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Line 35: ==Experimental and conceptual innovations== This essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, summarized in his books ''The Behavior of Organisms''<ref name="Skinner1938 Organisms">{{cite book \|last= Skinner \|first=B.F. \|author-link= B.F. Skinner \|title=The Behavior of Organisms \|publisher=[[Appleton-Century-Crofts]] \|year=1938 \|page=473 \|isbn=978-0-87411-487-4\|title-link=The Behavior of Organisms \|publication-place= New York, NY}}</ref> and ''Schedules of Reinforcement''.<ref>{{cite book \|author1=Cheney, Carl D. \|author2=Ferster, Charles B. \|title=Schedules of Reinforcement (B.F. Skinner Reprint Series) \|publisher=Copley Publishing Group \|location=Acton, MA \|year=1997 \|page=758 \|isbn=978-0-87411-828-5}}</ref> Of particular importance was his concept of the operant response, of which the canonical example was the rat's lever-press. In contrast with the idea of a physiological or reflex response, an operant is a class of structurally distinct but functionally equivalent responses. For example, while a rat might press a lever with its left paw or its right paw or its tail, all of these responses operate on the world in the same way and have a common consequence. Operants are often thought of as species of responses, where the individuals differ but the class coheres in its function-shared consequences with operants and reproductive success with species. This is a clear distinction between Skinner's theory and [[S–R theory]].▼ As experimental behavioural psychology is related to [[behavioral neuroscience]], we can date the first researches in the area were done in the beginning of 19th century. <ref>Behavioral Neuroscience, APA, 1807</ref> ▲~~This~~Later, this essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, summarized in his books ''The Behavior of Organisms''<ref name="Skinner1938 Organisms">{{cite book \|last= Skinner \|first=B.F. \|author-link= B.F. Skinner \|title=The Behavior of Organisms \|publisher=[[Appleton-Century-Crofts]] \|year=1938 \|page=473 \|isbn=978-0-87411-487-4\|title-link=The Behavior of Organisms \|publication-place= New York, NY}}</ref> and ''Schedules of Reinforcement''.<ref>{{cite book \|author1=Cheney, Carl D. \|author2=Ferster, Charles B. \|title=Schedules of Reinforcement (B.F. Skinner Reprint Series) \|publisher=Copley Publishing Group \|location=Acton, MA \|year=1997 \|page=758 \|isbn=978-0-87411-828-5}}</ref> Of particular importance was his concept of the operant response, of which the canonical example was the rat's lever-press. In contrast with the idea of a physiological or reflex response, an operant is a class of structurally distinct but functionally equivalent responses. For example, while a rat might press a lever with its left paw or its right paw or its tail, all of these responses operate on the world in the same way and have a common consequence. Operants are often thought of as species of responses, where the individuals differ but the class coheres in its function-shared consequences with operants and reproductive success with species. This is a clear distinction between Skinner's theory and [[S–R theory]]. Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research on [[trial-and-error]] learning by researchers such as Thorndike and Guthrie with both conceptual reformulations—Thorndike's notion of a stimulus-response "association" or "connection" was abandoned; and methodological ones—the use of the "free operant", so-called because the animal was now permitted to respond at its own rate rather than in a series of trials determined by the experimenter procedures. With this method, Skinner carried out substantial experimental work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant responses made by rats and pigeons. He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform unexpected responses, to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical regularities at the purely behavioral level. This lent some credibility to his conceptual analysis. It is largely his conceptual analysis that made his work much more rigorous than his peers, a point which can be seen clearly in his seminal work ''Are Theories of Learning Necessary?'' in which he criticizes what he viewed to be theoretical weaknesses then common in the study of psychology. An important descendant of the experimental analysis of behavior is the [[Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior]].<ref>{{cite journal \|last=Commons \|first=M.L. \|year=2001 \|title=A short history of the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior \|journal=Behavior Analyst Today \|volume=2 \|issue=3 \|pages=275–9 \|url=http://www.baojournal.com \|format=PDF \|access-date=2008-01-10\|doi=10.1037/h0099944 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal \|last1= Thornbury \|first1= Scott\|title=The Lexical Approach: A journey without maps\|journal=Modern English Teacher\|date=1998\|volume=7 \| issue = 4 \|pages= 7–13\| url= http://nebula.wsimg.com/9129eed8a13130f4ee92cf2c3ce5b13e?AccessKeyId=186A535D1BA4FC995A73&disposition=0&alloworigin=1}}</ref>