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Assignment #2

Assignment #2. Topics (Choose ONE):

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Assignment #2

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  1. Assignment #2 • Topics (Choose ONE): • Different sports have different techniques for deterring unwanted behaviour (e.g. penalty box in hockey, yardage penalties in football). Discuss sports penalties in terms of the four operant contingencies. You can pick your favourite sport or compare across several. • Discuss Gallup’s self recognition task. What are the procedures, who has been used as subjects and what does this say about self-awareness? • Pick a common cultural superstition (e.g. black cats, the number 13, play-off beards). Discuss how it may have come to be.

  2. Chapter 7 Operant Applications

  3. Overview • Animal Care & Training • Self-Awareness • Self-Control • Verbal Behaviour • Insight • Creativity • Superstition • Delusions & Hallucinations

  4. Animal Care & Training

  5. Veterinary Care • Large animals, carnivores, stress-susceptible • Shaping • Change behaviour patterns • Positive reinforcement rather than punishment

  6. Self-Awareness

  7. Observing the World • Social animals • Understanding another’s behaviour beneficial • Reinforcement through watching others • Observation of self; own behaviour

  8. Gallup’s Mirror Self-Recognition Task • Allow chimp time to learn about mirror • Stages • Tranquilize chimp and paint dot on head • See if chimp notices changed appearance • Mental self-image • Used with children

  9. Epstein’s pigeons • Trained to peck a blue dot • Experience with mirror • Blue dot on pigeon under bib • Peck at bib • Other animals • Elephants, dolphins, children

  10. Shaping of Self-Observation? • Skinner • Kinds of questions we ask children reinforces self-observation • e.g., “are you hungry?” “what are you doing?” • Accurate response likely results in some form of desired outcome (i.e., reinforcement of behaviour)

  11. Self-Control

  12. Self-Control • Choice • Forgoing a small, immediate reinforcer for large, delayed reinforcer • Humans, non-humans • Circular explanation (will power)

  13. Techniques • Physical restraint • Distancing • Distraction • Deprivation & Satiation • Assistance • Behaviour monitoring

  14. Physical Restraint • Physically prevent behaviour from occurring • e.g., lock liquor cabinet • e.g., cut up credit cards

  15. Distancing • Behaviour more likely to occur in specific environment • Avoid environment to assist self-control • e.g., smokers who want to quit should avoid places where smokers frequent

  16. Distraction • Engage in behaviour incompatible with undesired behaviour • e.g., want a snack, go for a walk

  17. Deprivation and Satiation • To avoid excesses • e.g., to avoid overeating at party, eat small meal earlier • Partial satiation

  18. Assistance • Inform others of your goals • Get help • Changes the environment • e.g., friends may be “enablers”

  19. Behavioural Monitoring • Keep track of your own behaviour • Notebook, graphs, etc. • Visible indicators • Dieters in room with candy bowl; those who had to leave wrappers on table ate fewer pieces than those who could put wrappers in garbage

  20. Verbal Behaviour

  21. Skinner (1957) • Verbal Behavior • Suggests ideas not encoded into words by speaker and decoded by listener • Words are behaviours • Functional relationship between a word and an outcome (i.e., reinforcement or punishment) • Social consequences provide shaping and maintenance of language

  22. Early Shaping of Words • Babies babble • Parents reinforce certain sounds with attention, etc. • Increases frequency of these sounds • Gradually, reinforcement for more complex vocalizations only

  23. Shaping Language? • Greenspoon (1955) • Reinforced or punished plural nouns in subjects’ lists of words • problem • Verplanck (1955) • Reinforced or didn’t reinforce subjects’ use of opinion statements • Quay (1959) • Reinforced statements about family members • Psycho-therapy?

  24. Complex • Life-long reinforcement (and punishment) history • Much vocal reinforcement without conscious knowledge • Reinforcing lies

  25. Insightful Problem Solving

  26. Problem Solving • Trial and error, accidental success • Insight = Sudden solution • “think things through” • Skip intermediate steps • http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/tools/movies.shtml

  27. Suspended fruit task • Kohler  Sultan • Pushed box under banana • Epstein (1984)  pigeons • Suggested insight could be due to reinforcement history Can’t reach!

  28. Creativity

  29. Can Creativity be Shaped? • Novelty, original behaviour • Provide reinforcement only for novel behaviour • creativity • Pryor’s (1969) work with porpoises and pigeons • Various studies with children

  30. Rewards and Creativity • Some studies suggest rewards reduce creativity • Reward for task or no reward for task • Find more creative responses in non-rewarded group • But, typically it is not creativity that is rewarded, but task completion • Society and status quo • Peer pressure; what is “normal”? • Failure

  31. Superstition

  32. Accidental Conditioning • B.F. Skinner (1948) • Pigeons • Grain every 15 seconds • Development of behaviours • Accidental strengthening

  33. Humans • Bruner & Revusky (1961) • Teenagers and 4 buttons; only button 3 gave reinforcement on FI schedule • Wagner & Morris (1987) • Children and clown doll giving marbles • Ono (1987) • University students and levers; told to gain as many points as possible, but points just given periodically

  34. Timing? • Staddon & Simmelhag (1971) • Interim and terminal behaviours

  35. Delusions and Hallucinations

  36. Attention Seeking • Not always a biological root • Patients • Delusions provide attention from staff • Social reinforcement • “Weird” behaviours might be shaped • Stop reinforcement to reduce behaviour • Maintenance of behaviour (“catch on”)

  37. Self-Injurious Behaviour

  38. Self-Injuries • Punishment often effective for suppression • Lovaas & Simmons (1969) • Boy making 30 hits per minute • Four behaviour-contingent electric shocks to leg • Self-injurious behaviour stopped

  39. Escape • Wolf (1967) • Injurious behaviour increased when teacher asked boy questions • Injurious behaviour dropped when teacher stopped asking questions • Negative reinforcement • Lack of demands • Use of DRI to reduce SI behaviour

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