RELATING BEHAVIOR AND NEUROSCIENCE: INTRODUCTION AND SYNOPSIS

B. F. Skinner, in a chapter on ‘‘Behavior and the Nervous System’’ in his seminal work, The Behavior of Organisms (1938, pp. 418–432), expressed both strong interest in and considerable concern about relating behavior and what he termed ‘‘neurology.’’ On the positive side, he subscribed to a unified reductionist science: ‘‘One of the objectives of science is presumably the statement of all knowledge in a single language.’’ He treated this objective as a fundamental reason to intensely cultivate a behavioral approach because it would produce ‘‘. . . more rapid progress toward an ultimate synthesis [of the laws of behavior and the laws of the nervous system].’’ At the same time Skinner spoke strongly against ‘‘. . . proceeding from a behavioral fact to its neural correlates instead of validating the fact as such, and then proceeding to deal with other problems in behavior.’’ In short, his goal was: first, to establish an independent science of the control and dynamics of behavior, separate from neural, physiological, and cognitive references and speculations; and then, to bridge the gap between behavior and neurobiology by a comprehensive integration. Skinner also placed strict preconditions on both sciences. He argued that neurobiological concepts had to be adequate to account for the complexity of the dynamics of behavior, and that numerous behavioral issues needed to be resolved, among them: distinguishing Type R (Operant) and S (Pavlovian) conditioning; clarifying the basis of temporal discrimination; finalizing distinctions among stimulus functions; grouping reflexes by drives and emotions; and establishing the dynamics of reinforced behavior. Thirty-six years later in a chapter on ‘‘What is Inside the Skin?’’ in About Behaviorism (1974, pp. 207–218), Skinner reaffirmed the importance of a reductionist framework, and again rejected attributing the cause of a behavior to a single neurobiological entity, whether it was a synapse, an anatomical structure, an emotion, or a motivation. The possible exception he noted was appealing to neural events to fill inevitable gaps in an operant account. For example, because behavioral accounts of reinforcement are ‘‘necessarily historical,’’ they leave gaps between events that might be filled in by neural processes related to memory. It was clear, though, that any large-scale integration remained far in the future, following the establishment of comprehensive and independent behavioral and neural sciences. From the publication of The Behavior of Organisms to the present, the analysis and control of behavior has proliferated in academic and applied settings around the world. The Association for Behavior Analysis has grown to around 4700 members spread among 43 countries. The study of neuroscience has expanded even more rapidly. The Society for Neuroscience is a thoroughly international organization numbering over 37,000 members. Most relevant for our interest in relating behavior and neuroscience, Skinner’s methods have been widely adapted by neuroscientists. In fact, Skinner and his students played crucial roles in founding psychopharmacology, a field pursued in medical schools, drug companies, and multiple academic departments (Laties, 2003). Other scientists influenced directly or indirectly by Skinner adopted operant procedures and apparatus to measure the effects of brain lesions or brain stimulation on learning, discrimination, and motivation (e.g., Grossman, 1979). Still others have used operant techniques to study drug addiction, memory, the molecular basis of The authors thank Colin Allen, Gary Lucas, and Armando Machado for their suggestions, and Len Green for his perseverance and help. William Timberlake and Joseph Steinmetz are at Indiana University; David Schaal is now at Accuray, Inc. Correspondence may be addressed to William Timberlake, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7007, Telephone: 812-855-4042 (e-mail: timberla@indiana.edu). doi: 10.1901/jeab.2005.99-05 JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR 2005, 84, 305–311 NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER)