A description of micro- and mainframe-computer programs to summarize frequency, duration and sequences of behavior

John J. McGlone, Edith A. Miller, Susan L. Hayden

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Computer programs were developed to hasten the summarization of behavioral data. Behavioral data may be collected by hand (pencil, paper and watch), strip-chart mechanical event recorder, electronic event recorder or by a computer. These behavioral data, in raw form, enter (electronically or manually) a microcomputer (IBM-PC, 128K) or mainframe computer. The microcomputer version summarizes the number of occurrences (frequency), duration and sequence of each behavior. As a microcomputer memory is limited, a program to summarize larger data sets containing more behavior patterns was developed on our mainframe computer (CDC Cyber 730/760). This sequential analysis program can accumulate up to 10 behavioral sequences (9 orders of transition) of up to 50 behaviors in a data set containing up to 10 000 elements. The computer-summary of each treatment may be combined to determine if treatment differences exist. An example data set is provided.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)219-226
Number of pages8
JournalApplied Animal Behaviour Science
Volume13
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1985

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