ABSTRACT
Research in the experimental analysis of behavior did, of course, commence with the schedule name as the qualitative independent variable (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). This approach has continued, though the nominal aspect of the schedule has become less important (e.g., Killeen, 1968). There are two roads from nominalism to quantification. The first is to conduct empirical research that determines what dimensions of schedules (e.g., mean interval, number of intervals, variance in intervals, etc.) affect behavior. Rather little of this has been done. The second, and more radical, is to rid ourselves of the schedule names provided by Ferster and Skinner, and, in the absence of such a framework, to provide measures of the supposedly important aspects of the relation between
behavior and reinforcers. One of these approaches is exemplified by the feedback function , which quantitatively describes the way that the environment changes (e.g., changes in the rate of reinforcers) when an animal’s behavior changes (e.g., changes in the rate of responding).
