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Curriculum Vitae

FACULTY

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Contact Info

 

catania@umbc.edu


Office: MP 233

 

Lab: n/a

 

Status:

 

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Curriculum Vitaebullet

A. Charles Catania, Ph.D.

Emeritus Professor

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Education

Ph.D. in Psychology, Harvard University, 1961

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Background and Research Interests

I am a Behavior Analyst and Experimental Psychologist with special interests in learning, schedules of reinforcement, and the analysis of verbal behavior. Much of my research has been rooted in biology where, for example, experiments on inhibitory interactions among operant classes were inspired by analogous interactions in sensory systems. Parallels between Darwinian natural selection and operant shaping have been relevant to several lines of work, including accounts of language evolution in terms of the functions of verbal behavior.  It has helped me throughout to regard behavior as primary. Organisms evolved based on what they could do; all of their physiological systems evolved in the service of behavior.  Thus, any effective science of behavior will necessarily be part of the biological sciences.

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Selected Publications

Catania, A. C. (in press). Basic operant contingencies: Main effects and side effects. In Fisher, Piazza, & Roane (Eds.). Handbook of Applied Behavior Analysis. New York: Guilford.

Catania, A. C. (2005). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): One process or many? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 446-450.

Catania, A. C. (2005). The operant reserve: A computer simulation in (accelerated) real time. Behavioural Processes, 69, 257-278.

Catania, A. C., Ono, K., & de Souza, D. (2000). Sources of novel behavior: Stimulus control arranged for different response dimensions. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 1, 23-32.

Catania, A. C. (1995). Higher-order behavior classes: Contingencies, beliefs, and verbal behavior. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 26, 191-200.

Catania, A. C., Lowe, C. F., & Horne, P. (1990). Nonverbal behavior correlated with the shaped verbal behavior of children. Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 8, 43-55.

Catania, A. C., Matthews, B. A., & Shimoff, E. (1982). Instructed versus shaped human verbal behavior: Interactions with nonverbal responding. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 38, 233-248.

Catania, A. C., & Sagvolden, T. (1980). Preference for free choice over forced choice in pigeons. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 34, 77-86.

Catania, A. C. (1973). The psychologies of structure, function, and development. American Psychologist, 28, 434-443.

Catania, A. C., & Gill, C. A. (1964). Inhibition and behavioral contrast. Psychonomic Science, 1, 257-258.