Balancing the scale.

Traditional discussions involving 'basic' and 'applied' behavioral research often focus on the differences, or gaps, between these areas. They take place in different environments, use different methods, ask different questions, and have different objectives. Applied animal behavior is no exception.

Problematic social media use is associated with increased risk-aversion after negative outcomes in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task.

Around the world, people display maladaptive, problematic use of online social networking sites (SNSs), like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. The symptoms of this problematic SNS use are similar to symptoms of substance use and behavioral addictive disorders, such as relapse when attempting to quit. Individuals with substance use and behavioral addictive disorders also display increased risk-taking when making decisions, but little research has investigated decision making with respect to problematic SNS use.

Bayesian Behavioral Systems Theory.

Behavioral Systems Theory suggests that observable behavior is embedded in a hierarchy. A CS elicits behavior because, after learning, it activates a pathway through this hierarchy. Much of Timberlake's body of work on Behavioral Systems Theory focuses on the conditions that support the conditioning of these pathways.

Optimal response rates in humans and rats.

The analysis of response rates has been highly influential in psychology, giving rise to many prominent theories of learning. There is, however, growing interest in explaining response rates, not as a global response to associations or value, but as a decision about how to space responses in time. Recently, researchers have shown that humans and mice can time a single response optimally; that is, in a way that maximizes reward.

Integrating timing and conditioning approaches to study behavior.

Skinner and Pavlov had innovative ways to measure both the times of their subject's responses, as well as the rate of their responses. Since then, different subfields within the study of animal behavior have prioritized either the rate or timing of responses, creating a divide in data and theory. Both timing and conditioning fields have proven fruitful, producing large bodies of empirical data and developing sophisticated models.

The importance of the reinforcer as a time marker.

Shifts in the psychometric function in the Free Operant Psychophysical Procedure (FOPP) have traditionally been explained by suggesting the pacemaker rate is proportional to the reinforcement rate (Behavioral Theory of Timing; BeT), or by direct associative competition between the two responses (Learning to Time; LeT). The application of these models assumes that the stimulus onset is the relevant time marker. Head-entries were reinforced in the second half of a stimulus (s1) and in the first half of a different stimulus (s2).

A simultaneous temporal processing account of response rate.

The goal was to determine whether a signal (e.g., a click) at food availability affects timing behavior in rats.