Association for Behavior Analysis International

A final definition is impossible, but we can rule out some possibilities and propose others based on what we currently know. Behavior is not simply movement, but must be defined by its function. Also, our understanding of behavior must agree with evolutionary theory.Dr. Baum willsuggest four basic principles: (1) Only whole organisms behave; (2) Behavior is purposive; (3) Behavior takes time; and (4) Behavior is choice. Saying that parts of an organism behave is nonsense, and, moreover, evolutionary theory explains the existence of organisms mainly through their adaptive behavior. Behavior is purposive because it is shaped by its consequences, through an organism’s lifetime or through interactions with the environment across many generations of natural selection. Behavior takes time in that behavior is interaction with the environment which cannot take place at a moment. Moreover, identifying an activity requires a span of time. Behavior is choice in the sense that a suitable span of time always includes time spent in more than one activity. Activities include parts that are themselves activities on a smaller time scale and compete for time. Thus, behavior constitutes time allocation. An accounting problem arises whenever behavior is attributed to multiple consequences. It remains to be solved.

Experimental and applied behavior analysts interested in how to measure and define behavior.

Researchers in the field of behavior analysis have contributed both applied and basic science internationally to the study of obesity. By focusing on the most critical behaviors--eating and physical activity--and the conditions under which they occur, treatment of this health risk becomes possible. Dr. Richard Fleming will begin by reviewing the role of behavior analysis in the obesity literature. Dr. Fergus Lowe and Dr. Pauline Horne will discuss the Food Dudes program, which has enhanced healthy food choices and physical activity with children in the United Kingdom and beyond. Dr. Matthew Normand will describe his programmatic work with measurement and change of physical activity in children. Finally, Dr. Erin Rasmussen will discuss the role of impulsive food choice in obesity in humans and using animal models.

Basic and applied behavior analysts, parents, teachers, and anyone interested in behavior analysis, health, or obesity.

Behavior analysis has influenced how researchers conceptualize, analyze, prevent, treat, and drive policy around childhood obesity. These contributions have appeared not only in traditional behavior analysis outlets, but also in (1) mainstream pediatrics and obesity journals, often in the form of randomized controlled trial (RCT) between-groups research; (2) the work of centers devoted to affecting food policy, notably the Rudd Center for Food Policy& Obesity); and (3) mass media publications, such as Scientific American. This paper reviews some of these contributions as a means of discussing a promising context for increasing the influence of behavior analysis. It also presents an example of the author's behavioral research on family-based weight loss and weight maintenance intervention with adolescents and young adults with intellectual disabilities (see Figure). Recommendations are made for future contributions of behavior analysis in the area of childhood obesity.

This presentation will discuss Dr. Miltenberger's recent research on promoting exercise and physical activity in children and adults. The talk will start with a discussion of accurate measurement of physical activity and then review studies evaluating behavioral procedures to increase physical activity. The research with children evaluated goal setting, contracting, daily rewards, and exergaming to increase physical activity. Research with adults evaluated an Internet-based program with and without behavioral coaching, goal setting and feedback, and daily action planning. Discussion will center on issues of measurement, treatment effectiveness, and treatment fidelity.

Physical activity, particularly moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), is an important class of health-related behavior for children and adults. Insufficient physical activity is risk factor associated with a host of medical problems, including hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and, more generally, obesity. To mitigate these risks, current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization state that children should engage in at least 60 minutes of MVPA per day. Unfortunately, recent estimates suggest that few children are this active. Various behavioral interventions have been developed to increase physical activity in children, but with mixed results. Many such studies involve indirect measures of behavior change and, even when change seems evident, suffer from relatively poor long-term intervention effects. More systematic research involving direct measures of behavior is warranted. Moreover, the kinds of pre-intervention functional analyses common in the behavior analysis literature are notably absent from the physical activity literature, perhaps explaining, at least in part, the less than robust intervention effects sometimes reported. This talk will describe a programmatic line of research that begins with the validation of direct measurement strategies for MVPA, progresses to pre-intervention experimental analyses of the environmental variables functionally related to MVPA, and currently involves intervention evaluations based on the outcomes of the pre-intervention analyses. The results of these studies suggest that physical activity can be accurately measured, pre-intervention experimental analyses can be used to identify specific variables that promote MVPA, and that this information can be used to develop interventions to increase MVPA.

A pattern of choosing smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later rewards is known as impulsive choice and is an established behavioral mechanism in a variety of putative "addictive" behaviors, including substance abuse and gambling. This model has been applied to understanding food-choice patterns involved in obesity with humans and with rodent models. The talk will present some human and animal data that suggest that dopaminergic processes, particularly those at the D2 receptor subtype, may underlie impulsive food choices. These data suggest, one, that impulsive choice patterns as a behavioral mechanism of addictive behaviors can be extended to obesity, and two, that dopamine may be involved in these processes.

Sequential recording of behavior and its consequences is a common strategy for identifying potential maintaining variables in the natural environment. Disagreement remains over a standard approach to detecting contingent relations in the resulting data as well as a suitable association metric. One approach reported in the literature involves comparing the conditional probability of a consequence given the occurrence of problem behavior to its conditional probability given the absence of problem behavior. This approach, known as contingency space analysis (CSA) can be used to identify the direction and magnitude of potential reinforcement effects from descriptive assessment data. Moreover, joint occurrences of behavior and its consequences can be summarized in a 2 by 2 contingency table for which an operant contingency value (OCV) can be computed. In this presentation, procedures for conducting and interpreting a CSA are described, and data are presented showing various applications of CSA to clinical decision making. The presentation concludes by comparing the OCV to other measures of association using simulated and empirical data. These analyses suggest that CSA as a general analytical approach and the OCV as an index of contingency are useful tools for helping behavior analysts identify contingent relations during a functional behavior assessment.

ABA practitioners and applied researchers.

Although the scientific analysis of behavior started with dogs in Pavlov's laboratory more than a century ago, the use of behavior analytic tools to understand dog behavior, and the relationship between dogs and people, has lagged behind other approaches to canine behavior. In the past two decades, wide currency has been given to the view that dogs co-evolved human-like social cognition alongside people in human domiciles more than 10,000 years ago. The evolution of novel cognitive instincts, it is claimed, has given dogs unique abilities to understand human actions and intentions. Dr. Wynne will review findings from his laboratory indicating that the person-reading skills people perceive in their dogs are real but they are not unique to dogs: Hand-reared wolves are just as successful in responding to human actions. Furthermore, these skills are the outcome of familiar processes of operant and Pavlovian conditioning and social imprinting. This is shown in the poor performance of dog pups, in the consistent improvement in pet dogs subject to repeated testing, and in the initially poor but easily redeemed performance of dogs at a county shelter. He also will present novel approaches to dog behavioral problems such as thunder phobia and stereotypic behaviors derived from applied behavior analysis.

Drugs of abuse produce an array of subjective, behavioral, and physiological effects, some of which contribute to their attractiveness to users. However, individuals also vary widely in their responses to drugs, and certain responses may increase their likelihood for using the drugs repeatedly. We have studied variables that predict greater rewarding effects from drugs, including both trait-like variables, such as personality or genetic makeup, and contextual variables, such as the social setting in which the drugs are used. This presentation will review studies from Dr. de Wit's laboratory in which healthy adults received single doses of drugs, under placebo-controlled, double-blind conditions. The studies are designed to identify factors associated with greater rewarding effects of acute doses of drugs, with the ultimate goal of developing strategies for minimizing risk in at-risk populations.