Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 5

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Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 5

Post author:B. F. Skinner Foundation
Post published:April 5, 2019
Post category:Skinner's Quote of the Day

“… Pavlov (1927) could make a dog salivate, and that was control. Reflexes, however, were the behavior of only parts of an organism. Like Loeb I wanted to study the behavior of the “organism as a whole.” I built an apparatus …” (p. 123)

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SKINNER'S QUOTE OF THE DAY

Verbal Behavior: Extended Edition. Chapter 8: The Verbal Operant as a Unit of Analysis. Quote 5
The pathological condition of verbal behavior called aphasia often emphasizes functional differences which are hard to understand in terms of the traditional account … The aphasic has lost some of the functional relationships which control his verbal behavior. A response of a given form may no longer be under the control of one functional relation, although it is still under the control of another. (p. 190)
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“… Pavlov (1927) could make a dog salivate, and that was control. Reflexes, however, were the behavior of only parts of an organism. Like Loeb I wanted to study the behavior of the “organism as a whole.” I built an apparatus …” (p. 123)

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