Three nice labs, no real rats: a review of three operant laboratory simulations.

The operant laboratory, once the foundation for a curriculum in behavior analysis, has become almost impossible to maintain because of costs, federal regulations, and other factors. Fortunately, over the years several computer simulations of animal labs have been developed. This paper describes, compares, and contrasts three simulations and concludes that in general, they are effective and offer an alternative to the real thing.