Research Interests for John Staddon

Research Interests: Adaptive Behavior, animal learning, theoretical psychology, psychology and policy

John Staddon works on evolution and mechanisms of learning. Current topics are timing and memory, feeding regulation, and the ways in which animals and people adapt to reward schedules in the lab and in life. Theoretical work involves both analytical and computer-simulation studies of functional and mechanistic models for behavior.

Keywords:
timing, choice, traffic, dynamics, reflexes
Current projects:
a diffusion model that describes the dynamics of stimulus generalization and spatial navigation,
a parallel model for the assignment-of-credit (response-selection) problem in operant conditioning,
a simple feedback model for feeding dynamics,
a habituation-based model for memory and interval timing,
a dynamic model for successive induction in zebrafish
a simple decision model for timing and choice behavior.
Representative Publications
  1. Staddon, J.E.R., Adaptive Dynamics: The Theoretical Analysis of Behavior (2001), pp. xiv, 1-423, Cambridge, MA: MIT/Bradford.
  2. Staddon, J.E.R., The New Behaviorism: Mind, Mechanism and Society (2001), pp. xiii, 1-211, Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
  3. Staddon, J. E. R. & Cerutti, D. T., Operant behavior., Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 54 (2003), pp. 115-144 [abs].
  4. Staddon, J.E.R., Scientific imperialism and behaviorist epistemology., Philosophy & Behavior, vol. 32 (2004), pp. 231-242 [abs].
  5. Staddon, J.E.R. & Higa, J.J., Time and memory: Towards a pacemaker-free theory of interval timing, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, vol. 71 (1999), pp. 215-251 [abs] [author's comments].
  6. Staddon, J.E.R., Chelaru, I.M., & Higa, J.J., Habituation, Memory and the Brain: The Dynamics of Interval Timing, Behavioural Processes, vol. 57 (2002), pp. 71-88 [abs].