A Missing Link in the Evolution of the Cumulative Recorder

Abstract

A recently recovered cumulative recorder provides a missing link in the evolution of the cumulative recorder from a modified kymograph to a reliably operating, scientifically and commercially successful instrument. The recorder, the only physical evidence of such an early precommercial cumulative recorder yet found, was sent to Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, in 1952 at the behest of B. F. Skinner at Harvard University. Last used in research in the late 1960s, the cumulative recorder remained locked in a storage room until 2007, when it was found again. A historical context for the recorder is followed by a description of the recorder and a comparison between it and the commercially successful Gerbrands Model C-1 recorder. Labeled the Keio recorder, it is a testament to Skinner's persistence in developing a reliable means of quantifying the behavior of living organisms in real time.

The Other Shoe: An Early Operant Conditioning Chamber for Pigeons

“…Professor (Emeritus) Toshiro Yoshida unpacked the parcel containing both the operant conditioning chamber and the cumulative recorder (Asano & Lattal, 2012) when it arrived at Keio from Harvard via sea mail. He told the authors that there were no detailed explanations or instruction manuals accompanying the apparatus, making it difficult to understand the operation of both pieces of equipment.…”

“…He also indicated that the chamber was discarded in 2008 (Tachibana, personal communication, March 27, 2015), following the fate of much old research apparatus. Asano and Lattal (2012) described the cumulative recorder that was shipped to Keio University. Here the other apparatus shoe to that discovery is dropped with a description of the operant chamber for pigeons that accompanied the cumulative recorder.…”

A Selective Look at Some Pre-Skinnerian Cumulative Recording Systems and Cumulative Records in Physiology and Psychology

“…Not always can he be sure that the early instances actually father the great emergence, but often, when he is not sure of the fact of inheritance, he is also not sure of its absence. (Boring, 1927, p. 71) As a historical matter, cumulative recording and the cumulative recorders are closely, even emblematically, associated with B.F. Skinner (1904Skinner ( -1990 and the experimental analysis of behavior (Asano & Lattal, 2012;Herrick, 1965;Killeen, 1985;Lattal, 2004;Morris & Smith, 2004;Poling, 1979;Skinner, 1976). To illustrate for those unfamiliar with cumulative recording, Figure 1 (left) shows two different mechanical cumulative recorders common in behavior laboratories of the from the 1950s to the 1970s and (right) sample hand-and mechanically produced cumulative records from the behavioral literature.…”