Private Events

Question 1

What are ‘Private Events’

• Internal events which occur…
• Can be perceived by the…
• E.g., memory, thinking, feelings, creativity, insight, concept formation, novelty reasoning, self control, etc.

Answer 1

within the skin

individual but not by others

Question 2

Methodological behaviourism:
Private events are…
Ignored…

Mentalist view:
Private events are the…

Radical behaviourism (B.F Skinner):
The skin is an…
Behaviours within the skin (private events) have…
Private events are controlled by…
They are not causes of observable behaviours but…

Answer 2

subjective therefore cannot be studied
private events

causes of observable behaviours (e.g., “I hit someone because I am angry”)

artificial barrier
no special status
the same mechanisms as observable behaviours
are behaviours themselves to be explained. (e.g., “why were you angry?”)

Question 3

Where a more common mentalist view conflicts with the radical behavioural view is with regard to the….

Unacceptable explanations from a radical behaviorist view but acceptable from a mentalist view:

e.g. I eat because I am hungry
I eat too much because I am impulsive
I hit someone because I am angry
I cry because I am sad.

Answer 3

ultimate causes of behaviour (whether they are internal or external ones).

Saying ‘because I am hungry’, ‘because I am impulsive’, ‘because I am angry’ and ‘because I am sad’ is not an explanation, these behaviours itself that need to be explained

Question 4

The radical behavioural perspective is radical in that it... 
Those past causes may lie at the: 
phylogenetic (evolutionary) level = 
OR 
ontogenetic (individual) level

Answer 4

explicitly identifies the ultimate causes of all behaviour as a product of past events.
Genes
As a result of your individual experience with the environment over time.

Question 5

A radical behavioural perspective of the question, ‘why are you going to MacDonalds”

Might be to say something like:

• Human physiology requires salt, sugar etc (phylogenetic factors; as human beings evolved to require these things for our existence).
• Behaviours which have successfully enabled us to obtain food and eat it are more likely to occur in the future (ontological factors)
• To what degree is eating under stimulus control (e.g. ‘any time’ vs. just meal times because of Pavlovian contingencies in the past)?
• What is the response cost (e.g. is there little delay / cost / effort required)?

Answer 5

main point is that ‘hunger’ or ‘lack of willpower’ are not the causes they are descriptions.

NOTE
This does not imply that all organisms are the same or will be the same. There is natural variability (mutations) in how genes are expressed and how behaviours occur even at ontogentic level

Question 6

Example of Private Event: What is Memory?
The ability to make a…
Geoff White looked at…
Behavioural researchers focus on memory as a verb:

Answer 6

correct response after a period of time has elapsed since being exposed to a stimulus.
memory as discrimination after a delay (trying to perceive something in the distance temporally rather than physically)
Encoding and Retrieving (measures behaviours involved in memory)

Question 7

Studying Remembering (3 term contingency):
Delayed Matching to Sample
1. Presentation... 
2. Removal of... 
3. Original stimulus plus...
4. Subject has to...

Answer 7

of stimulus
stimulus for a period of time
one (or more) other (s) presented
identify original stimulus

Question 8

(1) Presentation of stimulus -
(2) Removal of stimulus for a period of time (delay) -
(3) Original stimulus plus one (or more) other(s) presented. Subject has to identify original stimulus -

the pigeon learns this rule quickly through trial and error
use a delay of zero during training, then investigate various delays during that delay period.

Answer 8

black key : red key : black key

black key : black key : black key

red key : black key : green key
if pigeon pecks at red key > receives reinforcement

Question 9

Delayed Matching To Sample Procedure.

Similar to conditional discrimination task…
Multiple trials with…
Can also look at with rats using levers

start of trial –black key : white key : black key
display sample –black key : red key : black key
delay –black key : black key : black key
display comparisons –red key : black key : green key
food if matched, nothing if not –black key : black key : black key
intertrial interval –black key : black key : black key
next trial –black key : white key : black key

Answer 9

but with a delay

different samples

Question 10

Forgetting Functions…
The longer the delay…

Geoff White: like physical distance, the further away something is in time…

What if we did something that could impact the encoding phase of memory?
How would that change the forgetting function?

Answer 10

the worse (or less accurate) performance is (found in all kinds of species)
the harder it is to discriminate.

e.g., how long they got to observe the sample stimulus.

Question 11

How would that change the forgetting function?
Encoding:
Produces a…

Increase condition: increase encoding time for the animal, presented sample stimulus for a longer period of time, overall accuracy was better at remembering the sample stimulus compared to the control.
Decrease condition: decrease encoding time for the animal, presented sample stimulus for a shorter period of time compared to control, overall accuracy was worse at remembering the sample stimulus compared to the control.
Increase condition and decrease condition remain parallel to the control condition – steepness of the lines are exactly the same
Therefore, manipulations that are effecting encoding, effects overall accuracy (ability to remember) but it does not effect the rate of forgetting as the delay increases
The difference between the conditions are the same at each delay

Answer 11

forgetting function which changes uniformly

When encoding time increases, the graph shifts upwards > higher accuracy in remembering

When encoding time decreases, the graph shifts downwards > lower accuracy in remembering

Even though the graphs will shift with change in encoding time, they still run parallel to the control therefore steepness of the line remains the same > manipulating encoding will affect overall accuracy (ability to remember) but does not affect the rate at which forgetting occurs as delay increases

Question 12

Effect of Stimulus Exposure:
Increases overall levels of accuracy (increasing attending or encoding)

Grant (1976):
Original stimulus presented for 1, 4, 8 or 14 sec before delay began – change duration of exposure to the to be remembered stimulus.

Results?
the longer the stimulus was presented…

Answer 12

the better performance (% accurate) - overall change in accuracy that could be interpreted as increased attention or ability to encode the original stimulus.

Question 13

How to change steepness of line effecting rate of forgetting?

Rate of Forgetting:
Produces a change in the forgetting function which isn’t…
Interpreted as a…
Start of with same level of accuracy, as delay increases, the difference…

Answer 13

uniform (similar to begin with and then drops away as delay increases…)
decrement in the retrieval phase of memory
between the two conditions gets larger

Question 14

Working vs. Reference Memory

Working Memory:
Reflects elements of…

Reference Memory:
Refers to long term, never changing rules –

Answer 14

stimulus control that change across trials

involves stable elements of stimulus control that do not change across trials.

Question 15

Why is this useful?
Example from Geoff White study:

Drugs commonly prescribed for epilepsy
Side effects = bad memory

Researched the effect of drugs used to treat epilepsy on animals, using delayed to matching sample task (observed memory at various delays)
Results?
Suggests how to…

Answer 15

the drug affected the encoding phase but not retrieval phase of memory

best offset the side-effect of the drug (spend more time improving encoding, rather than retrieval after a delay).

Question 16

Working vs. Reference Memory

Working Memory:
Reflects elements of…
e.g., forget the sample key colour

Reference Memory:
Refers to long term, never changing rules –
e.g., forget the rule of matching the sample

Answer 16

stimulus control that change across trials

involves stable elements of stimulus control that do not change across trials.

Question 17

The Radial Arm Maze:
Radial arm mazes consist of a central hub with arms radiating from it. At the start of a trial, the arms of the maze are baited and the rat placed in the middle.

In any 1 trial, the rat is allowed a predetermined number of arm visits. To maximise the number of reinforcers obtained, rats have to remember where they have been and yet to go

Used to examine the duration and capacity of memory function in rats.

e. g., Beatty & Shavalia (1980)
- 8 arm maze
- Rats made 4 choices then taken out
- Put back in after variable delays & allowed to 4 make more choices.
- Results?

Answer 17

Rats are good at remembering where they have been up to four hours, after four hours the percent correct drops (forgetting function)

Question 18

Reference & Working memory in the Radial Arm Maze:
RAM can also be used to differentiate between working and reference memory

A subset of arms are always baited while the remaining arms are always left empty. The rat is allowed to visit a set number of arms before being removed. Rat has to learn which arms to go to and which to avoid to get the maximum amount of reinforcement possible.

Example of WM error:
Example of RM error:

Answer 18

if the rat could not remember if they’ve visited a arm within a trial already
if the rat could not remember which arms are always baited and which arms are never baited

Question 19

WM in the RAM
Working memory –
Working memory error –

RM in the RAM
Reference memory –
Reference memory error –

Answer 19

rat has to remember where it has been and where it has yet to go.
repeating arms within a trial.

rat has to remember that some arms have reinforcers while others do not.
visiting unbaited arms

Question 20

RM and WM in RAM
Kay et al. (2009)
Researched the effects of scopolamine on memory, and compared the effects to MDMA. Gave rats scopolamine or MDMA, put them in the RAM.
Results?

Answer 20

Scopolamine produced more working memory errors (i.e., repeated arm visits within a trial)

MDMA (Ecstasy) produced more reference memory errors (i.e., good at remembering where they had been within a trial, not good at remembering what arms are baited or never baited)

Question 21

Conclusions:
Evidence that animals are capable of…

This has also been found in humans meaning that there may be similar…

Evidence that environmental events influence this behavior of remembering, therefore remembering can be…

Answer 21

remembering and that there are different types of remembering

underlying memory processes between humans and non-humans

viewed as an operant (like any other observable behavior).

Question 22

Remembering from the point of view of the 3-term contingency:

1) ?
- state dependent memory/context shift effect
- directed forgetting

2) ?
- effect of overall reinforcer amount

Answer 22

Stimulus control (cues and prompts)
Reinforcement control (consequences of remembering)

Question 23

Example 1A - ‘State Dependent Memory’ /Context Shift
e.g. Godden and Baddeley

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: Wet or Dry (X-axis)
RECALL ENVIRONMENT: Wet or Dry
MEAN RECALL: (Y-axis)

Results?

Answer 23

People remembered better if the learning environment matched the recall/test environment.

Question 24

Example 1B - ‘State dependent memory’
Overton (1964): rats learned that a correct response in a T maze meant they avoided a shock =

If rat initially learnt while drugged with 25 mg/kg sodium pentobarbital then poor retention of learning if subsequently tested while not drugged.
Conversely, a response learned by rats while in non-drugged state did not occur if later tested while drugged.
- subsequently shown with many environments, drugs (e.g. alcohol), species and learning tasks
- same as humans; better memory if the stimulus/context that was present during learning is also present during recall.

Answer 24

negative reinforcement paradigm

Question 25

Example 2 - Directed forgetting
evidence that WM is an…

Slide 39

Results:
Pigeons learn 2 sorts of trial:

> What happens on probe trials when they are ‘tricked’ and asked to remember on a FORGET trial?

Answer 25

active process (e.g. rehearsal) that can be brought under stimulus control.

Slide 39

1. REMEMBER trial (reinforcer if correct)
2. FORGET trial (no point remembering)

Generally performance much poorer on forget trials
Same data found in humans

Question 26

Direct forgetting paradigm - Conclusion:
Behaviour of remembering can come under stimulus control because…

Behaviour of remembering is no different from any other observable, operant behaviour, even though the…

Answer 26

we know from past experience that the forget/remember cue tells us the likelihood of reinforcement for the behaviour

behaviour of remembering cannot be directly observed.

Question 27

Example 3 – Effect of reinforcer amount
McCarthy & Voss (1995)
– pigeons in a DMTS task.
– conditions: (1) small amount of reinforcement, (2) large amount of reinforcement

Results:
Greater reinforcement for correct responses results in…
Suggests…

Answer 27

higher accuracy.

behaviour of remembering can be controlled by its consequences, more likely to remember when more reinforcement provided

Question 28

Example 4 – Past Experience
Sargisson & White (2001)

Prior to introducing delays pigeons were trained to perform DMTS task at a specific delay (e.g. 4sec).

Shape of forgetting function was a function of prior training at specific delays (and was not aconstant decay).

This is a real challenge to idea that memory decays overtime. We can actually be more accurate at longer delays.

Answer 28

NOTES
Researched providing more reinforcement history for remembering at particular delays.
If memory is indeed under control of past reinforcement history for remembering, then that prior experience with reinforcement should change the way normal decay function looks.

Typical training for decay function:
Started training with 0s delay, until pigeons learns task
Then introduce the delays

In this study:
Train the pigeons to learn the task with the delay present (e.g., 2s) > takes pigeons to longer to learn (give lots of reinforcement history for remembering after 2s)
Test phase with variable delays
Remembered better at 2s than at 0s - shows how past reinforcement controls a private event, which is the behavior of remembering. Behavior of remembering is under control of our previous reinforcement history

Question 29

Motivating Operations
How we remember depends on amount of reinforcer:

Study: Sargisson et al.
Forgetting Functions
- In summer, when food is less reinforcing, reinforced with food for remembering >
- In winter when food is important (more reinforcing) >

Evidence of MO – changes the value of food, subsequently changes the frequency of the behavior normally done to obtain it

Answer 29

rate of forgetting increased

rate of forgetting was slower

Question 30

Example of Private Event: Thinking
Operant processes involved in thinking
A : B > C

Thoughts can be behaviours but they may also act as…
AND
Are themselves under the control of antecedent stimuli & reinforcers/punishers

In the simplest sense ‘thinking’ refers to…
This thought may also serve as an…

Answer 30

antecedents stimuli and reinforcers/punishers

an internal dialogue (e.g. ‘I thought it was about time I wrote this lecture).

antecedent stimulus (i.e. thinking about doing my lecture leads me to sit down and start writing it) 
Also, thinking about my lecture can be satisfying as I improve the way I express ideas

Question 31

Thinking comes under stimulus control:

controlling stimulus may be…
i.e., some thinking is more likely to occur or not occur when particular stimuli are present.

e. g., person asking what is your number = DS that sets the occasion to recall phone number
e. g., test question = DS that makes you think what is the answer

Answer 31

public or private

Question 32

Thinking can come under the control of consequences:

1) Reinforcement by others or the environment
e. g. verbalize thought > told “good idea” > thought leads to action > action leads to reinforcement

2) Observational learning via models
- Verbal behaviour of others can provide…
- Whether they are modelled depends on the… same

Answer 32

e.g., think about exam > reviewing notes/readings > passing test. Thinking about the test is reinforced by passing it.

models of our own possible thoughts.
things which influence whether we model other activities

Question 33

Why Worry? (negative thoughts)

• Negative thoughts are not necessarily reinforced (positive)
• But sometimes worrying works to solve problems and that is reinforced
• We can express worry > friends reassurance > reinforced

Answer 33

Reinforced for it
Works to solve problems
Avoids criticism by others
Sensory stimulation -catastrophising

Question 34

What About Insight & Novel Behaviour?
Sometimes novel behaviour is not a seemingly simple alteration to an existing one and the behaviour change is one that we might consider more ‘insightful’ or ‘creative’.
e.g.
Painter selects new medium
Mathematician selects new parameters
inventor creates a new electronic device

When behaviour change is sudden or different = increase insightful or creative

Although the origin of behaviours might be hard to identify, many behaviours that appear entirely novel or insightful involve a deliberate novel re-sequencing or adaptation of existing behaviours.

e. g. Kohler’s chimps
- monkey saw banana > jump to reach = fail
- moved boxes > stacked > climbed > reached = insightful thinking

Pigeon Example (Epstein et al.)
in order to do the task - previously trained for each component (reinforced to push back, reinforced to peck banging, reinforcement to stand on block)

Answer 34

….

Question 35

Novel and creative behaviours is under the control of antecedent stimuli and reinforcers.

(1) Pryor et al.
- Rough-toothed dolphins
- Reinforced for novel behaviour
- Produced novel and highly unusual behaviour

(2) Neuringer (pigeons) & Ward (rats)
Reinforcement can increase either the likelihood of a specific behaviour happening OR entirely new one (depending on what exactly is being reinforced)

Answer 35

…..