{"id":114748,"date":"2022-02-17T10:20:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T16:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/?p=114748"},"modified":"2025-04-17T11:48:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T16:48:21","slug":"psychology-researchers-create-a-new-kind-of-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/psychology\/psychology-researchers-create-a-new-kind-of-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychology researchers create a new kind of lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do butterflies remember being caterpillars? Will an ant risk its own life to help a wounded comrade back to the colony? And how would learning the answers to these questions potentially help humanity? Two professors at The Chicago School hope to address these puzzles and demonstrate the importance of laboratory work to their students in the Department of Applied Behavior Analysis. With the receipt of a faculty development and community partnership grant, Rocco Catrone, Ph.D. BCBA-D, and Shannon Ormandy, Ph.D. BCBA, have created the Respondent & Operant Animal Response (ROAR) research lab.<\/p>\n

A brief history of applied behavior analysis<\/h3>\n

Behavior analysis is a discipline within the larger field of psychology that applies theories derived from studies of learned behaviors with the objective of improving behavior in a meaningful way. An important piece of behaviorism involves testing hypotheses in a controlled environment. This approach developed alongside \u00a0psychoanalysis, which has been a dominant school of thought in psychology for most of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think almost everyone is familiar with that idea of the id and the ego and the super ego,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says. \u201cWell, those terms are just ways of conceptualizing the different causes for behavior. In a behavior analytic orientation, we’re always looking at the ultimate cause of behavior as your interaction with the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Real-world results<\/h3>\n

Both Dr. Ormandy and Dr. Catrone were drawn to ABA while working with children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was introduced to behavior analysis by some peers who were working with autistic children,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says, \u201cand after going with one of them to observe what they were doing, I found my love and never looked back.\u201d She received her master\u2019s and Ph.D. at The Chicago School before joining the faculty.<\/p>\n

Dr. Catrone\u2019s experience was similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked at a day school that was fantastic, and I started working with one of the behavior analysts there and really helped to support autistic children and other children that have developmental disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new kind of lab at The Chicago School<\/h3>\n

During a routine review with accreditors from the Association for Behavior Analysis International suggested The Chicago School\u2019s ABA program consider adding a lab to support the applied behavior courses and to introduce students to laboratory work.<\/p>\n

Drs. Catrone and Ormandy used the grant funds to set up in a modest room off the campus library.<\/p>\n

The next step was to find the right subjects. Fortunately, Dr. Catrone had experience in laboratory settings and a deep appreciation for the ethical practices in the field, including conducting research with nonvertebrate and noninvasive species. While he was in graduate school at the Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, one of his professors suggested he procure a pair of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and attempt to replicate basic behavioral principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, I thought it was stupid,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I saw was how I could apply basic research practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The advantage of indigenous test species<\/h3>\n

In contrast to a previous study conducted with an invasive moth species, Drs. Catrone and Ormandy chose caterpillars and ants indigenous to Illinois and therefore wouldn\u2019t damage the local ecosystem when released. \u00a0(Though the first monarchs they released were reluctant to leave, Dr. Ormandy remarks with a smile.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ants we use are those pavement ants that you see walking anywhere in the city,\u201d Dr. Catrone says. \u201cIf we ever need to release them, they won\u2019t harm the ecosystem. We want to be as responsible as we can with that while also teaching that animal welfare aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theory, meet reality<\/h3>\n

\"FoamThe initial studies that showed memory retention across metamorphosis were conducted with a moth. A caterpillar was to walk across one type of surface to get a reward and to avoid another surface. After coming out of its cocoon, the moth remembered what it had been taught as a caterpillar, even though throughout the process of metamorphosis, the one-time caterpillar and future moth existed essentially as a liquid for 10 days.<\/p>\n

To recreate the experiment with an ecofriendly butterfly, Dr. Catrone built a Y-maze out of foam core from Staples. \u201cWe put our little caterpillar in there,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says, \u201cand we wait and we wait and . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd nothing,\u201d Dr. Catrone says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe caterpillar just sat there, and he didn’t go anywhere,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says. \u201cHe explored a very, very small area around where he entered into the maze.\u201d Rarely did the caterpillars make their way to the end point of the Y to contact the reward, the milkweed, which is the only thing they eat.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany times, if they did,\u201d Dr. Catrone says, \u201cthey would crawl above the textured area that we had positioned in the Y-maze.\u201d<\/p>\n

The value of miscalculation<\/h3>\n

That initial experiment demonstrates a principle B. F. Skinner, an early pioneer in the field, espoused: The learner is always right. If the caterpillar was born and matured on a milkweed plant, it may never develop the capacity to seek out the plant at a genetic or behavioral level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there’s never been a need in your species\u2019 history for those responses,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says, \u201cthen we were in error of expecting or of assuming that our learner had that skill in their repertoire\u2014because they didn’t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The caterpillars taught the scientists that they needed to reconfigure the experiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sit there with philosophic doubt and success and grace and assessment and failure,\u201d Dr. Catrone says. \u201cThat didn’t work. How do we figure it out from here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, the process of trial and error creates more of a peer model for students instead of a professor-knows-all model, and problem-solving becomes a collective effort as well as a learning experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all scientists and observational humans and organisms together,\u201d Dr. Catrone says. \u201cHow do we do this in a way that’s going to be community based and make sense? It’s been super cool to experience that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advantages for students<\/h3>\n

The ROAR lab gives students a sense of what research in a highly controlled lab setting is like. The hands-on environment demonstrates the principles of the field in an immediate way that is\"Monarch more valuable than reading about the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften in classes that I teach, I\u2019ll say, \u2018This principle originated in a lab setting with a pigeon,\u2019 and their eyes glaze over,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says. It is important to demonstrate to students that behavioral analysis starts in a controlled lab. \u201cEverything you’re doing came from here,\u201d she adds. \u201cThis should be your home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Ormandy had been struggling with the question of how to get students to fall in love with the science. She had looked into the feasibility of creating a lab at the Chicago Campus of The Chicago School, but the building did not support the necessary infrastructure. When Dr. Catrone joined the faculty, she realized that they were both in love with the science, the basic research, and they wanted students to share that joy, and he had experience in creating do-it-yourself platforms. He applied that background in designing apparatuses for the ROAR lab\u2019s butterflies and a colony of pavement ants that is currently growing in seclusion under the watchful eye of their queen, Freddie (yes, after Freddie Mercury).<\/p>\n

Applying the science to people<\/h3>\n

The objective of ABA is to test hypotheses in a laboratory and apply lessons learned to a range of settings, from teaching skills to autistic learners to improving the efficiency of a warehouse. Every principle used clinically with humans is first demonstrated in a very highly controlled laboratory environment. In addition, any findings gleaned from studies with animals are tested and vetted through what is called \u201ctranslational research\u201d before the findings are applied to humans. This step is an important aspect of the ABA process.<\/p>\n

The ongoing work in the ROAR lab serves as a model for the work done in the broader field of ABA. Scientists hypothesize. They devise research models and construct apparatuses with which to conduct them. The research is conducted, which tests the hypotheses as well as the assumptions of the scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that we’ll be able to get to the point where we’re able to provide that hands-on experience with students,\u201d Dr. Ormandy says. \u201cIf you can teach a caterpillar, think about what you can do clinically. There are no barriers to your success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

To learn more about the Applied Behavioral Analysis program at The Chicago School, fill out the form below.<\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two professors at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology\u2019s Department of Applied Behavior Analysis are studying ants and butterflies to unlock a better understanding of human\u00a0behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":114751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1218],"class_list":["post-114748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPsychology researchers create a new kind of lab - Insight Digital Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Chicago School researchers are revolutionizing the field of psychology with an innovative new kind of lab.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/psychology\/psychology-researchers-create-a-new-kind-of-lab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Psychology researchers create a new kind of lab - 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