Peter Richard Killeen (born 1942) is an American psychologist who has made major contributions to a number of fields in the behavioral sciences. He has been one of the few premier contributors in

quantitative analysis of behavior Quantitative analysis of behavior is the application of mathematical models to the experimental analysis of behavior. The aim is to describe and/or predict relations between independent environmental variables and dependent behavioral variables. Th ...

, and

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

Life and work

In 1942, he was born in

Orange, New Jersey The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 30,134, reflecting a decline of 2,734 (−8.3%) from the 32,868 counted in 2000. Orange was original ...

. In 1964, he received his bachelor's degree in psychology in the honors college from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

and in 1969, his Ph.D. in

Experimental Psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He joined the faculty of

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

and in 1978 rose to the rank of Professor of Psychology. He has been a visiting scholar,

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, Austin 1984,

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1992, Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo, 2004 His honors include:

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...

, and

NIMH NIMH may refer to: *Nickel–metal hydride battery (NiMH), a type of electrical battery *National Institute of Mental Health, an agency of the United States government *National Institute of Medical Herbalists, a professional organisation in the Un ...

Graduate Fellowships, Graduate Student Faculty of the Year Award, Fellow of:

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

American Psychological Society The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...

Association for Behavior Analysis The Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting behavior analysis. The organization has over 9,000 members. The group organizes conferences and publishes journals on the topic of appl ...

; Member,

Psychonomic Society The Psychonomic Society is an international scientific society of over 4,500 scientists in the field of experimental psychology. The mission of the Psychonomic Society is to foster the science of cognition through the advancement and communicati ...

;

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

(President, ASU Chapter, 1986 – 87), Wakonse (teaching) Fellow, 1993, Fellow,

Society of Experimental Psychologists The Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP), originally called the Society of Experimentalists, is an academic society for experimental psychologists. It was founded by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1904 to be an ongoing workshop in which memb ...

(1997; Secretary/Treasurer 2000 – 3), Senior Scientist Award (1996;

), President,

Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior The Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior was founded in 1978 by Michael Lamport Commons and John Anthony Nevin. The first president was Richard J. Herrnstein. In the beginning it was called the Harvard Symposium on Quantitative Anal ...

(1999 – 2002); Poetry in Science Award, SQAB, 2002, F. J. McGuigan Lectureship on Understanding the Human Mind (APA: 2004), Ernest and Josephine Hilgard Award for the Best Theoretical Paper (Killeen & Nash, 2003), Faculty of 1000 Citation as Must Read: Russell et al. (2006) Response variability in AD/HD. In

, Killeen and Fetterman (1988) are the developers of a major behavioral theory of timing. Killeen has also developed a theory of learning as causal inference (1981) bringing these together in his paper on the perception of contingency in

conditioning Conditioning may refer to: Science, computing, and technology * Air conditioning, the removal of heat from indoor air for thermal comfort ** Automobile air conditioning, air conditioning in a vehicle ** Ice storage air conditioning, air condition ...

: Scalar timing,

response bias Response bias is a general term for a wide range of tendencies for participants to respond inaccurately or falsely to questions. These biases are prevalent in research involving participant self-report, such as structured interviews or surveys. R ...

, and the erasure of

reinforcement In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is a consequence applied that will strengthen an organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus. This strengthening effect may be measured as a higher freq ...

(Killeen, 1984). He also developed his Incentive theory based on adaptive clocks. He is one of the premier integrators and critics of models in quantitative analysis of behavior. In the study of memory (Killeen, 2005; 2006) addressed the issue of ascending strength gradients or descending memory traces.

References

* Killeen, P. R. Learning as causal inference. (1981). In M. L. Commons & J. A. Nevin (Eds.), Quantitative studies of behavior. New York: Pergamon, pp. 289–312. * Killeen, P. R. (1984). Incentive theory III: Adaptive Clocks. In J. Gibbon & L. Allen (Eds.), Timing and time perception. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, pp. 515–527. * Killeen, P. R. (2005). An alternative to null hypothesis statistical tests. Psychological Science, 16, 345–353. * Killeen, P. R. (2006). Beyond statistical inference: A decision theory for science. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 549–562. * Killeen, P. R., & Fetterman, J. G. (1988). A behavioral theory of timing. Psychological Review, 95, 274–295. * Killeen, P. R., & Smith, J. P. (1984). Perception of contingency in conditioning: Scalar timing, response bias, and the erasure of memory by reinforcement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 10, 333–345. {{DEFAULTSORT:Killeen, Peter Richard 1942 births Michigan State University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Arizona State University faculty 21st-century American psychologists Living people 20th-century American psychologists