The Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior was founded in 1978 by Michael Lamport Commons

Michael Commons

Michael Lamport Commons is a theoretical behavioral scientist and a complex systems scientist. He developed the Model of Hierarchical Complexity...

 and John Anthony Nevin

John Anthony Nevin

John Anthony Nevin is Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of New Hampshire. He was born July 5, 1933, in New York City. In 1954, he obtained a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University, in 1961 an M.A. at Columbia University, then in 1963 a Ph.D. in Psychology. William N....

. The first president was Richard J. Herrnstein

Richard Herrnstein

Richard J. Herrnstein was an American researcher in animal learning in the Skinnerian tradition. He was one of the founders of quantitative analysis of behavior....

. In the beginning it was called the Harvard Symposium on Quantitative Analysis of Behavior (HSQAB). This society meets once a year to discuss various topic in quantitative analysis of behavior

Quantitative Analysis of Behavior

Quantitative analysis of behavior is the quantitative form of the experimental analysis of behavior. This has become the dominant scientific approach to behavior analysis. It represents behavioral research using quantitative models of behavior. The parameters in the models hopefully have...

 including but not limited to: behavioral economics, behavioral momentum

Behavioral momentum

Behavioral momentum is a theory in quantitative analysis of behavior and is a comparative metaphor based on physical momentum. It describes the general relation between resistance to change and the rate of reinforcement obtained in a given situation.B.F...

, Connectionist systems or neural networks

Neural Networks

Neural Networks is the official journal of the three oldest societies dedicated to research in neural networks: International Neural Network Society, European Neural Network Society and Japanese Neural Network Society, published by Elsevier...

, hyperbolic discounting

Hyperbolic discounting

In behavioral economics, hyperbolic discounting is a time-inconsistent model of discounting.Given two similar rewards, humans show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. Humans are said to discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the...

, foraging

Foraging

- Definitions and significance of foraging behavior :Foraging is the act of searching for and exploiting food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce...

, errorless learning

Errorless learning

Errorless learning is a procedure introduced by Herbert Terrace which allows discrimination learning to occur with few or even with no responses to the negative stimulus . A negative stimulus is a stimulus associated with undesirable consequences...

, learning

Learning

Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...

 and the Rescorla-Wagner model

Rescorla-Wagner model

The Rescorla–Wagner model is a model of classical conditioning in which the animal is theorized to learn from the discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. This is a trial-level model in which each stimulus is either present or not present at some point in the trial...

, matching law

Matching law

In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement...

, Melioration, scalar expectancy

Scalar expectancy

The Scalar timing or scalar expectancy theory is a model that posits an internal clock, and particular memory and decision processes. This is one of the most popular views of timing in animals. The clock and memory are driven by a discrete pacemaker-accumulator mechanism that yields a linear...

, signal detection

Detection theory

Detection theory, or signal detection theory, is a means to quantify the ability to discern between information-bearing energy patterns and random energy patterns that distract from the information Detection theory, or signal detection theory, is a means to quantify the ability to discern between...

 and stimulus control

Stimulus control

Stimulus control is the phenomenon of a stimulus increasing the probability of a behavior because of a history of that behavior being differentially reinforced in the presence of the stimulus...

, connectionism

Connectionism

Connectionism is a set of approaches in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience and philosophy of mind, that models mental or behavioral phenomena as the emergent processes of interconnected networks of simple units...

 or Neural Networks

Neural Networks

Neural Networks is the official journal of the three oldest societies dedicated to research in neural networks: International Neural Network Society, European Neural Network Society and Japanese Neural Network Society, published by Elsevier...

. Mathematical models and data are presented and discussed. The field is a branch of mathematical psychology

Mathematical psychology

Mathematical psychology is an approach to psychological research that is based on mathematical modeling of perceptual, cognitive and motor processes, and on the establishment of law-like rules that relate quantifiable stimulus characteristics with quantifiable behavior...

. Some papers resulting from the symposium are published as a special issue of the journal Behavioural Processes

External links

• Society for Quantitative Analyses of Behaviorhttp://sqab.psychology.org/
• Behavioural Processes http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/506046/description#description