Skinner Flashcards
Skinner, general
“Theory, like fog, obscures facts”
Behavior is a function of its consequences and related antecedent stimuli
Rate of response is the only d.v. for free operants
If you don’t have an apparatus that lets you measure the rate of response then it is useless
A theory of learning was not necessary
‘We don’t know enough to write a proper theory, so let’s do research and see what happens’
No sense of writing hypotheses either, since there is no theory
“I don’t care what you thought was going to happen—instead, what happened?”
Skinner didn’t believe in inferential stats
Skinner and Hull
No one was harder on Hull than Skinner
Hull’s terms cannot be measured
Skinner won’t even use the term “drive”
E.g. Instead of saying the rat is ‘hungry’, the only scientifically observable statement you can off is that the rat is making this response because it’s at 80% of its ad lib body weight
6 things that can happen when an organism makes a response
Organisms resposnd for 2 reasons:
They get something out of it, or it gets them out of something
Positive Reinforcement
No Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement: Escape
Negative Reinforcement: Avoidance
Positive Punishment
Negative Punishment
Positive Reinforcement
R-Sr+
Positive Reinforcement
e.g., press button, receive soda
No Reinforcement
R | Sr+
no reinforcement—{no soda}
During extinction you get emotional behavior
Extinction-produced aggression
During extinction if there is another rat present they get into a fight
Positive Punishment
R-Sr-
press button for soda, you get a shock
Positive and Negative vs + and - notation
Positve and Negative refer to presence of reinforcer [added or removed]
+ and – symbol denote type of reinforcer [appetetive or negative type of reinforcer]
Negative Reinforcement: Escape
R - [Sr-]
Escape response
You came into contact with it then you try to do something to get rid of it
Something is reinforcing when it’s subtracted
Negative Reinforcement: Avoidance
R [-] Sr-
Avoidance → avoiding contact with aversive stimulus
Avoidance response to avoid pain
E.g. going to dentist to avoid toothaches
It’s very difficult to get rid of avoidance behavior
Negative Punishment
R-[Sr+]
Taking away an appetitive reinforcer
Much of negative punishment includes types of positive punishment as well
•E.g. prisons
Hullians call it secondary reinforcer
Skinnerians call it conditioned reinforcer
Secondary reinforcer is a reinforcer because of its connection with SΔ
- Secondary reinforcers only work if the primary reinforcer is not satiated
- Whereas primary reinforcer is inborn
Contiguity: Antecedents
A = antecedents
SD - R - Sr+
SD—discriminative antecedent stimulus
E.g. green traffic light
Sets the occasion for making the response
Cue that says a reinforcer is available
SΔ - R | Sr+
SΔ: Set the occasion for not making the response
Cue that says that reinforcer is Not available
SP - R - Sr-
or
SP - R | Sr+
A cue to the presence of a punisher
or
Loss of a reinforcer
SP: Sets the occasion for either negative or positive punishment
E.g. red light is both:
accident (positive punishment)
ticket [omission: loss of money]
The cumulative recorder
Y-axis = number of responses
X-axis = time
Simply a pencil and a piece of paper on a spool
With each action of the organism, the pencil jumps up
The drawn line is cumulative so the line keeps going up, even when they stop the behavior
Only goes down when the pen reaches the top of the page – a reset
Cumulative Records
If you are a clinican then you need to work with individual organism
The “average animal” doesn’t tell you about the individual case
Repeated measure of a case design
Skinner used the lever press apparatus to study maintenance of behavior
The animal lives in it and can respond to it all day long, instead of a puzzle box that needs to be reset after each response
This makes it similar to the natural environment
You don’t have to watch the Skinner box, you can automate it and attach an accumulator to it
Cumulative records “Schedules of Reinforcment” book Firster and Skinner
Predictive of shapes of records based on different schedules
*Skinner box is ineffective at avoidance conditioning
CRF
continuous reinforcement, most basic schedule
1 R -1 pellet food
*Intermittent schedules compared to CRF take much longer to extinguish
Both VI and VR are hard to extinguish
FR
e.g. 5 R- 1 pellet food
Results in “fixed-ratio steps” due to post-reinforcement pauses
VR
e.g., reinforced on every 5th response on average
***Shaping, always starts out with CRF
No PRP in VR schedule
Rats don’t collect food, keep going, to get as much as possible
Looks like sawtooth on cumulative record–since pen resets to bottom of page, just goes straight up
E.g. gambling
Addiction
Ratio Strain
If VR schedule is stretched out too far too quickly, animal stops responding
However, if done slow enough, VR can be increased up to 400,000 : 1
FI
Reinforcement for a response made after a given time
Number of responses increase as you get closer to the time [hypothesized ‘internal clock’]
Results in fixed interval scallops
e.g. studying for exams
VI
Reinforcement for a response given based on average of time
No knowledge of when exactly the reinforcement will occur
Low rate of responding but it’s constant
Results in straight diagonal line on accumulator
e.g. checking mailbox
DRL
Differential reinforcement for low rates of responding
If response is made before the interval is complete, the interval is reset [punished for early response]
Difficult to learn
DRL extinguishes faster than VI
DRL is important and effective for ADHD kids, delinquents and poor impulse control
e.g of combined schedule DRL and DRH:
DRL 30 DRH 45–there is only a 15-second window in which to respond
*lab rat can learn this, juvenile delinquent has difficulty
Skinner: In order to predict behavior you have to know 5 factors
Heredity
• Initially, skinner felt this was useless since we can’t do anything about it
Past Reinforcement History
• What are the cues, what sets the occasions, what are the rewards/punishments the organism has experienced
Deprivation State
• E.g.body weight
Physical State
• functional
Emotional State
• Assumes this organism is repsonding rationally
• If highly emotional, you can’t predict
• Copout clause
o RO: you can at least say why you can’t predict
Quick note on Bandura
What Bandura taught was WHEN to be aggressive
*not how to be aggressive, or to be aggressive
In other words, you’re not teaching the kid how to kick, you’re teaching when to kick, i.e.what the appropriate situations are to kick
The model is a SD, it sets the occasion for responding
It taught the children when to make those responses
The woman in the films was reinforced for kicking the doll, so it sets the occasion for behaving aggressively
