A NOTATION SYSTEM FOR THE DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIORAL PROCEDURES1

Abstract

One characteristic shared by all behavior experimentation is that stimuli are presented to a subject according to pre-designed rules.These rules are variously called conditioning procedures, behavioral procedures, reinforcement contingencies, or reinforcement sched- ules.While behavioral investigations may differ widely with regard to the rigor of specification as well as the nature of the stimuli they employ (even the term stimulus is far from universal), the rules or conditions that govern the presentation of these stimuli must always in some way be conveyed in reporting the work.The purpose of this paper is to pro- pose a notation for the description of these rules.In published papers they are most frequently described by circumlocution, a method of communication which may require anywhere from several sentences to several pages of text.depending on the author's style and the complexity of the rules concerned.On occasion, authors dissatisfied with the inelegance and verbosity of this mode of description have also devised special notations suitable for their own particular needs.One drawback of such specialized notations has always been, however, that their usefulness tends to be restricted to the applications for which they were designed.The notation system proposed in the present paper represents an attempt to satisfy a wide-enough range of requirements to make it a reasonable first approximation to a generally useful system for describing the essential features of behavioral procedures by means of symbolic diagrams.It is essentially an amalgam of four other notations that are in current use: (1) the one traditionally used in psychological paradigms to describe the succession of stimuli and responses; (2) the flow-chart notation widely used in electronics, computer programming, and systems engi- neering; (3) the notation of Boolean algebra, which has found its main applications in set theory and logic; and (4) the notation of mathematics.The history of science bears testimony to the fact that the advent of a good notation can have effects beyond merely expediting communication.The symbolic notation of chem- istry, for example, served as a catalyst for the development of theory in providing a framework within which existing knowledge could be systematized.It is possible that in behavioral science a successful notation, whether it be the present one or some other, could play an analogous role in the classification of procedures.By presenting a set of intricate interrelations in a concise and schematic form, a diagrammatic or symbolic notation can often lay bare the essential structural features of these interrelations, thereby facilitating their analysis.Thus, a good notation system could implement the discovery of formal parallels between behavioral procedures, and generally suggest schemes for their classification.

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