Allen Neuringer

Allen Neuringer is a noted American psychologist. He is a highly published and well recognized scientist in the field of the experimental analysis of behavior pioneered by B.F. Skinner. As of June 2008, Dr. Neuringer is retiring from being a professor of psychology at Reed College. His areas of research include human volition studies, the generation of randomness in organisms, self-experimentation, and many other areas.

He has served on National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) committees, received numerous awards and grants for his research, and has published in dozens of journals. He received his B.A. at Columbia College and his Ph. D at Harvard University.

Randomness and Behavior

Neuringer's work focused on the production of "pure randomness" in human and other organismic behavior, something that was widely considered impossible. Matching and reinforcing human and animal responses to a random number generator he was able to have humans and other organisms behave "randomly". [cite journal |author=Neuringer A |title=Reinforced variability in animals and people: implications for adaptive action |journal=Am Psychol |volume=59 |issue=9 |pages=891–906 |year=2004 |month=Dec |pmid=15584823 |doi=10.1037/0003-066X.59.9.891 |url=] [cite journal |author=Neuringer A |title=Operant variability: evidence, functions, and theory |journal=Psychon Bull Rev |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=672–705 |year=2002 |month=Dec |pmid=12613672 |doi= |url=http://openurl.ingenta.com/content/nlm?genre=article&issn=1069-9384&volume=9&issue=4&spage=672&aulast=Neuringer] [cite journal |author=Grunow A, Neuringer A |title=Learning to vary and varying to learn |journal=Psychon Bull Rev |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=250–8 |year=2002 |month=Jun |pmid=12120786 |doi= |url=http://openurl.ingenta.com/content/nlm?genre=article&issn=1069-9384&volume=9&issue=2&spage=250&aulast=Grunow] [cite journal |author=Vickrey C, Neuringer A |title=Pigeon reaction time, Hick's law, and intelligence |journal=Psychon Bull Rev |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=284–91 |year=2000 |month=Jun |pmid=10909135 |doi= |url=]

elf-Experimentation & Melioration

Dr. Neuringer has suggested that behavior analysis as a field might benefit from using experimental designs that explicitly and directly attempted to meliorate the condition of an experimental subject. He envisaged placing practical every-day goals as the objective of experiments and, especially, self-experiments. [cite journal |author=Neuringer A |title=Melioration and self-experimentation |journal=J Exp Anal Behav |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=397–406 |year=1984 |month=Nov |pmid=16812398 |pmc=1348111 |doi= |url=]

Journals

He has been an editor or assistant editor on four journals, and currently is an editor for the widely cited and influential Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB). He has been a reviewer on 23 journals, including "Science" and the "Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis".

Grants & Awards

Dr. Neuringer's work has received numerous NSF/NIMH grants and awards. [see http://academic.reed.edu/psychology/CVs/allencv.pdf for a breakdown of each grant]

References

External links

Neuringer's [http://academic.reed.edu/psychology/Neuringer.html faculty web page] at Reed College

Neuringer's [http://academic.reed.edu/psychology/CVs/allencv.pdf CV]