with molar behaviorism (Baum, 1995), interbehaviorism (Kantor, 1923),
teleological behaviorism (Rachlin, 1991), and at times Skinner’s views (see Rachlin,
1995, for a discussion of the topic in the light of Skinner's biographical development),
we would like to develop a science of behavior based on the responses of whole
organisms in the sense that behavior is not explained by other activities in the organism
but as behavior–environment interactions. To be sure, parts of the organism participate,
but separately they do not engage in psychological activity. Skinner (1938) criticized
the use of the nervous system as an "explanatory principle." Although the nervous
system obviously responds to environmental inputs, a science of behavior loses sight of
its goals when it replaces “environment” with “nervous system.” Indeed, responses
often take more time than physiological events, and discretizing responses can run the
risk of carving a behavior into units too small to be meaningful.

Conclusions

This article advocates that the concept of response strength is ambiguous and super-
fluous. Dividing a continuous behavior stream into discrete units may have been a
useful approach when trying to map out the basics of the interaction between behavior
and environment, but it has also brought about superfluous problems, such as how to
bridge time gaps between stimuli and responses. Response strength bridges time that
passes between stimuli and responses in terms of discrete events, but in doing so it
creates other problems for a science of behavior. In line with behavior analysis’ identity
as a selectionist science (Skinner, 1981) and the arguments presented above, we
suggest widening the search for explanatory variables in time rather than in space.
We might leave the search for intermediate controlling factors inside the organism to
neurologists and continue our outline of controlling variables by going further back in
an organism’s history. Describing neurobiological patterns at work in between dis-
criminative stimuli and responses, such as the N400 component, in behavior analytic
Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696 693

terms (e.g., as “latent behavior,” “covert response competition,” or “response strength”)

instead of staying with the neurobiological terminology, impedes clarity. For example,
the terminology of “latent behavior” (Palmer, 2009) may easily invite questions such as
how we can know that a reinforcer has reinforced a latent response without analyzing
overt responses. Naming neurological events in this way is only necessary when our
theory of behavior relies on unobservable constructs; understanding behavior as an
ongoing stream of activity in time removes the need for such constructs, and avoids any
confusion over whether the behavior of the brain is latent behavior of the organism.
To be sure, Palmer’s point that changes in the N400 component occur when
discriminative stimuli are presented serially even before changes of behavior of the
whole organism are observable, is well-taken. It remains unclear, however, what
practical purpose it might serve to call those neurobiological changes “latent behavior.”
If observable by instrumentation (and as such, not latent), they might make our picture
of the mechanics of an activity of a whole organism more complete. For logical reasons
that have been discussed at length elsewhere (e.g., Bennett & Hacker, 2003), we argue
for ascribing “behavior” to whole living organisms only.
If identifying latent behavior with neurobiological activity, one may just as well call
a spade a spade. Identifying latent behavior with hypothetical constructs with a variety
of instantiation invites confusion and runs the risk of creating pseudo-explanations.
Moreover, an identification of neurobiological patterns does not reveal why some
(combinations of) discriminative stimuli lead to certain responses whereas others do
not. Neither does an identification of neurobiological patterns help to predict or control
behavior in any applied setting. We put forward that the activity of the organism as a
whole, extended across time and space, provides the most plausible and elegant data on
which to base both theories and treatments of behavior. This activity need not be
explained with any reference to the concept of response strength.

Author note Special thanks to David C. Palmer and William M. Baum for constructive
feedback leading to valuable improvements of earlier versions of this manuscript. We
would also like to thank Henrique Pompermaier and Mitchell Fryling for their support.

Funding Open Access funding provided by University of Agder.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflicts of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
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To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
694 Perspectives on Behavior Science (2020) 43:677–696

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