ADVANCES IN THE EXPERIMENTAL-ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR - ISSUES OF CHOICE BEHAVIOR, COMPARATIVE COGNITION, AND HUMAN LANGUAGE

As the opportunity to contact with related areas has increased, the st udy of the experimental analysis of behavior has experienced revolutio nary changes. Some of the most active and important areas - studies of choice, comparative cognition, and human language - are reviewed to a cquaint readers. Studies of CHOICE have linked to the molar theories o f behavioral economics and behavioral ecology, which promoted research of choice by animals under uncertainty conditions. Further approach h as been made to integrate the molar and molecular analyses on the basi s of the ideas of behavior dynamics. COMPARATIVE COGNITION is a part o f a larger field including cognitive science, behavioral neuroscience, and biological science. Recent developments, aided with a comparative perspective, made significant contributions to our understanding of t he phylogeny and ontogeny of cognition. Advances in analysis of human behavior provided tools to study behavioral aspects of semantics, synt ax, and pragmatics of HUMAN LANGUAGE. Using the paradigm of stimulus e quivalence, the emergence of stimulus relations, stimulus-stimulus net works, hierarchical structure of verbal behavior, and other language-r elated behaviors have been investigated.