We’ve covered a lot of topics with behavior analysts. This week we’re talking with Dr. Carol Pilgrim and Dr. Claire St Peter about stimulus control. Dr Claire St Peter is from the University of West Virginia, where she is currently the Chair of the Department of Psychology.

Claire has been on this podcast many times. Claire is not only a behavior analyst she is also a horse person. When I say that everything is connected to everything else, Claire has been helping us to see the connection between behavior analysis and horse training. We wrote an article together on loopy training which was published in 2022 in the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

The title was: Connecting animal trainers and behavior analysts through loopy training.

Claire has gone on connecting animal trainers and behaviors analysts via this podcast. This past spring I received a SABA award for all the equiosity episodes Dominique and I have done on topics directly related to behavior analysis. When Claire and I met up after the award ceremony, we were chatting about topics that would be interesting to cover. Claire suggested we reach out to Dr Carol Pilgrim for a deep dive into stimulus control. Dr Carol Pilgrim is a Professor Emerit in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Dr Pilgrim has received many honors throughout her career including the North Carolina Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award, the Faculty Scholarship Award, the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award, the ABAI Student Committee Outstanding Mentor Award in 2006, and the ABAI Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis award in 2017.

Her research contributions include both basic and applied behavior analysis, with an emphasis in human operant behavior and relational stimulus control.

In Part 1 of this podcast we begin the conversation with basic definitions and concepts related to stimulus control.