©SOPHIABENNET@2024/2025 Monday, August 19, 2024 10:32 PM
BCBA SAFMEDS Exam Study Guide with
Complete Solutions
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) - Answer✔️✔️-The science in which
tactics derived from the principles of behavior are applied to improve
socially significant behavior and experimentation is used to identify the
variables responsible for the improvement in behavior.
Behaviorism - Answer✔️✔️-The philosophy of science of behavior; there are
various forms of behaviorism.
Determinism - Answer✔️✔️-The assumption that the universe is lawful and
orderly place in which phenomena occur in relation to other events and not
in a willy-nilly, accidental fashion.
Empiricism - Answer✔️✔️-The objective observation of the phenomena of
interest; objective observations are "independent of the individual
prejudices, tastes, and private opinions of the scientist... Results of
empirical methods are objective in that they are open to anyone's
observation and do not depend on the subjective belief of the individual
scientist.
Experiment - Answer✔️✔️-A carefully controlled comparison of some
measure of the phenomenon of interest (the dependent variable) under two
of more different conditions in which only one factor at a time
(independent variable) differs from one condition to another.
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Experimental Analysis of Behavior (EAB) - Answer✔️✔️-A natural science
approach to the study of behavior as a subject matter in its own right
founded by B.F. Skinner; methodological features include rate of response
as a basic dependent variable, repeated or continuous measurement of
clearly defined response class, within-subject experimental comparisons
instead of a group design, visual analysis of graphed data instead of
statistical inference, and an emphasis on describing functional relations
between behavior and controlling variables in the environment over formal
theory testing.
Explanatory Fiction - Answer✔️✔️-A fictitious or hypothetical variable that
other takes the form of another name for the observed phenomenon it
claims to explain and contributes nothing to a functional account or
understand of the phenomenon, such as "intelligence" or "cognitive
awareness" as explanations for why an organism pushes the level when the
light is on and food is available but does not push the level when the light
is off and no food is available.
Functional Relation - Answer✔️✔️-A verbal statement summarizing the
results of an experiment (or group of related experiments) that describes
the occurrence of the phenomena under study as a function of the
operation of one or more specified and controlled variables in the
experiment in which a specific change in one event (the dependent
variable) can be produced by manipulating another event (the independent
variable), and that the change in the dependent variable was unlikely the
result of other factors (confounding variables); in behavior analysis
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expressed as b=f (x1), (x2)... where b is the behavior and x1, x2, etc... are
environmental variables of which the behavior is a function.
Hypothetical Construct - Answer✔️✔️-A presumed but unobserved process
or entity (e.g) Freud's id, ego, and superego)
Mentalism - Answer✔️✔️-An approach to explaining behavior that assumes
that a mental, or "inner," dimension exists that differs from a behavioral
dimension and that phenomena in this dimension either directly cause or
at least mediate some forms of behaviors, if not all.
Methodological Behaviorism - Answer✔️✔️-A philosophical position that
views behavioral events that cannot be publicly observed as outside the
realm of science.
Parsimony - Answer✔️✔️-The practice of ruling out simple, logical
explanations, experimentally or conceptually, before considering more
complex or abstract explanations.
Philosophic Doubt - Answer✔️✔️-An attitude that the truthfulness and
validity of all scientific theory knowledge should be continually
questioned.
Radical Behaviorism - Answer✔️✔️-A thoroughgoing form of behaviorism
that attempts to understand all human behaviors, including private events
such as thoughts and feelings, in terms of controlling variables in the
history of the person (ontogeny) and the species (phlogeny).
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Replication - Answer✔️✔️-(a) Repeating conditions within an experiment to
determine the reliability of effects and increase internal validity (see
baseline logic, prediction, verification.) (b) Repeating whole experiments to
determine the generality of findings of previous experiments to other
subjects, settings, and/or behaviors (see direct replication, external
validity, systematic replication).
Science - Answer✔️✔️-A systematic approach to the understanding of
natural phenomena (as evidenced by description, prediction, and control)
that relies on determinism as it fundamental assumption, empiricism as its
primary rule, experimental as its basic strategy, replication as a
requirement for believability, parsimony as a value, and philosophic doubt
as its guiding conscience.
Clicker training - Answer✔️✔️-Reinforcement is paired with the sound of a
clicker until the sound of the clicker becomes a conditioned reinforcer,
which is then used to shape behavior.
Differential reinforcement - Answer✔️✔️-A procedure in which
reinforcement is provided only for responses that meet a predetermined
criterion.
Response differentiation - Answer✔️✔️-Occurs when differential
reinforcement is applied to a response class. Responses that obtain
reinforcement form a new response class.
Shaping - Answer✔️✔️-The process of systematically and differentially
reinforcing successive approximations to a terminal behavior.
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