NOTES FOR EXAM 3 BEGIN HERE Chapter 10: Conditioned Reinforcement

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NOTES FOR EXAM 3BEGIN HERE Chapter
10Conditioned Reinforcement
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A scenario

• Imagine you are lost
• You finally stumble upon a landmark that is
  familiar to you
• You become happy because you know how to get home
  from this spot
• This spot is both a CS that elicits happiness
  as well as an SD for the behavior of getting
  home.
• There is also a THIRD function of this stimulus
• It has also served as a reinforcer for the
  stumbling around behavior that led you to it
• In fact, if we consider any series of linked
  behaviors (like following directions or recipes,
  etc.), the consequence of completing each step is
  both a reinforcer for completing that step as
  well as an SD for completing the NEXT step

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Conditioned Reinforcement

• Conditioned reinforcement is when behavior is
  strengthened by consequence events that have an
  effect because of a learning history.
• The critical aspect of this history involves a
  pairing between an arbitrary event and an already
  established reinforcer.
• Once the arbitrary event increases the frequency
  of an operant behavior, it is called a
  conditioned reinforcer.

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Chain Schedules and Conditioned Reinforcement

• One way to investigate conditioned reinforcement
  is to construct sequences of behavior.
• A chain schedule of reinforcement involves two
  or more simple schedules (CRF, FI, VI, FR, etc.)
  each of which is presented sequentially and is
  signaled by an arbitrary stimulus (each has its
  own SD).
• Only the final or terminal link in this chain
  results in primary reinforcement.

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Multiple Stimulus Functions

• An unsignalled chain (or tandem schedule) is a
  sequence of two schedules (such as an FR150 - FI
  120 seconds) in which distinct SDs do not signal
  the different components
• In equivalent tandem vs. chain schedules,
  performances will be BETTER on the chain than the
  tandem
• This shows that distinct signals serve as both
  SDs and conditioned reinforcers.

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Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Chains

• Operant chains are classified as homogeneous when
  the topography or form of response is similar in
  each component, i.e., a similar response
  requirement is in effect in all components.
• A heterogeneous chain requires different
  responses in each link.

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Teaching a backwards Chain

• For complex tasks with many steps, often better
  to teach the final step FIRST and reinforce its
  completion
• After practicing this final unit many times and
  reinforcing its completion many times, ACESS to
  this unit of SD - R - SR will now serve as am
  effective conditioned reinforcer for the second
  to last unit on the chain of behavior
• More

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Teaching a backwards Chain

• After practicing the second to last and final
  unit many times, ACESS to the SECOND TO LAST unit
  of SD - R - SR will now serve as am effective
  conditioned reinforcer for the THIRD to last unit
  on the chain of behavior
• And so on!
• Note that we are not doing the behavior in
  reverse! We are simply completing the final step
  first in our teaching procedure

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Determinants of Conditioned Reinforcement Strength

• Frequency of Primary Reinforcement paired with
  the conditioned reinforcer
• Variability of Primary Reinforcement paired with
  the conditioned reinforcer
• Establishing Operations
• Delay to Primary Reinforcement

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Delay Reduction and Conditioned Reinforcement

• Delay-reduction hypothesis
• Stimuli closer in time to positive reinforcement,
  or further in time from an aversive event, are
  more effective conditioned reinforcers.
• Stimuli that signal no reduction in time to
  reinforcement (S?) or no period of safety from an
  aversive event (Save) do not function as
  conditioned reinforcement.

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Concurrent-Chain Schedules of Reinforcement

• Previously we talked about choice where the
  organism is free to switch back and forth between
  different response alternatives (called
  CONCURRENT SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT)
• But often in the real world, once you choose one
  response alternative, you lock out the
  opportunity to do some other behavior for a
  period of time
• that is, choosing one response COMMITS you to
  that particular response for at least some period
  of time

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Concurrent-Chain Schedules of Reinforcement

• How would we study such an idea in the lab?
• we could ask which does a person prefer, working
  on an FR10 or a VI60s each for some set period of
  time?
• this is a CONCURRENT CHAIN SCHEDULE
• It involves two different components (an initial
  LINK, or menu, and a terminal LINK)

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Concurrent-Chain Schedules of Reinforcement

• subject is given a "menu" in which it must press
  a particular key to TURN ON a particular schedule
  of reinforcement.
• There is no reinforcer given for making the
  initial link choice itself and the subject is
  given immediate access to whatever reinforcement
  schedule he chose
• Subject must stay on that schedule for some
  specified time.
• Then he can make a choice again.
• What is our measure of choice in a concurrent
  chain schedule?
• the proportion of times subject chooses one
  schedule over another

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Concurrent-Chain Schedules of Reinforcement

• IF we put in a delay to access to the terminal
  links, however, then a subject is LESS likely to
  choose that initial link because there is now an
  increased delay to reinforcement
• For example, in a two-key concurrent-chain
  procedure with equivalent initial links but
  different lengths of delay to get to terminal
  links.

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Generalized Conditioned Reinforcement

• any event or stimulus paired with or,
  exchangeable for, many sources of primary
  reinforcement.
• Generalized reinforcement does not depend on
  deprivation or satiation for any specific
  reinforcer.
• Generalized social reinforcement for human
  behavior approval, attention, affection, praise

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Tokens, Money and Generalized Reinforcement

• Other conditioned reinforcers are economic since
  they are exchangeable for goods and services.
  Probably the most important such reinforcement is
  money.
• A token economy is a set of contingencies based
  on token reinforcement the contingencies specify
  when and under what conditions, particular forms
  of behavior are reinforced with tokens. Tokens
  are exchangeable for a variety of backup
  reinforcers.

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Chapter 11Correspondence Relations Imitation
and Rule-Governed Behavior
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Correspondence Relations

• People often do what others do. A child who
  observes an older sibling raid the cookie jar may
  engage in similar behavior.
• This is a correspondence between the modeled
  behavior and the replicated behavior.
• Technically, behavior of one person sets the
  occasion for (is an SD for) an equivalent
  response by the other.

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Correspondence Relations Continued

• There are other correspondence relations
  established by our culture. We often receive
  reinforcement if there is a correspondence
  between saying and doing.
• A large part of socialization involves
  reinforcement for correspondence between what is
  said and what is done.

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Correspondence Relations Continued

• Other people reinforce our behavior if there is
  consistency (correspondence) between spoken
  words and later performance.
• A minister who preaches moral conduct and lives a
  moral life is valued when moral words and moral
  deeds do not match, people become upset and act
  to correct the inconsistency. (They deliver
  punishment!)

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Imitation

• Learning by observation involves doing what
  others do
• The behavior of an observer or learner is
  regulated by the actions of a model.
• imitation requires that the learner emit a
  response that could only occur by observing a
  model emit a similar response.

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Spontaneous Imitation

• Innate or spontaneous imitation is based on
  evolution and natural selection rather than
  learning experiences
• Implies imitation of others may be an important
  adaptive behavior.

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Immediate vs. Delayed Imitation

• Imitation may occur only when the model is
  present or it may be delayed for some time after
  the model has been removed.
• delayed imitation is more complex since it
  involves remembering the modeled stimulus (SD),
  rather than direct stimulus control.

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Operant and Generalized Imitation

• It is possible to teach imitation as an operant
  behavior
• discriminative stimulus is behavior of the model
  (SDmodel),
• operant is a response that matches the modeled
  stimulus (Rmatch), and reinforcement is verbal
  praise (Srsocial).
• Matching the model is reinforced, while
  non-correspondent responses are extinguished.

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Operant and Generalized Imitation

• If imitation is reinforced and nonimitation is
  extinguished, imitation of the model will
  increase.
• On the other hand, nonimitation will occur if
  imitation is extinguished and nonimitation is
  reinforced.
• Learner learns to do as the model does
  regardless of what the form of the model is!

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Operant and Generalized Imitation

• Donald Baer and his associates provided a
  behavior analysis of imitation called generalized
  imitation
• involves several modeled stimuli (SDs) and
  multiple operants (Rmatch).
• In each case, what the model does sets the
  occasion for reinforcement of a similar response
  by the child all other responses are
  extinguished.
• This training results in a stimulus class of
  models and an imitative response class. The
  child now imitates whichever response that the
  model performs.

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Generalized Imitation

• The next step is to test for generalization of
  the stimulus and response class.
• Baer and Sherman (1964) showed that a new-modeled
  stimulus would set the occasion for a novel
  imitative response, without any further
  reinforcement.
• Generalized imitation accounts for the appearance
  of novel imitative acts in children- even when
  these specific responses were never reinforced.

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Rules, Observational Learning, and Self-Efficacy

• For Skinner, following the rules is behavior
  under the control of verbal stimuli SDs.
• That is, statements of rules, advice, maxims, or
  laws are discriminative stimuli that set the
  occasion for behavior.
• Rules, as verbal descriptions, may affect
  observational learning.

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Rule-Governed Behavior

• A large part of human behavior is regulated by
  verbal stimuli.
• The common property of these kinds of stimuli is
  that they describe the operating contingencies of
  reinforcement.
• Formally, rules, instructions, advice, and laws
  are contingency-specifying stimuli, (they
  describe the SDR? Sr relations of everyday
  life.)
• The term rule-governed behavior is used when the
  listeners (readers) performance is regulated by
  contingency-specifying stimuli.

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Rule-Governed and Contingency-Shaped Behavior

• People are said to solve problems either by
  discovery or by instruction.
• From a behavioral perspective the difference is
  between the direct effects of contingencies
  (discovery) and the indirect effects of rules
  (instruction).
• When performance is attributed to direct exposure
  to reinforcement contingencies, behavior is said
  to be contingency-shaped.
• As previously noted, performance set up by
  constructing and following instructions (and
  other verbal stimuli) is termed rule-governed
  behavior.

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Rule-Governed and Contingency-Shaped Behavior

• The importance of reinforcement contingencies in
  establishing and maintaining rule-following is
  clearly seen with ineffective rules and
  instructions.
• When rules describe delayed and improbable
  events, it is necessary to find other reasons to
  follow them.

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Instructions and Contingencies

• In his discussion of rule-governed and
  contingency-shaped behavior, Skinner (1969)
  speculated that instructions may affect
  performance differently than the actual
  contingencies of reinforcement.
• One way to test this idea is to expose humans to
  reinforcement procedures that are accurately or
  inaccurately described by the experimenters
  instructions.
• If behavior varies with the instructions while
  the actual contingencies remain the same, this
  would be evidence for Skinners assertion.

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Instructions and Contingencies

• Instructions are complex discriminative stimuli.
• Instructional control is a form of rule-governed
  behavior.

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Chapter 12Verbal Behavior
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Language and Verbal Behavior

• In contrast with the term language, verbal
  behavior deals with the performance of a speaker
  and the environmental conditions that establish
  and maintain such performance
• Verbal behavior refers to the vocal, written and
  gestural performance of a speaker, writer or
  communicator. This behavior operates on the
  listener, reader or observer, who then arranges
  reinforcement of the verbal performance.

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Speaking, Listening and the Verbal Community

• Verbal behavior refers to the behavior of the
  speaker, writer or gesturer.
• The verbal community the practices and customary
  ways a given culture reinforces the behavior of a
  speaker

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Operant Functions of Verbal Behavior Mands

• A mand is a response class of verbal operants
  whose form (what is said or written) is regulated
  by specific establishing operations (deprivation,
  satiation, etc.)
• In lay terms, mands involve asking for something
  you need to happen
• It is commonly said that a mand specifies its
  own reinforcer as in Give me a cookie but such
  commands are only a small part of mands.

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Operant Functions of Verbal Behavior Tacts

• A tact is a response class of verbal operants
  whose form (what is said or written) is regulated
  by specific nonverbal discriminative stimuli
• tact is derived from contact in that tacts
  are verbal operants that make contact with the
  environment.
• In lay terms, tacts involve pointing something
  out, commenting about something, labeling or
  identifying something

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Does the form of the Verbal Behavior identify the
type? NOPE

• Behavior Honey, you sure look sexy tonight!
• Is this a tact or a mand?
• Identifying the type of verbal behavior depends
  on the FUNCTION of the behavior!
• What function does this statement have?

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Training Verbal Operants Mands

• To teach manding, the most direct procedure is to
  manipulate an establishing operation (remove the
  toy), and then reinforce the verbal response
  (can I have the toy?) with the specified
  consequence (guess what it is!).
• Sometimes called teaching requesting

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Training Verbal Operants Tacts

• To teach tacting, a speaker must emit a verbal
  operant whose form (what is said) is a function
  of a nonverbal discriminative stimulus
  reinforcement is non-specific to that stimulus.
• A child comes home from preschool and when seeing
  her mother the child says, Let me tell you what
  I learned today and the child names several
  parts of the body and points to where they are.
  These would be tacts that would likely be
  reinforced by praise and hugs from the proud
  parent. (Mother may need to PROMPT that tacting
  by the child What did you do in school today?)
  

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Additional Verbal Relations Intraverbals

• An intraverbal is a verbal operant (what the
  listener says) controlled by a verbal
  discriminative stimulus (what the speaker says)
  but there is no one-to-one relation between the
  intraverbal and its SD.
• If you overhear me saying. Ill be damned! to
  which you covertly reply I sure hope so your
  response is an intraverbal
• Teaching a child ABCs You say ABCDEFG and the
  child says HIJK-ellamennopee
• Free association therapy demonstrates this when
  the therapist says Mother and you say
  dominatrix (haha!)

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Additional Verbal Relations Echoics

• An echoic is a verbal operant in response to a
  verbal SD but with a point-to-point
  correspondence between the SD and operant. If you
  swear after hitting your thumb with a hammer
  (Damn!) and your four year-old-son subsequently
  repeats your expletive, his response is an echoic.

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Additional Verbal Relations Textuals

• A textual is a verbal operant in which the verbal
  SD (written or spoken words made by another) and
  the response the listener makes correspond to
  each other but not with a formal PHYSICAL
  similarity.
• In lay terms, you are READING aloud (or to
  yourself) or TAKING NOTES

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Symbolic Behavior and Stimulus Equivalence

• Stimulus equivalence occurs when presentation of
  one class of stimuli occasion responses made to
  other stimulus classes.
• Example Most Americans will have a specific
  response to the written or spoken word or image
  of Osama Bin Laden.
• The word in any recognizable form or media, or
  the image of the person whether in cartoon
  caricature, photograph or video footage, will
  occasion the same response.
• Stimulus equivalence is said to exist when
  reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity can be
  shown to be in effect between distinct stimuli.

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Basic Equivalence Relations

• Reflexivity (also referred to as identity
  matching or matching to sample) a picture of
  Bin Laden is matched up with an identical picture
  of Bin Laden. (AA)
• Symmetry stimulus A is interchangeable with
  stimulus B, or AB and BA a picture of Bin
  Laden is matched up with the phrase head of Al
  Queida and vice versa.
• Transitivity consists of showing that stimulus A
  B and stimulus BC and if the learner responds
  to A as interchangeable or equivalent to C then
  transitivity is in effect between A, B and C. If
  stimulus A (a picture of Bin Laden) is equivalent
  to stimulus B, head of Al Queida and B is
  equivalent to written words OSAMA BIN LADEN as
  stimulus C if the picture of Bin Laden (stimulus
  A) is matched up with the written words OSAMA BIN
  LADEN (stimulus C) then transitivity is shown.