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| causally intervening variable |
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Definition
| a term referencing an internal state of an organism that causally mediates between observable stimuli and behavioral responses. The realist conception of an intervening variable. |
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| the view that cognitive theoretical constructs are legitimate and useful in psychological science. |
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| Term employed by B.F. Skinner to describe his form of behaviorism, because he rejected explanatory appeals to unobservable states and processes. |
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| Term employed by B.F. Skinner to characterize theories about internal cognitive states and processes, which he claimed are vacuous as explanations of relations between observable stimuli and responses and play no role in the development of novel predictions about behavior |
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| The conditioning of verbal behavior through social reinforcement. |
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| Type of research that focuses on the interaction between human operators and machines, such as torpedoes and anti-aircraft guns, and radar and communication systems. |
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| Theoretical construct whose meaning is not reducible to empirical laws. |
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| term employed by Keller and Marian Breland to describe the displacement of learned behavior by instinctual behavior. |
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| Theoretical postulate defined in terms of observable independent variables (such as environmental or physiological stimuli) and observable dependent variables (such as behavioral responses) |
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| Term describing learning int eh absence of reinforcement. |
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| Form of positivism developed by the Vienna Circle in the 1920s and 1930s, based upon the verification principle |
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| logically intervening variable |
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| A logical device for integrating descriptions of observable stimuli and behavioral responses. The instrumentalist conception of an intervening variable |
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| type of theory of complex internal response-stimulus (r-s) sequences introduced by neobehaviorists in order to accommodate linguistic behavior and symbolic meaning. |
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| In logical positivism, the definition of the meaning of a theoretical proposition in terms of observables. |
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| Term employed by Edward C. Tolman to characterize his form of behaviorism, because of his avowed commitment to the operational definition of theoretical constructs. |
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| Emitted behavior whose probability of recurrence is increased by reinforcement. |
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| Form of (instrumental) conditioning that was the focus of B.F. Skinner's research, based upon operant as opposed to respondent behavior. |
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| Empirical measure of a concept |
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| Position held by the physicist Percy Bridgman, who maintained that scientific concepts are useful only if there are operational measures of their values |
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| peripheralist theory of learning |
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Definition
| Theory of learning in which connections between stimuli and responses are held to be determined independently of "centrally initiated" cognitive cortical processes. |
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| Version of logical positivism in which observational propositions were held to describe publicly observable properties of physical objects, such as readings on spectrometers or the motion of bodies. |
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| place versus response controversy |
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Definition
| Famous debate between the followers of Tolman and Hull about whether rats running mases learn cognitive maps or stimulus-response connections |
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| Concept of a mechanized robot employed by Hull as a prophylactic against the cognitive interpretation of animal behavior. |
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| According to Hull, an internal response-stimulus (r-s) sequence that causally mediates between an environmental stimulus and a behavioral response. |
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| Form of behaviorism developed by Edward C. Tolman that focused on purposive or goal-directed behavior. |
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| Form of behaviorism developed by B.F. Skinner based upon operant conditioning, which marked a return to the positivist and inductivist form of behaviorism developed by John B. Watson. |
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| Behavior elicited by unconditioned or conditioned stimuli |
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Term
| schedules of reinforcement |
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Definition
| The variety of fixed and variable interval and ratio schedules of reinforcement employed by B.F. Skinner in his study of conditioned learning. |
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| scientific empiricism (logical empiricism) |
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| Later form of logical positivism based upon physicalism that neobehaviorists embraced. |
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| Version of logical positivism in which observational propositions were held to describe the properties of private sense experience, such as the intensity of colors or apparent differences in weight. |
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| Method of operant conditioning developed by B.F. Skinner in which a target behavior is produced through the reinforcement of progressive approximations to that behavior |
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| The meaning of theoretical postulates that is additional to or independent of operational definition in terms of empirical laws. |
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| The logical positivist principle that the only meaningful factual propositions are those verifiable by observation |
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| Conceptual dilemma created by insistence on teh exhaustive operational definition of theoretical postulates, which implies their dispensablity. |
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