Creating Plots for Single-Subject Research Designs in R

The use of single-subject research designs is common among behavior analysts, as well as among other professionals interested in the study of behavior. Although there are clear guidelines for creating graphs to represent data collected with these designs, the type of tools used to produce them requires considerable time and effort to cover the specific criteria to plot data for each type of design and always involves the purchase of a software's license. This manuscript describes four functions created in R language to automatically produce plots with specific characteristics for data collected using single-subject experimental designs. These functions were included in a package created in R to facilitate their sharing, installation, and use (R package for data analysis and representation in behavior science, https://github.com/ruizvja/RDARBS). The application of these functions is exemplified for the cases of reversal design, multi-element design, changing criteria, and multiple baseline. The relevance and convenience of functions is illustrated and discussed in the context of other proposals that have been made for the specialized production of plots for single-subject research designs.