Laboratory lore and research practices in the experimental analysis of human behavior.

Buskist et al. (1988) wrote a how-to guide for running human operant experiments. They listed tips on picking subjects, setting session length, choosing reinforcers, and writing instructions.

The paper is pure lab lore. No new data. Just the tricks senior researchers pass down to keep procedures tight.

The authors did not test an intervention, so there are no results to report. Instead, they give a checklist of pitfalls that can ruin human operant work.

Feldman et al. (1999) later showed that humans often look less sensitive to reinforcement than pigeons. They blamed loose lab methods, not the species. Their note lines up with W et al.’s call for tighter controls.

Jason et al. (1985) ran a study where college students followed verbal rules instead of the actual schedule. That real-life example proves W et al.’s warning that unplanned instructions can override contingency control.

McSweeney et al. (1993) tracked how responding drifts within the same session. Their data back W et al.’s advice to watch for slow declines even when the procedure never changes.

If you run preference assessments, functional analyses, or any tabletop operant work, treat this paper like a pre-flight checklist. Shorten sessions when behavior drops. Use reinforcers you can measure in tiny units. Strip extra words from instructions. These small fixes keep your data clean and save you from rerunning participants.