The laboratory as a productivity and citation unit in the publications of an experimental‐psychology specialty

Five‐hundred eighteen publications on the Pavlovian conditioning of the eyeblink reflex in humans were produced by 101 laboratories that examined human‐eyeblink conditioning (HEC). Among low‐ and medium‐productive labs, productivity was distributed in a Lotka‐like fashion, although high‐producing HEC labs were off the curve. The Lotka distribution for labs was flatter than that for a “complete count” of authors. Citations to publications of these 101 labs were obtained in reference lists of HEC publications from 1958–1985, with laboratory self‐citations excluded. The frequency of citation by other HEC labs—both overall and adjusted to correct for unequal number of high‐ and low‐productivity labs (see text)—showed high positive correlations with the productivity of the cited HEC lab. In a diachronic format we also examined the decline of references to the publications of laboratories that had become inactive. We related our findings to the idea that the laboratory is the source of production and the target of citation practices within a specialty. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.