Dr. Robert Mellon has taught behavior analysis in the Department of Psychology at the Hellenic Republic University of Crete since 1996. He developed the first courses in Greece in experimental and applied behavior analysis, wrote the first textbook, and recently began translations of essential works by behavior analysts into Greek.
In introducing students to the elegance and power of fundamental principles of behavior analysis, there is no substitute for live demonstrations of causal relations between aspects of the behavior of organisms and elements of simplified and controlled environments. In his teaching, Dr. Mellon has been playing the role of an enormous pigeon or rat for his undergraduate audiences, but the control of behavior that emerges over extended units of time cannot be adequately imagined when it has never been observed. The level of understanding achieved when the student provides the setting events and consequences that obviously and systematically alter behavior cannot be achieved by means other than by those with which the principles were originally discovered. Currently, approximately 150 students obtain their B.A. every year without ever having seen an operant conditioning chamber or a clear demonstration of the relation between the probability of operant behavior and its consequences.
Dr. Mellon’s grant will support the equipping of new laboratory facilities for the academic program. The funds will contribute toward the purchase of two clear acrylic 2-lever operant conditioning chambers suitable for rats, for which he will hand-build two interfaces (from W.C. Palya) and two sound-attenuating chambers. For economy, he will also build the home cages by hand. Additionally, he will download the programs and upload the data with a laptop microcomputer, which renders transportation of a single box and interface for classroom demonstrations easy.
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