Science and Human Behavior, Chapter 6: Shaping and Maintaining Operant Behavior, Quote 4

Science and Human Behavior“The traditional explanation of transfer asserts that the second response is strengthened only insofar as the responses “possess identical elements.” This is an effort to maintain the notion of a unit of response. A more useful way of putting it is to say that the elements are strengthened wherever they occur. This leads us to identify the element rather than the response as the unit of behavior. It is a sort of behavioral atom, which may never appear by itself upon any single occasion but is the essential ingredient or component of all observed instances.” (p. 94)

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