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Basic Choice Research

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Autism Service Delivery

Part of the book series: Autism and Child Psychopathology Series ((ACPS))

Abstract

This chapter reviews basic research on choice from both the experimental analysis of behavior and cognitive sciences literature. Choice is a ubiquitous component in any organism’s behavior stream, necessitating a proper understanding of the variables governing choice to fully account for the universe of responding in a science of behavior. We provide only tentative discussions for translating basic findings to service delivery and place our comments within the boundaries and appropriate limitations of the extant literature. In general, this chapter reviews basic theories and models of choice, providing a general framework for the clinical applications that are discussed in Chap. 7.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Not to be confused with the behavior analytic account of behavioral economics that emerged from the operant laboratory from researchers such as Rachlin (1995) and Hursh (1980,1984); see Chaps. 10 and 11 of this volume for the behavior analytic account of behavioral economics.

  2. 2.

    Note that matching can be obtained on ratio schedules if they are programmed as interdependent random ratio (RR) schedules, wherein responding on one alternative impacts the availability at others (see Rothstein et al. 2008 for an example). We posit that real-world choices are likely most similar to interdependent RR schedules, rather than VI schedules.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas, 4048 Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, 66045-7555, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Derek D. Reed Ph.D., BCBA-D

  2. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Jeffrey H. Tiger

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  1. Derek D. Reed Ph.D., BCBA-D
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  2. Jeffrey H. Tiger
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Correspondence to Derek D. Reed Ph.D., BCBA-D .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Florence D. DiGennaro Reed

  2. Dept. Applied Behavioral Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Derek D. Reed

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Reed, D., Tiger, J. (2015). Basic Choice Research. In: DiGennaro Reed, F., Reed, D. (eds) Autism Service Delivery. Autism and Child Psychopathology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2656-5_6

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