Announcing Operants Article of the Month

Dear Operants reader,

Join us for the launch of Operants’ Article of the Month. 

Operants’ Article of the Month is a new look at a previously published Operants article. Our Editor-in-Chief, David Roth, chooses an entry for the series based on interest that an article drew when it was first published, its relevance, and author’s availability to engage with our community and to answer your questions. 

For May, 2021, we selected The 21st Century Teaching Machines: Advancing Behavior Analysis through AI, VR, and Robotics by Ellie Kazemi and Adisa Ptah (originally appeared in Q2, 2019 issue). Says David Roth: “Throughout his life, B. F. Skinner paved the way for our science to maximize its effectiveness with the use of the world’s most advanced scientific technology. If Skinner could see Dr. Kazemi’s work today, I’d like to think he would view it as a giant leap in the continuously evolving marriage between computer technology and behavior analysis.” 

We want to hear from you. You can email your question to the authors to community@bfskinner.org. We will use a selection of submitted questions in a short video interview with the authors. The video will be posted on the community . You could also use our community chat feature to discuss the article with other Skinner enthusiasts.

Here are some of the questions we received already: “Can a robot ever be a better replacement for a human when teaching behavioral practitioners to work with actual humans?” “You mention a project with NASA in the article. Could you tell us more?”

As the name of the project suggests, going forward we will select one article per month from Operants’ archival issues. If you have a favorite article that you would like to nominate for Article of the Month, please post your suggestion in the community or send us an email to operants@bfskinner.org.