Conceptual approaches and issues

Abstract

The experimental analysis of behavior has lagged far behind mainstream psychology, particularly cognitive psychology, in the study of complex behavior-remembering, thinking, imaging, problem solving, and the like. Yet it is the study of these kinds of behavior that will provide the greatest justification of our continued existence in the community of behavioral scientists. Focusing primarily on remembering as a complex performance, aspects of (1) radical behaviorism, (2) the methodology of the experimental analysis of behavior, and (3) the special contributions of B. F. Skinner are assessed as explicitly or implicitly discouraging the experimental treatment of such complex behavior. Although there are encouraging signs of advancement into the present domains of cognitive psychology, future success of the experimental analysis of behavior in this endeavor will require aggressive pursuit by investigators and more effective training of their students.