ABSTRACT
B. F. Skinner was the most influential behaviorist. His experimental innovations revealed new phenomena and changed the type of experimentation in psychology. The cumulative recorder revealed the real-time dynamics of behavior as well as the orderliness of behavior controlled by reinforcement schedules. The reversibility of schedule effects allowed a return to the “classical” single-organism scientific method. After the initial excitement of cumulative records, increasing automation made it easier to look at average response and reinforcement rates (molar data) rather than real-time details. This culminated in Richard Herrnstein’s matching law and a drift away for the study of real-time effects.
