Robert Epstein

Symbolic Communication Between Two Pigeons, (Columba livia domestica)

Through the use of learned symbols, a pigeon accurately communicated information about hidden colors to another pigeon. Each verbal exchange was initiated with a spontaneous request for information. The two pigeons engaged in a sustained and natural conversation without human intervention.

“Representation” in the Chimpanzee:

Recent research said to demonstrate that chimpanzees have a “representational symbolic function” can be more parsimoniously interpreted in terms of fundamental processes of conditioning.

An index to B. F. Skinner's cumulative record (3rd ed.)

With the recent publication of its definitive edition (1999, Cambridge, MA: B. F. Skinner Foundation), Cumulative Record, the most comprehensive collection of Skinner’s published papers, has now appeared in four editions. The first, which appeared in 1959, included 30 of Skinner’s papers, fewer than half of those he had published as of that time. The second, which appeared in 1961, included three additional papers and eliminated a brief article, “A Word About Boxes,” which had been included in the first edition. The third edition, which is by far the most common of all the editions, was published in 1972 and included 48 papers. Three papers that had been included in the first two editions were excluded (“The Analysis of Behavior,” “The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching,” and “Teaching Machines”), and 18 papers were added. The definitive edition has restored the four papers that had appeared in one or both of first two editions but that were excluded from the third, and it also includes two new papers: a 1941 article called “The Psychology of Design” and a 1990 paper, “Can Psychology Be a Science of Mind?,” which Skinner completed shortly before his death. The ubiquitous third edition was published, as were the first two editions, without an index. We offer the following to make this edition a more useful resource for students and scholars.