Division 25 of American Psychological Association

Division 25 of the American Psychological Association Awards

The B. F. Skinner Foundation sponsors a Young Research Award for innovative and important research in behavior analysis conducted within the first five years of receiving a doctorate.

2020 Awards

Applied Research:

Jason Vladescu, PhD, BCBA-D, NCSP
North Jersey Behavioral Health Services, Caldwell, NJ

My research interests include early behavioral intervention for children with autism spectrum and related disorders, increasing the efficiency of academic instruction, staff training, applied applications of equivalence-based instruction, and mainstream applications of behavior analysis. A primary focus of my research has been on early intervention and skill acquisition with children with autism spectrum disorder, specifically, the conditions under which acquisition is most efficient. Specifically, variables we have investigated have included incorporating secondary targets, differential reinforcement, and choice. Expertise is required to train human service staff and caregivers to deliver the robust behavioral technologies we have available to treat individuals with autism spectrum and related disorders. As such, I have conducted research to examine the effectiveness of antecedent training procedures, including video modeling and computer-based instruction. More recently, my lab has started to examine the variables that lead to optimal training outcomes when utilizing these procedures. To demonstrate the potentially wide applicability of the science of learning, I have undertaken projects that are of mainstream relevance. To this end, we have conducted research related to stimulus control over safety responses, car seat installation, and teaching caregivers to arrange safe infant sleep environments.

 

Basic Research:

Andrew Craig, PhD
SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 

I am primarily interested in the factors that affect persistence of behavior despite challenges that deter it and the propensity of behavior to relapse once it has been eliminated. These areas of research are important for both theoretical and practical reasons. For example, they help us to understand how variables in an organism’s behavior history are carried forward in time to affect current behavior. They are also directly relevant to interventions aimed at reducing maladaptive behavior in diverse clinical applications, like treatments for severe behavior disorders in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I take a bidirectional translational approach to my research, wherein I study persistence and relapse in controlled laboratory settings, assess novel approaches to clinical intervention based on my findings, and further refine these approaches in the laboratory to maximize treatment efficacy and minimize barriers to treatment. My work is guided by quantitative theories of behavior that make precise predictions about the conditions under which behavior should be more or less persistent or likely to relapse. Insofar as quantitative theories provide maps for my research, data serve to evaluate the maps the theories provide. If the data support the theory, swell. If they do not, I aim to modify the theory or to generate a new one that provides a more accurate and general explanation for behavior.

 

2019 Awards

Applied Research:

Brian D. Greer, PhD
Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Omaha, NE

My research has increasingly focused on the durability of treatments for severe behavior disorders, as well as methods for improving their long-term effectiveness. The experimental analysis of behavior is replete with investigations of relevant relapse phenomena, including resurgence, renewal, reinstatement, rapid reacquisition, and spontaneous recovery. These models of relapse have direct parallels in applied behavior analysis. For example, the resurgence model of relapse is akin to a series of omission errors; rapid reacquisition translates to a series of commission errors. Such relapse phenomena can serve as a conceptual guide for predicting when and how applied interventions will fail. Furthermore, quantitative analyses of treatment relapse (e.g., Behavioral Momentum Theory, Resurgence as Choice Theory) describe the variables controlling relapse, variables that applied behavior analysts can manipulate to bring about meaningful improvements in treatment durability. My interests lie in translating those models of relapse to the clinic to mitigate or prevent treatment relapse. An equally important aim is reverse translation or using clinical preparations or outcomes to inform the design of targeted basic research.  

 

Basic Research:

Mary Margaret Sweeney, PhD
Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, Baltimore, MD

Dr. Mary M. (Maggie) Sweeney is an Instructor in the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She was trained in the experimental analysis of behavior at Utah State University, where she received her doctorate, and at Purdue University, where she received her undergraduate degree. She has published several peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic of basic and translational behavior analysis, including studies with pigeons, rats, and humans. As a postdoctoral research fellow at Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, Dr. Sweeney applied her knowledge of behavior analysis to research with clinical substance use populations. In addition to being a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Dr. Sweeney is member of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and the American Psychological Association. In her current position at Johns Hopkins as a member of the faculty, Dr. Sweeney’s research focuses on applications of basic reinforcement processes to substance use and related risk behaviors, with a focus on licit abused drugs and clinical studies with opioid pharmacotherapy patients including contingency management. All of her work shares the common goal of using the principles of reinforcement and behavioral pharmacology to understand, prevent, and treat substance use disorders. 

 

2018 Awards:

Basic Research:

Justin Yates, PhD
Northern Kentucky University

Measuring Drug Effects in Impulsive Choice: Procedural and Analytic Considerations

The focus of my research is elucidating the contribution of the glutamatergic system to impulsive and risky decision making as assessed in delay discounting and probability discounting procedures. I am also interested in determining how procedural alterations can modulate drug effects in these procedures. For example, my laboratory has shown that blocking the NR2B subunit of the NMDA receptor increases preference for a large, delayed/probabilistic reinforcer when the delays to/odds against receiving that alternative increase across the session, whereas blocking this subunit decreases choice for this alternative when the delays to/odds against decrease across the session. In addition to examining how procedural manipulations can modulate drug effects in discounting, I am interested in showing how statistical analyses (e.g., ANOVA on the raw proportion of responses vs. fitting hyperbolic/exponential functions via nonlinear mixed effects modeling) can alter interpretations of pharmacological manipulations. 

Applied Research:

Jeanne Donaldson, PhD, BCBA-D
Louisiana State University

Overused and understudied: Time-out and token systems

My research takes a behavior analytic approach to examining treatments for problematic behavior in young children at both group (e.g., classwide) and individual levels. More specifically, my research team and I conduct problem behavior treatment research in the context of three themes: group-oriented contingencies, time-out from positive reinforcement, and token reinforcement.

I have a diverse set of secondary research interests that involve collaborations with colleagues across the country and abroad. These include developing early learner skills in young children with autism spectrum disorders, incorporating therapy dogs in behavior analytic teaching programs, and assessing and treating dementia-related behavior problems in older adults.

 

2017 Awards:

Applied Research

Dr. Bethany Raiff, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology
Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.

2015 Awards:

Applied Research:

Research on nicotine and conditioned reinforcement, technology-based interventions, and gamification
Dr. Bethany Raiff, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology
Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.

2014 Awards:

Basic Research:

Recent Advances in Operant Conditioning Technology
Brian D. Kangas
Harvard Medical School

Abstract: Experimental analysts of behavior have made many of their most important advances through the empirical validation of behavioral methods and apparatus development. To compete successfully in these times of scant support and funding, we must continue in this tradition, and with a strong emphasis on collaborative endeavors. This proposition is supported by an overview of my research program using a novel apparatus and set of procedures recently developed to assess the effects of CNS drugs on complex behavioral processes. The effects of abused drugs on complex behavior are arguably some of the most important and least understood. So the first aim was to gain a better understanding of how drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and the prescription opioids, for example, affect learning, memory, vigilance, and other behavior. Working closely with medicinal chemists, a second purpose was to devise a means to evaluate the potential side-effects of candidate therapeutics. Here, unlike abused drugs which often have deleterious effects on performance, demonstrating a reliable null effect can serve as an important preclinical evaluation of a novel pharmacotherapy’s safety. To accomplish these aims, I built and empirically validated a touchscreen apparatus designed to assess a variety of behavioral endpoints in squirrel monkeys. Modern touch-sensitive technology has allowed an extremely flexible means to expose the monkeys to multiple assays, sometimes within a single session. Studying the squirrel monkey, indeed a valuable resource, has obvious translational value. Given their relatively high intelligence, long lifespan, and sophisticated visual system, we have been able to train complex behavioral repertoires in these animals that have proven to be sensitive to the effects of a variety of drugs. Endeavors of this sort not only serve to expand the authority of the behaviorist through collaborative work but, importantly, offer additional opportunities to study and understand basic behavioral processes.

2013 Awards:

Basic Research: Matthew T. Weaver, Mercyhurst University
Applied Research: Claudia L. Dozier, University of Kansas

2012 Awards:
Basic Research: Ryan Ward, Columbia University

2011 Awards:

Matt Normand, University of the Pacific

Title: Battling the Bulge: Future Directions for Behavioral Research on Obesity

Abstract: Obesity is a significant public health concern and is largely the result of two behavioral factors: eating and physical activity. Despite the importance of the problem and the clear role behavior plays in causing it, one can argue that very little is known about the relationship of eating and activity to overweight and obesity, at least in a clinical sense. The research and practice in the areas of obesity prevention and treatment are dominated by inadequate measurement strategies, most involving self-reports of behavior. Moreover, little to no research has experimentally assessed the environmental variables that are functionally related to eating and activity. In this talk, I discuss some of the problems facing researchers trying to accurately measure eating and activity in “free living” conditions and describe the research from my lab that is addressing the problems of measurement and assessment so as to better inform interventions designed to prevent and treat overweight and obesity, especially in children. I argue that behavior analytic approaches to research and intervention, refined over the years with a variety of populations and across a range of problems, are well suited to advance research on, and interventions for, obesity.

Christopher A. Podlesnik, The University of Auckland

Title: Stimulus context and resistance to change

Abstract: Challenges to the treatment of any undesirable behavior often are the persistence and likelihood of reoccurrence (i.e., relapse). The present studies explored in animal models how contextual stimuli mediate the persistence and relapse of positively reinforced behavior. Arranging alternative sources of reinforcement within the stimulus context decreased target responding, consistent with treatments directed toward decreasing problem behavior. However, resistance to extinction and the relapse of target responding also was greater in stimulus contexts presenting alternative reinforcement. Finally, we explored a method to circumvent enhancing the target response while still reducing its frequency. Responding was maintained in three mutually exclusive stimulus contexts, two of which maintained different responses in separate stimulus contexts. In a third, a separate response was reinforced in the same context as a target response, modelling a differential-reinforcement-of-alternative-behaviour (DRA) schedule. The overall reinforcement rate in the DRA context was equal to the sum of the separate stimulus contexts. Combining the separate stimulus contexts during extinction reduced resistance to change of target responding relative to in the DRA context. Therefore, training alternative responses in separate contexts circumvents enhancing the persistence of undesirable behavior observed with methods standard for decreasing problem behavior. Moreover, these findings elucidate reinforcement conditions contributing to the persistence and relapse of behavior and provide a framework from which interventions for problem behavior might be developed.

2010 Awards:

Paul Soto of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine was selected to receive the Basic Research Award based on his research in the area of quantitative analysis. Paul received his Ph.D. from Emory University.

Michael Kelley of The University of Southern Maine was selected to receive the Applied Research Award based on his research in the areas of functional analysis and treatment of severe problem behavior and language development. Michael received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University.