Handbook of Classical Conditioning (2003)

When conducting scientific research in any field, it is not sufficient to simply design thoughtful and informative experiments to explore ideas and hypotheses. The experiments must be conducted in such a manner that the data generated effectively address the ideas and hypotheses under study. Collecting good data necessitates the use of good methods, techniques, and instrumentation. Behavioral neuroscience is most certainly a field that, over the years, has required novel, inventive, and effective methods and tech- niques to collect data on a rather difficult subject, namely, how the brain and nervous system encode behavior. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about the field of behav- ioral neuroscience is that most scientists in this field are engaged in a variety of activities-it is not always the same boring routine. The rule, not the ex- ception, in this field is that investigators are trained in a variety of techniques and skills. This work requires knowledge of skills in such diverse tech- niques as surgery, animal training, basic electronics, computer programming, statistics, and histology, as well as having a good theoretical background knowledge of the relevant literature and the creativity and logic necessary to design and execute critical experiments. One does not have to be an expert in all of these skills, and conversely not all skills require an expert.