Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism

1
UNIT 4 Conceptual Foundations of Radical
Behaviorism Chapters 4 5
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• John B. Watson
• First to use the term behaviorism and cognate
  terms such as behaviorist and behavioristic
• We should mean by response the total striped and
  unstriped muscular and glandular changes which
  follow upon a given stimulus
• Categories
• External, overt, explicit
• Internal, covert, implicit
• Learned, habit
• Innate, heriditary

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• John B. Watson
• Watsons responses, including implicit ones,
  involved the whole organism casting behavior as
  a product of one or another component of an
  organisms physiology was to risk invoking the
  mind or soul as the initiator of behavior
• Viewed behavior as an ongoing pattern of
  adjustment and adaptation to the environment
  behavior was a form of interaction between the
  organism and environment

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• B.F. Skinner
• Early definition (1938) Behavior is what an
  organism is doing or more accurately, what it
  is observed by another organism to be doing
• Skinner later rejected the observed by another
  organism criterion private events, observable
  only to the behaving organism, counted as
  behavior

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• B.F. Skinner
• Early definition (1938) the term stimulus
  must refer to a class of events, the members of
  which possess some property in common, but
  otherwise differ rather freely, and the term
  response to a similar class showing a greater
  freedom of variation but also defined rigorously
  with respect to one or more propertiesThe
  members of the class are quantitatively mutually
  replaceable in spite of their differences.

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• B.F. Skinner
• Early on, Skinner advocated treating stimuli and
  responses as members of classes, rather than
  isolated instances
• The classes were defined functionally, rather
  than on the basis of their topographical or
  physical properties
• By emphasizing generic, functional classes of
  stimuli and responses, Skinner was able to better
  deal with the apparent variability and
  spontaneity of behavior

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior
Generalized S-R Reflex Model
S1
R1
cool
S1
R2
R1
not cool
not cool
S2
R1
not cool
VARIABILITY
SPONTANEITY
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior
Mediational S-O-R Model
S1
R1
O
cool
Mediating Variable1
S1
R2
R1
S2
R1
VARIABILITY
SPONTANEITY
cool
cool
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior
Skinners Objection to Mediational S-O-R Model
S1
R1
O
cool
Mediating Variable1
Many of these variables are themselves better
regarded as responses or behaviors the
dependent variables of psychology, not the
independent variables
These are typically not manipulable variables
to say they mediate or cause behavior does
not help us control, influence, or change behavior
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior
Operant, Functional Class Model
S1
R1
S

ANTECEDENT
CONSEQUENCE
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• Despite tendencies toward physicalistic
  definitions (e.g., Johnston Pennypacker),
  response classes in behavior analysis are defined
  according to their function, not the physical
  topography of their members
• The task of defining behavior is not to specify
  a Platonic or metaphysical essence that when
  present means some activity counts as behavior,
  and when absent means it does not.

12
Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• Categories of behavior are distinguished by the
  environmental variables and relations of which
  they are a function, rather than any supposed
  essence or quality of the behavior

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• Behavior may be viewed as an event wherein a
  causal relation exists between (a) the
  functioning of one or more of an organisms
  neural or muscular systems responsible for
  movement or posture (including standing still)
  and (b) the environment.
• The environment is that which is outside
  behavior, not necessarily outside the skin

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Defining Behavior

• Behavior is an interaction between organism and
  environment that has particular properties as a
  result of certain functional relations that
  obtain between the features of the behavior and
  features of the environment. The interaction may
  have developed phylogenically or ontogenically,
  and represents a central characteristic of the
  organism as it progresses through its life
  cycle.

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Two Questions in a Science of Behavior

• How is an organisms behavior functionally
  related to its environment?
• How do an organisms neural, muscular, and
  hormonal systems participate in those functional
  relations?

Behavior Analysis
Behavioral Neuroscience
These systems are not environmental stimulation
they are dependent variables, not independent
variables. They reveal physiological structures
that are activated by the environment, or how
those structures have been changed by interaction
with the environment.
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Two Gaps in a Behavioral Analysis Addressed by
Behavioral Neuroscience

• The gap within a behavioral event itself, from
  stimuli to response (they are separated both
  spatially and temporally)
• The gap between behavioral events, from one event
  to its effects as measured in the future

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Contributions of Behavioral Neuroscience

• How physiological systems provide continuity
  between stimulus and response within a behavioral
  event
• How physiological systems are changed by
  experience
• How the changes in physiological systems persist
  through time and influence future behavioral
  events
• How a changed organism behaves differently in the
  future
• How the internal biochemical context modulates
  stimulating action of the environment

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Contributions of Behavioral Neuroscience

• Physiological information that fills the two gaps
  (within a behavioral event and between behavioral
  events) may suggest new possibilities for
  prediction and control
• BUT techniques for behavioral control can be
  identified and evaluated independently of any
  knowledge of physiology
• Physiology will not disprove known behavioral
  technologies, but rather reveal the mechanisms
  inside the skin by which they work

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Causality
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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
Contributions of Behavioral Neuroscience

• Physiology of the behaving organism is a material
  cause
• The environment is an efficient cause
• Thus, neuroscience and behavior analysis deal
  with different kinds of causes
• Some of Skinners early objections to
  physiological explanations were those that
  treated physiological factors as efficient causes

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Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
The Empty Organism

• RB is explicitly concerned with variables and
  relations that are inside the organism, but views
  them differently from traditional psychology
• RB rejects the reductionistic assertion that
  behavior cannot be considered to be explained
  until the physiological mechanism involved in the
  behavior has been identified

22
Chapter 4 Behavior as a Subject Matter in Its
Own Right
The Empty Organism

• RB holds that neuroscience and behavior analysis
  each deals with a unique subject matter in its
  own terms, at a descriptively consistent level
• An organisms physiology participates in every
  behavioral event
• Knowledge of the physiology is available and
  potentially relevant for the purpose of
  prediction and control, but a complete account
  must include the environmental circumstances of
  which the behavior is a function

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Phases for Classifying Behavior

• Assess what variables and relations are in effect
  in the current environment
• Observe whether instances of the target behavior
  become more or less probable
• Determine that the change in the probability of
  the target behavior is a function of contact with
  the relevant relation in the environment (and not
  because some other environmental relation is
  involved and has been overlooked)

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Three Operations for Influencing Organisms

• A stimulus presentation operation (eliciting
  operation)
• A consequential operation
• A signaling operation related to the eliciting or
  consequential operations

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Innate Behavior

• Innate behavior is a function of the stimulus
  presentation operation
• When behavior is a function of consequential or
  signaling operations, it is generally considered
  learned or conditioned
• Behavior is generally considered innate if it is
  more related to the lifetime of the species than
  the lifetime of the individual organism

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Types of Innate Behavior

• Reflex (unconditioned respondent) class of
  responses in an isolated muscle, gland, or single
  behavioral system that is elicited by the
  presentation of a specific stimulus
• The topography of a given respondent is
  determined by the stimulus involved, and
  ordinarily does not vary widely from instance to
  instance within a species
• Examples salivation to food in the mouth
  increased heart rate, breathing, or perspiration
  to an electric shock

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Types of Innate Behavior

• Tropism a change in the orientation of an
  organism in response to external fields of force
  (e.g., gravity)
• Kinesis stimulus produces a change in movement
  or orientation, irrespective of the direction of
  that movement (e.g., wood louse when in dry
  area, it moves about until it reaches a dark,
  moist area)
• Taxis stimulus produces a change in movement
  carried out with respect to an eliciting stimulus
  (e.g., egg retrieval by a goose)

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Types of Taxes

• Different taxes (plural of taxis) result in
  response to different types of stimuli. Each of
  these forms of taxis can be described by simply
  adding a prefix to the word taxis.

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Types of Innate Behavior

• Fixed Action Patter (FAP) a pattern of behavior
  in which the response is
• Stereotyped within a species
• Released via a specific stimulus, after which it
  is relatively independent of immediate
  environmental context and feedback
• Innate
• Examples feeding mating and reproduction
  nesting social activities, rituals fighting,
  attacking, aggression

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Learned Behavior

• Learning is the name used to describe changes in
  behavior that occur as a result of particular
  post-natal experiences
• The changes in behavior are changes in the
  topography of a response, the properties of a
  response (e.g. force, duration, tempo, rate), or
  in the circumstances in which a given response
  occurs
• The post-natal experiences involve contact with
  stimulus events and relations in the environment

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Questions About Learning for Behavior Analysis

• Why does behavior change?
• Because the organism finds itself in changed
  environmental circumstances. Organisms whose
  behavior doesnt change when environmental
  circumstances change probably wont survive.
• What aspects of the environmental circumstances
  are functionally related to the changes in
  behavior?
• Answers to this question comes from a science of
  behavior. Indeed, this question virtually sets
  the program for a science of behavior.

32
Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Questions About Learning for Neuroscience

• Why do changed circumstances produce changes in
  behavior?
• When an organisms behavior changes, its
  physiology has presumably changed. Organisms
  whose physiology doesnt change when
  environmental circumstances change wont survive.
• What physiological changes take place in an
  organisms body when it is said to have learned
• Answers to this question comes from neuroscience.
  Indeed, this question virtually sets the program
  for neuroscience.

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Conditioned Respondent Behavior

• Conditioned Respondent produced when a
  signaling operation is combined with the stimulus
  presentation operation
• A stimulus does not originally elicit the
  response in question, but comes to do so when it
  signals an increased probability that anther
  stimulus (which already elicits the response),
  will be presented
• Respondent Conditioning Classical Conditioning
  Pavlovian Conditioning

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Conditioned Respondent Behavior
stimulus presentation (eliciting) operation
S1
R1
unconditioned stimulus (US)
S2
neutral stimulus (NS)
signaling operation
S1
R1
S2

S2
R1
conditioned stimulus (CS)
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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Operant Behavior

• Operant Behavior operant behavior is a function
  of a consequential operation
• Instances of a given operant are members of a
  class, defined by the common functional property
  of producing the same consequence
• Specific topography can vary from instance to
  instance
• Operant Conditioning Instrumental Learning
  Skinnerian Conditioning Thorndikian Conditioning

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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Operant Behavior

• Signaling operations (i.e., the use of
  discriminative stimuli) are typically combined
  with the consequential operation to produce an
  operant
• A CS is said to elicit a response
• An SD is said to set the occasion upon which
  the response will be successful in producing the
  consequence in question

37
Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
The Three-Term Operant Contingency

• When a signaling operation is combined with a
  consequential operation, an explicit three-term
  operant contingency is in effect
• If the response occurs in the presence of the
  discriminative stimulus, then the consequence
  will follow and not otherwise
• The three-term contingency is the fundamental
  analytic unit of operant behavior

SD
R

consequence
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Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Sources of Operant Behavior

• A response must occur in one form or another
  before it can produce a consequence and be called
  an operant
• Sources
• Random behavior
• Shaping
• Respondents (less common)

39
Chapter 5 Categories of Behavior
Molar and Molecular Analyses of Behavior

• Molar level of analysis when the independent
  and dependent variables are formulated in terms
  of large-scale relations, across relatively
  extended periods of time in ways that transcend
  local relations between the behavioral unit and
  the environment
• Molecular level of analysis when the
  independent and dependent variables are
  formulated in terms of smaller-scale operations,
  across relatively circumscribed periods of times
  in ways the emphasize local relations between the
  behavioral unit and the environment