Behavior analysis and behavioral neuroscience

Abstract

Behavior analysis—the science of adaptive behavior—focuses on behavior as a subject matter in its own right, not as an index of cognitive events, and is, thus, not dualistic. Behavior analysis incorpo- rates several laws of learning discovered by researchers using single-subject experimental designs. I argue that behavior analysis can provide neuroscientists with an experimental and a theoreti- cal framework within which to investigate the neural bases of behaviors, including those that are usually described in cognitive terms.