A behaviorist manifesto for the 21st century

Observational assessment of behavior is a core measurement tool in modern psychological research and practice. Despite the importance of observational assessment and the tremendous amount of research devoted to refining and enhancing the methodological foundations of these tools, current best practices still bear a strong resemblance to those from three decades prior. The emergent field of behavioral signal processing, though relatively little known within the field of psychology, has the potential to revolutionize observational practice and resolve long-standing limitations of current methods. In this paper, we illustrate the need for and potential value of behavioral signal processing methods for observational practice by examining three current issues in the observational assessment of clinically distressed, married couples that are representative of challenges faced in numerous areas of clinical psychology.