Coleman S R
Behav Anal. 1987 Spring;10(1):47-65. doi: 10.1007/BF03392406.
The purpose of this article is to provide a coherent story of Skinner's graduate-school (1928-1931) research projects, adding to Skinner's own accounts a different emphasis and a number of interesting details. The story is guided by the proposal that a search for quantitative order was the "unifying force" amid the variety of apparatus changes and shifts of research topic in Skinner's early development as a researcher. Archival laboratory-research records from several apparatuses which Skinner constructed between 1928 and 1931 (1) indicate that his research program was more complicated than he has implied; (2) show that he worked on three interdependent lines of investigation simultaneously; (3) suggest that change or abandonment of an apparatus or a project was markedly affected by his success (and failure) in his primary objective, which was to find quantitative orderliness in measured behavior. Frequent apparatus change in the period of 1928 to 1930 ceased when he obtained quantitative orderliness in the panel-press and lever-box preparations. In the examination of archival records, questions about the enterprise of biographical understanding are considered.
本文旨在连贯地讲述斯金纳在研究生阶段（1928 - 1931年）的研究项目，在斯金纳本人叙述的基础上，增加不同的侧重点和一些有趣的细节。本文的叙述基于这样一种观点：在斯金纳作为研究者的早期发展过程中，各种实验装置的变化和研究主题的转变中，对定量秩序的探索是“统一力量”。1928年至1931年间斯金纳构建的多个实验装置的档案实验室研究记录表明：（1）他的研究计划比他所暗示的更为复杂；（2）表明他同时在三条相互依存的研究线上开展工作；（3）表明实验装置或项目的改变或放弃明显受到他在主要目标上的成功（和失败）的影响，他的主要目标是在测量行为中找到定量的规律性。当他在面板按压和杠杆箱实验中获得定量规律性后，1928年至1930年期间频繁的实验装置更换就停止了。在查阅档案记录时，我们思考了有关传记理解工作的问题。
