ABSTRACT

The idea that behavior is not random is fundamental to the concept of psychological and behavioral sciences. Behavior emanates from an indi­ vidual organism and inevitably forms a chronological sequence. Thus, psychological science needs to establish, inter alia, models of the pat­ terns of behavior as ordered in time. The same may be said of the underlying psychological and physico-chemical substrates that have been presumed to be involved in the causation of this behavior. In the ideal of science these models are thought to be valuable both as repre­ sentations of knowledge about the causal phenomena and as tools for building an applied science, a technology of prediction and evaluation. Indeed, this technological goal is exemplified in this book, wherein timeseries designs are discussed as a tool for investigation and management of individual cases.