The Psychological Record, 2002, 52, 261-279

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE RELATION BETWEEN

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE

J. MOORE
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

A comprehensive science of behavior is concerned with two

related, but nevertheless distinct, questions. The first question is
"How is an organism's behavior functionally related to its
environment?" The second question is "How do the organism's
neural and hormonal systems mediate those functional relations?"
Behavior analysis addresses the first question, whereas
behavioral neuroscience addresses the second. The neural and
hormonal information that behavioral neuroscience provides is
important for a comprehensive science of behavior because the
information enhances the possibilities for the prediction and
control, rather than because it logically validates an explanation of
behavior. Although cognitive psychology is ostenSibly concerned
with internal events, it reflects the influence of social and cultural
mentalistic traditions more than the means by which neural and
hormonal systems mediate functional relations.

A comprehensive science of behavior is presumably concerned

with two interrelated questions:
1. How is an organ ism's behavior functionally related to its
envi ro nment?
2. How do the organism's neural and hormonal systems mediate those
functional relations?
Behavior analysis deals with the first question and the relation between
environmental circumstances and organism called behavior. These relations
exist at phylogenic, ontogenic, and cultural levels (Catania & Harnad, 1988).
Selection by consequences is the significant causal mode at these three
levels, and there are parallels across the three levels regarding (a) the unit
that is selected and (b) the consequence that does the selecting.
However, the second question differs from the first, and consequently
a science that differs from behavior analysis is needed to deal with it
(Donahoe, 1996; Reese, 1996). Behavioral neuroscience is just that

I thank John Donahoe and David Palmer for helpful conversations on many of the
topics addressed in this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to J. Moore, Department of Psychology, UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201.
(E-mail: jcm@ [Link]).
262 MOORE

different science. It is concerned with the operating characteristics of the

underlying neural and hormonal systems (a) within a behavioral event, and
(b) between one behavioral event and the next. For example, within a
behavioral event, we might be interested in the neural and hormonal
continuity from the time the organism comes into contact with an antecedent
stimulus through the time the response occurs. Alternatively, between
behavioral events, we might be interested in the neural and hormonal
continuity from one experience to the effects of that experience as measured
in the future. In this regard, readers may note that Skinner (1974, p. 221) has
suggested that a behavior-analytic account has two "unavoidable gaps," and
that a different science is needed to "make the picture of human action more
nearly complete" (see also Catania & Harnad, 1988, p. 470). We shall
discuss some implications of Skinner's statements later in the present
article, but for the moment, let us emphasize that events providing the neural
and hormonal continuity spoken of above are not stimuli in the behavioral
sense. If the events are construed as stimuli, the analysis remains at the
behavioral level. Neural and hormonal factors are not stimuli in the
behavioral sense, so the analysis that is being proposed here is not to study
neural or hormonal factors and call them stimuli, or to say the science
studies private stimuli. The subject matter identified by the second question
is not behavioral stimulation in any sense, and it requires a categorically
different science to address it.

Contributions of Behavioral Neuroscience to Causal Explanations of

Behavioral Events
Given the distinction above between the two sciences, we can
summarize the information that neuroscience provides in the following way:
1. How neural and hormonal systems provide continuity between
stimulus and response within a behavioral event,
2. How neural and hormonal systems are changed by experience,
3. How neural and hormonal systems store those changes from one
behavioral event to the next,
4. How a changed organism behaves differently in the future,
5. How the internal biochemical context modulates stimulating action
of the environment.
This same set of contributions holds true for allied disciplines, such as
behavioral pharmacology and behavioral toxicology, which study the effects
of various substances on an organism's physiological and behavioral
systems. The substances examined in such disciplines change the organism,
by selectively affecting (a) sensory systems mediating inpuVresponsiveness
to environmental stimulation or (b) motor systems mediating output or (c)
links between sensory and motor systems. Nevertheless, the information
provided in the allied disciplines remains the same.
 NEUROSCIENCE 263

Genetics, Selection by Consequences, and Behavior

Innate Behavior, Sensitivity to Contingencies, and Selection By Consequences

Let us develop this point of view a bit further, by considering the
contribution of genetics to a science of behavior. We begin by considering
the topic of innate behavior, selected by "contingencies of survival."
Suppose certain behavioral traits and characteristics are distributed
across a group of organisms, as a result of the genetic endowment of
those organisms. These traits and characteristics are essentially various
forms of unconditioned responsiveness to environmental stimulation.
Ethologists might label these forms of unconditioned responsiveness as
taxes, kineses, fixed action patterns, or reflexes.
Now suppose that certain forms of responsiveness favor survival.
Organisms that possess these forms survive for one reason or another.
Those that do not will perish. The organisms that scientists study in
today's laboratory are necessarily members of species that have
survived. They have had these forms of responsiveness transmitted to
them through the DNA they have inherited from preceding generations.
The forms of innate responsiveness contribute to a behavioral definition
of a species, as a kind of a behavioral phenotype.
Let us next consider conditioned respondent behavior. Respondent
conditioning may be construed as a behavioral process that contributes to
an organism's survival during its lifetime by allowing the organism to adapt
to its environment. Respondent conditioning occurs when stimulus A, which
initially did not elicit a response within a particular response system, comes
to do so because of a close and consistent relation between stimulus A and
stimulus B, which initially did elicit a response within the response system in
question. The exact nature of the "close and consistent relation" is, of
course, a matter of ongoing experimental analysis.
Thus, suppose we have a wide variety of organisms. The genetic
endowments of some of these organisms have yielded nervous systems
that, given certain experiences during their lifetimes, will change in the
way that results in the behavioral process called respondent conditioning.
Of course, some of the taxes, kineses, fixed action patterns, and reflexes
in a given species might not be susceptible to respondent conditioning,
which is to say that the nervous systems mediating these processes will
not change in the way that constitutes conditioning. The field of biological
constraints is concerned with many of these relations.
More concretely, let us consider the case of Pavlov's dogs. Dogs whose
salivary systems respond to the presentation of food itself or to another
stimulus that is correlated in a reasonably regular and reliable way with the
presentation of food may have a survival advantage over those that do not:
The response of the salivary system may mean the dog can swallow or
metabolize the food more easily. Alternatively, the capacity for neural
systems to change in the way called respondent conditioning could have
come about as an incidental by-product of other features that have arisen
through selection pressures, much as-the spandrels of San Marco arose as
264 MOORE

an incidental by-product of architectural practices, rather than deliberately as

a space for artwork (Gould & Lewontin, 1979). In either case, the genetically
mediated capacity for this behavioral change is an essential aspect of the
behavioral makeup of the organism.
Let us conclude with a third case of behavior: operant behavior.
Operant conditioning may be construed as another behavioral process
that develops and contributes to an organism's survival during its lifetime
by allowing the organism to adapt to its environment. Certainly an
organism is more likely to survive if it can adapt on the basis of the prior
consequences of its behavior. Operant conditioning occurs when the
probability of a response in the presence of an antecedent stimulus
increases because of the prior consequences of the response in the
presence of the stimulus in question. The exact nature of the relations
that must prevail among antecedents, responses, and consequences is,
of course, a matter of ongoing experimental analysis.
Again, suppose we have a wide variety of organisms. In some
organisms, the environmental consequences of certain actions bring
about certain changes in their neural systems, and the behavior becomes
more probable because those consequences produce those changes. In
other organisms, the consequences produce no such changes in their
neural systems. Organisms whose nervous systems do change in this
way flourish because of differential access to resources. For example, the
behavior of seeking food or avoiding predators might be strengthened,
affording obvious survival advantages. Organisms whose nervous
systems do not change will perish. The behavioral entity that results from
this process, or that stands at the end of the lineage at the time in
question, is called an operant: Its members function equivalently, and its
characteristics can be traced to a common ancestor. The consequence
does not have to be directly related to a life-maintaining event, as in drive-
reduction, only to a process that proves valuable in some other sense and
is passed on to future generations. In short, either (a) a designated
response or (b) a response with a new topography in an effector system
comes to be made to a given stimulus principally by virtue of the
correlation between the stimulus and the response's having had that
consequence in the past.
To be sure, responses are not operants the first time they occur; they
must occur for some other "reason" before they become operants. Thus,
the responses that come to be controlled by their consequences could
originally be, say, random uncommitted behavior. In addition, the
possibility exists in a given species that a form of behavior, including
some of the aforementioned uncommitted behavior, might not even be
susceptible to operant conditioning. That is, the nervous systems
mediating these forms of behavior will not change in the way that yields
operant conditioning, with respect to any of the relations between or
among the antecedent stimulus, the response, and the consequence.
The organism might not be susceptible to some form of stimulation from
the environment. It may not be able to engage in the topography in
 NEUROSCIENCE 265

question, or even if it could, the response might not come under operant
control. The organism might not be susceptible to reinforcement by the
consequence. As with respondent conditioning, the field of biological
constraints is concerned with many of these relations.
As is the case with conditioned respondent behavior, the specific
physiological means of replication, retention, and transmission with operant
behavior could be said to be "neural changes." This term is admittedly
vague. Whether it should imply synaptic mechanisms, long- term
potentiation, or some other mode of cellular plasticity is not currently known.
Recent theorists emphasize the importance of adaptive neural networks,
which work through synaptic changes. These biobehaviorally informed
interpretations of the events that take place within the skin would account for
the variation, selection, and retention of behavioral characteristics across
time, in a way that is analogous to the way that DNA accounts for the
variation, selection, and retention of morphological characteristics across
time (for example, see Donahoe, Palmer, & Burgos, 1997). In any event,
behavior analysis awaits something for "changes in behavior" that is the
equivalent of DNA for "changes in morphology." More will be said about this
point in a later section of the present article.
Perhaps the most important point to make about applying the thesis
of selection by consequences to behavior and its relation to genetic
structure is that it does away with the self as an initiator or creator. That
is, evolution does away with teleology and "grand designs" in nature with
respect to morphology. One need not invoke a prior agent or vital force as
a causal process to understand the development of a species. A
comparable viewpoint regarding a causal mode has been a long time
coming in the analysis of behavior. The traditional view has the "free"
individual initiating action according to mental or psychic processes. Not
only is there an ontological question of how something mental can cause
something physical like behavior, but also there is the question of whether
behavior is at heart unrelated to any determining factors. In the traditional
view, it is not related to determining factors.

Contribution of Genetics to Causal Explanations of Behavioral Events

We can now summarize the information that genetics provides in the
following way:
1. Sensitivity of the nervous system to environmental stimulation,
2. Sensitivity of the nervous system to contingencies: CS-US
contingencies for conditioned respondent behavior, and SD : R => S
R+ contingencies for operant behavior,
3. Context for the form/topography of species-specific, elicited, and
emitted behavior,
4. Supply of uncommitted/random behavior, from which environmental
circumstances select operant behavior, especially including verbal
behavior in humans.
Thus, we see first that a science of behavior is concerned with
behavior directly selected according to phylogenic contingencies, via
266 MOORE

inherited genetic mechanisms. Second, a science of behavior is

concerned with behavior selected by the material environment during the
lifetime of the individual organism. Behavior analysis contributes the
study of these relations to a science of behavior. Third, a science of
behavior is concerned with behavior selected by the sociallcultural
environment during the lifetime of the individual organism. Various forms
of behavior help the society and culture survive, and these forms are then
transmitted to new members of the society and culture for their adoption.
Cultural anthropology contributes the study of these relations to a science
of behavior. In the second and third cases, the genetiC structure has to be
such that the organism's nervous system can change during the lifetime
of the organism to yield the kind of behavioral adaptation in question, and
understanding these neural changes will help us to understand the
development of important classes of behavior.

GenetiCS, Behavior, and "Intermediate Steps" vs "Terminal Relations"

As noted earlier in the present paper, there is a parallel between the
current state of behavior analysis and genetic theory in biology prior to
DNA (Skinner in Catania & Harnad, 1988, p. 111). Let us formalize this
parallel in the following way:
Darwin => Mendel => DNA and "Grand synthesis" II Watson =>
Skinner => ? That is, Darwin had some very important ideas in the 19th
century about variation and selection in morphology. However, he was not
able to specify how a given change in morphology was mediated across
generations. Mendel actually performed some experiments and
formulated quite accurate quantitative relations between parents and
offspring of pea plants with respect to yellow vs. green coloring, smooth
vs. wrinkled skin, and so on. Although he developed quantitative laws, he
too did not identify the physiological mechanism according to which
replication, retention, and transmission take place. The grand synthesis
awaited the rediscovery of Mendel plus the discovery of DNA, which
provided the mechanism.
In psychology suppose we say that Watson had some very important
ideas, and Skinner actually performed some experiments and recorded
some orderly data some years later. Skinner and behavior analysis dealt
with variation and selection and developed some quantitative laws.
However, Skinner and behavior analysis were not able to specify how a
given change in behavior was mediated across time.
The argument here is that prior to DNA, the science of genetics was
concerned with terminal relations, rather than intermediate steps. The
discovery of DNA and the grand synthesis established the intermediate
steps. Nevertheless, the discovery of DNA did not disprove Darwin or
Mendel. Mendel's laws remain as accurate as always.
Behavior analysis is also concerned in one sense with terminal
relations. It can make quantitative statements about the terminal relations
between certain environmental variables and resulting behavior, but not
any neural or hormonal mechanisms that are the intermediate steps
 NEUROSCIENCE 267

according to which those terminal relations are replicated, retained, and

transmitted. Behavior analysis is concerned with the fact that a behavioral
event that takes place on Monday may exert an effect on Tuesday, but not
with the neural or hormonal changes that take place and are stored from
Monday to Tuesday, such that the organism is a different organism on
Tuesday than it was on Monday. In that sense, behavior analysis awaits
a contribution from neuroscience about the intermediate steps. That
contribution is comparable to that which genetics awaited from
biochemistry and DNA. In any event, that knowledge will not disprove the
quantitative relations developed in the experimental analysis of behavior.
Those quantitative relations will remain as accurate as always.
Let us make certain parallels between the selection of morphology
and the selection of certain forms of behavior by the environment more
concrete. We can say that the population in question at some initial time
T1 contains a mixture of characteristics. The lengths of necks on giraffes
are varied; the reflexive responsiveness to stimuli is varied. We can say
that the population at some later time T2 has changed in some way,
because of the interaction with the environment. The average length of
necks on giraffes has increased, say because the environment changed
and favored longer necks by affording differential access to food; the
average reflexive responsiveness to stimuli has increased, say because
organisms with that responsiveness are better able to survive. The
difference between the way populations are represented at T1 and T2
implies that some of the members of the ultimate T2 population are in fact
present at T1, but just not very many of them. They become more
frequent in the T2 population because of some interaction with the
environment over time.
Despite the foregoing parallelism, the selection of morphology by the
environment does differ from the selection of certain forms of behavior. Most
notably, although changes in morphology and innate behavior proceed
according to Darwinian natural selection, conditioned respondent and
operant behavior might be said to reflect Lamarckian principles. The
characteristics that are transmitted to the next generation are acquired
during the lifetime of the organism in question. The neural changes that are
acquired through experience are then retained, such that they contribute to
future behavior of the new type. In the case of behavior, the future means
responses will occur more frequently in the same organism in the future,
rather than the same response will occur more frequently in future
organisms. The difference between the way the populations are represented
at T1 and T2 does not imply that some of the neural changes ultimately
present at T2 are in fact present at T1, and that they in fact are more
frequent at T2 because of some interaction with the environment over time.
The neural changes are not present at T1 in a given set of neurons, but they
are present at T2 in the same neurons because of environmental interaction.
(Certainly cultural changes that are acquired during the "lifetime" of the
culture are transmitted in a Lamarckian fashion to the next generation;
verbal behavior plays a key role in the transmission.)
268 MOORE

Given that Lamarckian selection is generally discredited as a

process, at issue is whether conceiving of behavioral selection as
Lamarckian means theorists need to reconsider the nature of the
behavioral unit that is selected. Notwithstanding his own bias toward the
gene as the unit of Darwinian natural selection, Dawkins (1988)
comments that "if habits are analogous to anything in the Darwinian
scheme, it is to genes, not to individual organisms. But they are clearly
not very close analogues of genes, and this makes the whole application
of the Darwinian analogy at this level difficult" (p. 33).

Behavior Analysis, Neuroscience, Private

Behavioral Events, and Cognitive Psychology

Some Speculative Neurophysiology

Ordinarily, bodily states or activities of the intact organism are the
objects of introspection. The interoceptive and proprioceptive nerves that
detect these bodily states and activities are the medium of contact. What
we call the stimulus is the bodily condition, not necessarily the activity in
the sensory nerves produced by the bodily condition. More complex
cases such as "phantom limb" pain or "referred" pain suggest the
physiological mechanism is not restricted to responding to stimulation
from the sensed area, but rather will respond given a wide variety of
peripheral stimulation to appropriate nerve fibers.
Of course, even with a plausible account of how introspective reports
develop, terms describing private events tend to be inexact for two
reasons. The first reason is functional. The verbal community that
teaches us to apply terms to our private events works under the handicap
of privacy: The verbal community does not have precise access to the
described conditions, and there may be some inconsistencies across the
actual antecedent conditions under which reinforcement is administered.
Thus, there is considerable variation as the usage develops.
The second is structural and more in keeping with the neural or
hormonal question. At issue is whether we have nerves going to the "right
places" (Skinner, 1974, pp. 221-223). For example, the structuralists
claimed that with proper training, one might introspect as many as 42,415
different sensations (e.g., Lundin, 1991, p. 88). The sensations were held
to be different activities or states of the central nervous system (CNS).
However, we simply do not have sensory nerves going to places that
make it possible for us to discern that many sensations, even if our
interactions with the verbal community were favorable. We reveal a lack
of sensitivity in a two-point limen test in the lower back because of the low
representation of sensory information, and we presumably have a
corresponding lack of sensitivity with respect to the activities of the CNS
or other activities going on inside our skins because of low representation
of interoceptive and proprioceptive information. People who make various
sophisticated claims about their "sensations," "feelings," or "states of
mind" are simply making fanciful statements that presumably have little
 NEUROSCIENCE 269

basis for being valid, because they do not have interoceptive or

proprioceptive contact with anything that could be identified as the source
of such sensations.
In regard to the question of sensitivity to internal events, Natsoulas
(e.g., 1983, 1985) has raised a number of incisive concerns about the
behavioristic approach. For example, Natsoulas (1983) suggested that

the behaviorist account holds that all awareness of anything

requires that whatever it is stimulate one or more of our sense
receptors. In addition to a form of responding's being necessary
for awareness of anything, the activation of sense receptors is also
necessary. Otherwise, we cannot do what is supposed to be
necessary for awareness of anything, namely, that which is called
by radical behaviorism "respond to it." (p. 21)

Natsoulas's point is characteristically well-taken: For differential responses

to develop to private states, there must presumably be some sensory
contact with them. So far as we know, this sensory contact is provided by
the interoceptive and proprioceptive nervous systems (e.g., Skinner, 1974,
pp. 20-21). Whether this contact is central or peripheral is an empirical
question, and it may need to be examined on a case-by-case basis.
Watson (1913, p. 174) was of course biased against including any
centrally initiated processes. He originally thought the only possibility was
for peripheral processes to influence behavior. Skinner (1957) declined to
"make guesses about the muscular or neural substratum of [covert]
verbal events ... we can talk about both [covert and overt] forms of
response . . . without identifying physiological mediators" (p. 435).
Nevertheless, Skinner (1957) repeatedly appealed to "subaudible,"
"incipient," and "inchoate" forms of verbal behavior (e.g., pp. 143, 400).
Although Skinner (1957) noted "difficulties in assuming that covert
behavior is always executed by the muscular apparatus responsible for
the overt form" (p. 435), he later stated that "So far as we know, the
[covert] responses are executed with the same organs as observable
responses but on a smaller scale" (Skinner, 1969, p. 242). Indeed, in a
still later writing he stated

I agree that the kind of thinking which seems to be merely covert

behavior ("truncated, unemitted, reduced, impotent behavioral
acts") may be so reduced that there is no muscular involvement to
be sensed proprioceptively. Must we appeal to some minute
behavior which never reaches a muscle? If so, it is a problem for
the physiologist. There is a possibility that the effect is sensory. I
believe that my analysis of seeing makes this a possible
alternative .... I see no reason why we should not also call the
action of efferent nerves behavior if no muscular response is
needed for reinforcement. That may occur in' the thinking that
retreats beyond the point at which muscular action can be
detected. (Skinner in Catania & Harnad, 1988, p. 331, 485)
270 MOORE

Perhaps the point of contact between sensory and motor systems, or

between different aspects of sensory systems, will prove to be fairly
central after all.
Natsoulas (1985, p. 93) has also questioned Skinner's statement that
we do not have nerves going to the right places. For example, Natsoulas
(1985, p. 89) has asked "Why cannot brain processes be objects of
introspection?", but the matter has not been resolved. Standard texts in
neurophysiology such as Shepherd (1979, p. 365) point out that perhaps
as many as one third of the motor neurons in the cortex are located
outside the traditional motor cortex of the frontal lobe and are actually in
classical somatosensory areas of the parietal lobe. Perhaps the
overlapping pathways with the collaterals and various other projections
provide a relatively central point of contact between "motor" functions and
"sensory" functions, given the traditional dichotomy. Thus, there may well
be relatively central points of contact that plausibly account for the
development of some kinds of introspective reports (ct. Skinner, 1974, p.
223). However, even if talk of this kind of sensory contact is valid, the
sensory contact is presumably insufficient to support the many
extravagant claims made by contemporary traditional psychologists
about the relation between brain processes and behavior as it involves
introspective reports and private events.

Private Perceptual Responses

One of the more intriguing features of behavior analysis is that
perception may be treated as a behavioral process, in the sense that it is
controlled by antecedent and consequent relations, as are other
behavioral processes. For example, Skinner (1953, pp. 273-274) talks of
unconditioned seeing, (classically) conditioned seeing, and operant
seeing. Unconditioned seeing occurs when what is seen is controlled by
the features present in seen object itself. One sees the object as it is
when presented under optimum conditions, there are no conflicting
circumstances, and so on. Conditioned seeing occurs when what is seen
is controlled by antecedent features associated in a regular and reliable
way with the object, rather than the object itself. One might "see" a
completed ring when a ring that actually had a small segment missing
was presented for a very brief time. Operant seeing occurs when there is
some consequence for seeing. The distinctive feature of operant seeing
is that there is a consequence for seeing something: dog lovers may see
a dog when presented with an ambiguous figure because dogs are
important, chess players may see patterns of movements with pieces
because winning is important, and visual imagery may be used in
problem solving because it mediates a solution and solving the problem
is important. The process depends on certain events in the prior
experience of the individual, however.
Operant seeing can occur at all because of the stimulation derived
from the act of perceiving, rather from the object perceived (Skinner,
1953, pp. 263, 273). As before, there are presumably points of contact
 NEUROSCIENCE 271

between the sensory system and other response systems that do not
involve light energy in the case of vision or auditory energy in the case of
audition. The points of contact, as Natsoulas (1983) has suggested, allow
the act of perceiving to contribute to discriminative control over
subsequent behavior, rather than merely the content of what is perceived.
One can see in the absence of the thing seen, but the response of seeing
may be controlled partly by collateral internal stimulation, rather than by
any "mental image" where the term "mental" implies another dimension
beyond the behavioral.

Confirmation of Interpretations About Private Events qua Behavioral

Much of the behavior-analytic verbal material on the neural or
hormonal underpinnings of private events is admittedly interpretive, and
the promissory note is offered that neurophysiologists will eventually
confirm or at least correct the technical details of what behaviorists have
been saying (ct. Schnaitter, 1984, 1986). Moore (1998, pp. 207-208) has
defined interpretation as the use of scientific terms and principles in
talking about facts when too little is known to make prediction and control
possible, or when precise manipulation is not feasible. An example of
interpretation is the theory of plate tectonics. This theory is an
interpretation of a vast number of facts about the nature of the earth's
crust. It uses terms and principles taken from much more accessible
material and from experimental analyses and their technological
applications. The basic principles governing the behavior of material
under high pressure and high temperature can be studied in the
laboratory under controlled conditions, but no one literally manipulates
continental landmasses and seismic events in geoscience. Rather, the
role of plate tectonics in explanations of the formation of surface features
of the earth is interpretation (example taken from Skinner in Catania &
Harnad, 1988, pp. 207-208). The point is that once the interpretive verbal
behavior is emitted, it can be confirmed by generating additional
discriminative stimuli that increase the probability of the verbal response
being emitted as a tact and thereby having the ability to occasion effective
action (Skinner, 1957, p. 425). The issue of confirmation is critical
because statements on private events qua behavioral can be confirmed
by greater knowledge of the underlying physiology.
The second issue on which more information is needed is the
neurophysiological structures that detect the occurrence of a private
response. Whether it is meaningful to say that our interoceptive nervous
system senses CNS activity, or whether as yet unknown mechanisms of
contact with CNS functions will be discovered, is not altogether clear, as
Natsoulas (1983) and Schnaitter (1984) have incisively pointed out (see
also Creel, 1980). Neurophysi010gical activity of some sort participates in
every behavioral event. Is consciousness a brain process (Place, 1956)?
The self-descriptive verbal responses we call "consciousness"
presumably entail brain processes in the same sense that a rat's lever
pressing entails brain processes. Presumably, one can not claim any
272 MOORE

event of behavioral significance has transpired without there being

neurophysiological activity that can be known about, in the brain or
elsewhere. Nevertheless, concepts derived from neurophysiological
activity do not explain instances of behavior, at least as behavior analysts
ordinarily use the term explain (Moore, 2000a). Consider the rat's lever
pressing. Neurophysiology is involved in the motor activity of pressing the
lever, and no doubt the brain is actively processing neural impulses from
many locations in the rat's nervous system. However, a knowledge of how
physiology mediates discriminative control does not allow one to express
the facts of which feature of the environment actually exerts that control.

Cognitive Psychology
Moore (1996) has suggested that cognitive psychology is concerned
with specifying in an abstract fashion the functional properties of the
underlying "Amental" acts, states, mechanisms, processes, structures,
and entities that afford competence. Importantly, the internal phenomena
are explicitly not behavioral. How does one make sense of the writings
about cognitive psychology, and how does it relate to the intradermal
issues being discussed here? As Kantor (1947) noted, physiological
factors constitute participating components in larger interactional
systems, but is it the case that we should regard the postulation of
phYSiological substrates, especially in the nervous system, as the valid
way to invoke mental processes as causes of behavior?
For behavior analysis, questions about cognitive psychology and
mental processes are to be engaged as questions about verbal
processes. Because there is no literal mental dimension, there can be no
mental acts, states, and so forth, to occasion the talk, so there must be
discriminative stimuli and reinforcers from the behavioral dimension that
control the verbal behavior we call cognitive.
Skinner has commented extensively on the nature and origin of
mentalistic language in cognitive psychology (e.g., Skinner, 1945, pp.
292-293; Skinner, 1974, pp. 165-166, 169; Skinner, 1978, p. 77, 81;
Skinner in Catania & Harnad, 1988, p. 447, 472). In short, Skinner's
argument is that

[T]he reasons for the popularity of cognitive psychology ... have

nothing to do with scientific advances but rather with the release
of the floodgates of mentalistic terms fed by the tributaries of
philosophy, theology, history, letters, media, and worst of all, the
English language. (Skinner, 1987, p. 111)

Many of these points were anticipated by Woodworth (1921) in a

perceptive statement made years before:

Instead of "memory", we should say "remembering"; instead of

"thought" we should say "thinking"; instead of "sensation" we
should say "seeing, hearing", etc. But, like other branches,
psychology is prone to transform its verbs into nouns. Then what
 NEUROSCIENCE 273

happens. We forget that our nouns are merely substitutes for

verbs, and go hunting for the things denoted by the nouns; but
there are no such things, there are only the activities that we
started with, seeing, remembering, and so on.
Intelligence, consciousness, the unconscious, are by rights not
nouns, nor even adjectives or verbs; they are adverbs. The real
facts are that the individual acts intelligently-more or less so-
acts consciously or unconsciously, as he may also act skillfully,
persistently, excitedly. It is a safe rule, then, on encountering any
menaCing psychological noun, to strip off its linguistic mask, and
see what manner of activity lies behind. (pp. 5-6)

Moore (1981, 2000b) has suggested that verbal behavior of cognitive

psychologists is presumably under highly complex multiple control, just
as verbal behavior of other scientists is under highly complex multiple
control. Part of the control is legitimate, to be found in scientific operations
and contact with data. However, part is spurious, to be found in social-
cultural verbal traditions. Thus, behavior analysis views cognitive talk as
being occasioned partly by private behavioral events or functionally
organized neural or hormonal systems, and partly by social-cultural
traditions. At issue is the balance between the two sources. On a behavior-
analytic view, cognitive talk invoking causal mental processes is controlled
to a great extent by social-cultural traditions, and cognitive psychology would
be better off to maximize control by scientific operations and contact with
data, and to minimize control by social-cultural traditions. If an explanation
does appeal to causal phenomena from the mental dimension, then one
needs to analyze that explanation so as to determine whether it is
occasioned by one or more of the following factors, and make the
accompanying decisions regarding its nature and suitability:
1. Processes or relations that are actually in the behavioral
dimension, whether publicly observable or private. In this case, the
purported mental phenomenon is appropriate for analysis as a
private behavioral phenomenon. On this view, any explanation
involving a private behavioral phenomenon needs to be further
connected, at least in principle, with the public processes or relations
that are responsible for the private phenomenon exerting an effect in
the current instance; or
2. Neural or hormonal processes, in which case the mental term is
appropriate for physiology but only in a limited way for psychology, as
described above; or
3. Complex social-cultural epistemological preconceptions, in which
case the term is a fanciful explanatory fiction (e.g., from "folk
psychology"), and is of interest only in regard to the social and
cultural conditions that promote its use, rather than as a genuinely
explanatory term. No such mental dimension exists, and no such
causal mental phenomena exist in this dimension. Talk of such causal
phenomena in a mental dimension is occasioned by other factors,
rather than those that cause behavior.
274 MOORE

Thus, the argument here is that appeals to causal mental states and
cognitive processes are occasioned too much by social-cultural factors,
and not enough by operations and contacts with data. By virtue of this
imbalance, the explanatory talk may be dismissed. Although we might
question whether we are dismissing something that we should not, on
balance the dismissal seems justified (see further discussion in Moore,
2000b, p. 151). On this view, is cognitive psychology a legitimate
theoretical neuroscience? For behavior analysis, the answer is clearly
not: "cognitive constructs give physiologists a misleading account of what
they will find inside" (Skinner, 1978, p. 111).

Implications and Conclusions: How to Specify

the Relations Among Behavior Analysis, Behavioral
Neuroscience, and Contemporary Cognitive Psychology

Complementary?
Moore (1997, p. 242) suggested behavior analYSis and neuroscience
were complementary. Use of the term complementary implies that the more
that is known of one factor, the less needs to be known of the other factor to
predict or control behavior adequately. Thus, the term implies a sense of
cooperative rather than competitive, mutually supportive rather than mutually
exclusive, and reciprocal rather than restricting (see also Donahoe, 1996).
Given this sense of complementary, how then might we portray the
various relations among the sciences? Consider the pairwise
comparisons:
1. Behavior analysis and behavioral neuroscience: complementary,
2. Behavior analysis and cognitive psychology: not complementary
because of the nature of cognitive psychology,
3. Behavioral neuroscience and cognitive psychology: not
complementary because of the nature of cognitive psychology.
Comparisons 2 and 3 above are regarded as not complementary for the
same reason that the phlogiston theory of combustion is not
complementary with the oxygen theory. Phlogiston is a fanciful approach,
in that it can be shown through an analysis of verbal processes to be
largely a function of spurious factors. It may have been popular at one
time in the history of science, but it was superseded by an explanation
that incorporated naturalistic factors that exist in space and time.
Cognitive theories in psychology are examples of fanciful theories, like
phlogiston in chemistry. A critical examination of the factors that are
responsible for them suggests they can be attributed to spurious factors
that are cherished for irrelevant and extraneous reasons (Moore, 1996).

"Interaction" Between Nature and Nurture?

Sometimes we speak of an interaction between nature and nurture. Let
us critically examine this sort of language. Intuitively, the term "interaction"
implies a relation between two or more instances of same kind of cause.
However, neuroscience and behavior analysis deal with different kinds of
causes. Recall the two sciences address two different questions.
 NEUROSCIENCE 275

Consider Aristotle's treatment of causation, and how the categories

can be interpreted in an abstract sense to apply behavior analysis.
Although Winston (1987) has argued persuasively against the
interpretation, perhaps the comparison will nevertheless be useful for the
purpose of illustration:
Table 1

Aristotle's 4 Causes and Corresponding Behavior-Analytic Interpretation

Aristotle's Ordinary language Behavior-analytic
4 causes meaning Statue interpretation
efficient that by the action of which sculptor contingency
formal that according to which design of small discriminative
statue control
final that for the sake of which to honor reinforcement
distinguished
person
material that out of which bronze/clay physiology of
sentient/behaving
organism

This table seeks to interpret the sense of efficient, formal, final, and
material causes in the language of behavior analysis (see also Moore,
1984). Accordingly, efficient causes may be interpreted in an abstract
sense as the contingency, formal cause as discriminative control, final
cause as reinforcement, and material cause as the physiology· of the
sentient and behaving organism. The table, then seeks to reflect the
varied sense of the term cause, when we answer questions dealing with
why an object or event is what it is.
On this view, it is confusing to say that there is an "interaction"
between nature and nurture. Interaction implies same kind of cause, as in
interaction between two or more efficient causes, formal causes, etc.
Nature is a material cause. Nurture could be any of efficient, formal, or
final causes. In any event, we are talking about several different senses
of the term cause. Refraining from saying "interaction between nature
and nurture" means we reduce the danger of taking a factor as being one
kind of cause when it is actually another, for example, of equating a
material cause with a formal cause. Material and formal causes may
covary, as when the material out of which a statue is carved must be
amenable to the actions of the sculptor so that it can be shaped according
to a design, but material causes are not identical with formal causes.

Explanation and Physiological Reductionism?

Earlier in the present article, we noted that Skinner talked of two
"unavoidable gaps" in a behavioral analysis. The first is within a
behavioral event, and the second is between behavioral events. Let us
critically examine this and other of Skinner's language, because it is
potentially very troublesome.
276 MOORE

If behavior is a subject matter in its own right (Skinner, 1938, p. 440),

then presumably explanations of that behavior do not have to engage a
subject matter at a different level to be valid. However, Skinner has also said

Eventually, we may assume, the facts and principles of psychology

will be reducible not only to physiology but through biochemistry to
physics and subatomic physics. (Skinner, 1972, p. 303)

and

I agree that "only an account of the machinery within the skin can
explain behavior." (Skinner in Catania & Harnad, 1988, p. 334)

The use of such terms as "reducible" and "only," as well as the entire "gaps"
argument (e.g., Skinner in Catania & Hamad, 1988, p. 470) is troubling
because such language implies that a behavioral account is necessarily
limited in principle, and that it can never identify all the relevant factors that
are necessary to secure an adequate explanation. Ironically, Skinner seems
to be guilty of reductionism here, by saying that explanations in behavior
analysis are really limited in principle, because they don't identify underlying
physiological mechanisms, and that behavior analysis is just something to
do until a sufficiently sophisticated neuroscience comes along and provides
the "ultimate" and "complete" explanations for behavior in terms of those
mechanisms (see also Reese, 1996).
One way to resolve the problem of reductionism is to recognize that
neurophysiology is concerned with the mediation of functional relations
between the organism and environment (Skinner, 1969, p. 283). As such, if
the current neural or hormonal states are known, they may be used as a
basis for prediction, manipulation, and control, instead of a possibly
inadequate specification of history in terms of environmental interactions. On
this view, behavior analysis and neuroscience provide mutual and reciprocal
support for each other; neuroscience does not provide the logical grounds
for validating behavior-analytic explanations. As suggested earlier, behavior
analysis and a theoretical behavioral neuroscience may therefore be
regarded as complementary sciences, in the sense of mutually supporting.
In a more practical vein, physiological information, such as how an organism
has been changed by interactions with its environment during its lifetime,
can compensate for a possibly inadequate behavioral specification of those
interactions as a basis for making predictions or taking direct action. Overall,
behavior analysis gives neuroscience one of its directions, just as Mendel's
studies of the numerical relations among the traits of successive generations
of pea plants gave the study of the gene one of its directions (e.g., Catania
& Harnad, 1988, p. 470).

Pragmatic Basis
More formally, then, we can state that if a primary goal of behavioral
 NEUROSCIENCE 277

science is to manipulate, predict, or control behavior, or to provide a

sufficient data base that occasions such actions, then the following
conclusions are appropriate:
1. In principle, knowledge from either behavior analysis or
neuroscience can serve as adequate basis for attempts to
manipulate, predict, and control behavior.
2. If knowledge from one domain is limited, attempts to manipulate,
predict, and control behavior on the basis of that knowledge might
be made more effective if they are informed by the other science.
3. Neuroscience is not necessary to provide the logical or empirical
grounds for validating behavior-analytic theories, explanations, or
technological advances.
The link between behavior analysis and either genetics or neuroscience
is therefore pragmatic. Each science can inform the other in its
characteristic way, but genetics and neuroscience are not necessary to
validate behavior-analytic explanations, any more than behavior analysis
is necessary to validate explanations in genetics or neuroscience (see
also Saer, 1996).

Summing Up: The Complementarity of Behavior Analysis and Behavioral

Neuroscience
In retrospect, then, behavior analysis and neuroscience support each
other by virtue of their respective contributions to direct action, as opposed
to logical/theoretical/explanatory contributions. Direct, effective action with
respect to behavior (manipulation, prediction, control) can be predicated on
knowledge of (a) environmental history, (b) neural or hormonal states
produced by noncontrived interactions with environment, or (c) the way that
contrived neural or hormonal interventions/manipulations have modified the
organism so that it responds differently than otherwise to the stimulating
action of its environment.
Nevertheless, an independent science of behavior as a function of
environmental circumstances is necessary for at least three reasons: (a) We
may not know how to control behavior through neural or hormonal
interventions/manipulations, but we can control behavior through
manipulations of environmental circumstances; (b) even if we do know how to
control behavior through neural or hormonal interventions/manipulations, their
implementation may not always be practical; and (c) a behavioral technology
is propadeutic to discovering the functional relevance of information about the
current neural or hormonal state of the behaving organism, where that state
has been produced through interactions with the environment or through
neural or hormonal interventions/manipulations that have modified the
organism, such that it responds differently than otherwise to the stimulating
action of its environment. The possibilities of such an effective interchange
between the life sciences is just beginning to be realized. However, the
interchange can only be fully realized when the mentalism that supports
looking for inner, self-sufficient causes in another dimension, whether those
causes are conceived as cognitive/mental or phYSiological, is superseded.
278 MOORE

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