A descriptive notation system for contingency diagramming in behavior analysis.
Plain-language contingency diagrams teach the ABC story faster than symbol-heavy boxes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lerman et al. (1995) built a new way to draw contingency diagrams.
The authors wanted a picture that students could read without learning Sᴰ/Sᴰᴱ symbols.
They replaced jargon boxes with plain labels and arrows.
What they found
The paper shows the finished notation, not test scores.
Readers can trace "if I do this, then that happens" in one glance.
How this fits with other research
Catania et al. (1982) said we must package tools for real users. The 1995 paper delivers the actual package.
Blair et al. (2022), Cihon et al. (2021), and Manolov (2026) give free Google, SigmaPlot, and web apps for graphs. Lerman et al. (1995) does the same job for contingency maps.
Evenhuis (1996) urges us to drop scary words like "punishment." The 1995 notation drops scary symbols for the same reason.
Why it matters
If your supervisee stares at Sᴰ/R+/Sᴰᴱ and still looks lost, swap in the plain diagram. Draw the behavior arrow, the outcome arrow, and read it aloud together. You just turned a lecture into a story they can retell to parents or teachers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We describe a notation system for diagramming behavioral contingencies. The system is descriptive. Stimulus functions are not represented with special symbols, such as S(R), S(D), or UCS, but are simply described in terms of the relation between behavior and stimulus change, and the resulting outcome. The system is atheoretical, self-explanatory, and easy to use. Our goal is to provide an approach to contingency diagramming for the student that represents directly the exact relations and outcomes involved in operant and respondent processes.
The Behavior analyst, 1995 · doi:10.1007/BF03392697