Koichi Ono
Komazawa University
Dr. Koichi Ono is professor of psychology at Komazawa University in Tokyo, where he has conducted research and taught behavior analysis for 33 years. His scholarly publications, authored in Japanese and English, have appeared in journals from four different continents. Professor Ono was among the first to demonstrate the effects of a "superstitious behavior" in humans (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1987). He subsequently developed a conceptual analysis of superstitions as false rules. Three other major themes in Dr. Ono's research have been (1) the effects of the history of contingency-controlled behavior on subsequent performance, (2) an analysis of conditions under which "free choice" is preferred over "forced choice," and (3) complex stimulus control. His work has also involved careful cross-species comparisons. For example, in an important paper in Behavioural Processes, Dr. Ono and colleagues used an ingeniously simple matching-to-sample task to reveal different controlling relations in humans and pigeons. Dr. Ono has provided significant leadership and service to the large and active Japanese Association for Behavior Analysis (J-ABA). He was editor of the Japanese Journal of Behavior Analysis (1994-1997), and for 6 years served as president of J-ABA (1997-2003). As a visiting research fellow in Wales and the United States, Dr. Ono has also brought knowledge from Japanese behavior analysis to the international community.