Please use this to comment on your reading for sec 3.1. I'll leave it up to you about what and how you would like to comment, however I would ask that you attempt to write using behavioral terms. I will also use this as a way to 'time stamp' that you read the section on or before Saturday.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
This section was fairly short, but I thought it was interesting to think about trial and error learning. If we really think about it, most of what we learn and the knowledge we acquire is from trial and error. How did we learn to ride a bike? We fell several times, wore helmets and pads, had training wheels, had mom or dad hold the bike level. We emit a variety of behaviors (extinction burst) in order to be able to ride a bike by ourselves without any help. When our last attempt is succesful, we associate that behavior with a positive outcome of getting our desired response, which also ties into The Law of Recency. If our most recent response was successful and desirable, that same response is most likely to reoccur in the same context next time.
For this relatively short section, I thought it was interesting to consider Thorndike's term methodological construct, which he used to measure intelligence. Thus it seems that testing within school districts would also be a methodological construct. While maybe a bit of a stretch, interceptions in football would be a methodological construct for football IQ for a quarterback.
Also, the ideas of stamping out behaviors were interesting to think about. For example, the biological nature of being hungover (for some people) could get rid of their excessive drinking behaviors--others not so much...I think the Law of recency is a neat concept as well which is often applied in our world today. Oftentimes when a player has a bad game, their skills are questioned. When that player's abilities are questioned the following week perhaps, one may once again question his skills because the most recent response (criticism) is most likely to reoccur--thus leading to the law of exercise, where these associations are strengthened (further tarnishing that player's image).
I love learning about behavioral research. The terms law of recency and law of exercise are pretty easy to understand. It was a nice short chapter after section 2.5.
I thought this section was pretty interesting. I hadn’t heard of a puzzle box or Edward Thorndike. I had also never heard of the Law of Effect. It is kind of interesting how a cat can use trial and error to see how to escape faster each time. Learning about trial and error was pretty interesting because it does apply to our everyday life. For example, it is your first class of the semester and you have an exam coming up. You have to go through trial and error to figure out the best way to study for the exam. Then as you have more exams you figure out the best way to study for them. Or learning to drive would be another example of trial and error. I also enjoyed learning about the Law of Recency and Law of Exercise. After reading this section, it made me think of how the Law of Exercise and Recency affect me in my everyday life. I liked that this section was short and to the point.
This section was interesting and fun to read (especially compared to the last one!) If I'm understanding it right, a methodological construct is just an indirect way of measuring something. Law of Effect was pretty self-explanatory. If there is a successful outcome, the behavior will be 'stamped in', and if there is an unsuccessful outcome, the behavior will be 'stamped out'. We deal with this concept every day. The Law of Recency states that the most recent response is most likely to reoccur. The Law of Exercise states that when things are repeated, associations are strengthened. I think this was easy to understand because it's almost like common knowledge. For example, one time in high school I did really well on a test when I used a certain pencil. Then every time I had a test, I wanted to use that pencil because I felt it would help me do well on the test. This was obviously a superstition because my score on the test was directly related to how much time I spent studying.
This was a nice, short follow-up section from section 2.5. I thought it was relatively easy to understand, but had a difficult time coming up with examples for the law of recency. I think it was because there wasn't an example given in the section, so I didn't have anything to work off of. I did like how this section focused on Thorndike and his puzzle box, which was used to study animal intelligence. Learning through trial and error, otherwise known as the Law of Effect, is something that we all do everyday. I used the example of forgetting your password. You keep trying different words until you finally get the right one. Sometimes when that happens to me, I forget the password that worked because I was so into trying to figure it out. Overall, this was a good section.
This was a nice, short follow-up section from section 2.5. I thought it was relatively easy to understand, but had a difficult time coming up with examples for the Law of Recency. I think it was because there wasn't an example given in the section, so I didn't have anything to work off of. I did like how this section focused on Thorndike and his puzzle box, which was used to study animal intelligence. Learning through trial and error, otherwise known as the Law of Effect, is something that we all do everyday. I used the example of forgetting your password. You keep trying different words until you finally get the right one. Sometimes when that happens to me, I forget the password that worked because I was so into trying to figure it out. Overall, this was a good section.
In the last comments section I commented about a possible schedule of reinforcement example for making sure that audience members didn’t get bored. After reading this section I decided I’d try my hand at graphing fictitious data to show what this should look like. The chart isn’t really an example of learning, per se, since it simply acts as a suggestion for how to build a good show. However, if you operationally defined “impossibility level” with heart rate, attention level, number of laughs or gasps, etc, this graph would be interpreted as showing a gradually increasing attention (HR, gasps, whatever) punctuated by extreme levels of attention at various intervals.
In behavioral terms you might say that the audiences paying attention behaviors are reinforced following a fixed as well as variable interval of reinforcement. At fixed intervals new stimuli provide constant reinforcement, and at variable intervals more powerful reinforcers are administered in order to act as an establishing operation for future reinforcers, as well as to avoid satiation. The only relation I can make directly to Thorndike involves altering the schedule of reinforcement (i.e. between fixed and variable) in order to increase the “stamping in” power of appropriate audience behavior thus strengthening their associations between watching, applauding, etc., and the show in front of them. The graph is a bit to obscure to apply “trial and error” to it. However the performer uses trial and error (that is changing up when and where the peaks on the above graph are) in order to find out exactly which model would in fact create maximum entertainment value.
I think that this section correlates closely with the schedules of reinforcement section. It helps to explain both sections. Section 3.1 talks about trial and error learning. The trial and error learning goes hand in hand with the ratio and interval schedules of reinforcement. An example is similar to the one that I used for ratio reinforcement, which was the code box at my sorority house. There are normally about 3 rounds of trial and error before I get the door opened. Many times it is me trying to remember what buttons I hit, and if they were wrong. The law of exercise would help this example. With my repeated entrance into the house, I would better learn the code. And I would then reduce my amount of ratio reinforcement, and trial and error.
It seems to me that the Laws of Effect, Recency, and Exercise would explain a lot of our behaviors in everyday life, and the Law of Effect in particular is a good summation of reinforcement. (On an unrelated note, a movie called Death Sentence is on in the background as I'm typing this and it made me have a flashback to Eyewitness class. They just set up a simultaneous live lineup, and the suspect that Kevin Bacon was supposed to pick out had just murdered his son. Bacon's character watched the suspect get hit with a car, and of the 6 guys in the lineup, 5 were healthy looking and 1 had a gauze pad on his forehead and was scraped and bruised all over. Just thought that was interesting.) I think its safe to say that everyone experiences each of these laws first hand in day-to-day life. A simple example of the Law of Exercise is how people re-learn how to use Facebook every time the designers make adjustments to its layout. I still go to the upper right hand corner to search for people and the upper left hand corner to go to my profile. Each time I go to the upper right hand corner to search and find that the search box is no longer there, that works to "stamp out" my behavior of looking there for the search box, while going to the middle of the screen will be reinforced as I find the search box there, and that behavior will be "stamped in". Then in 6 months when they move the search box to a 12 pixel rectangle in the lower left side of the screen and give me a live updating news feed of every single one of my friends' actions running on my page at all times, I will have to re-learn how to handle those things by way of trial and error.
What I took from Section 3.1:
I learned about a new researcher, Edward Thorndike. I thought he was creative and inventive to take random objects and create animal studies. Who knew you could learn so much from a cat? Thorndike developed the law of effect where the cat tries to remember the last action done to help it escape. The law of recency is the action that is most likely to occur to try to escape again. The law of exercise is when the action takes place so much that the action is strengthened. I will admit that I wasn't too creative with developing ways to study animal intelligence. It is something I have really never pondered on.
What I took from Section 3.1:
I learned about a new researcher, Edward Thorndike. I thought he was creative and inventive to take random objects and create animal studies. Who knew you could learn so much from a cat? Thorndike developed the law of effect where the cat tries to remember the last action done to help it escape. The law of recency is the action that is most likely to occur to try to escape again. The law of exercise is when the action takes place so much that the action is strengthened. I will admit that I wasn't too creative with developing ways to study animal intelligence. It is something I have really never pondered on.
What I took from Section 3.1:
I learned about a new researcher, Edward Thorndike. I thought he was creative and inventive to take random objects and create animal studies. Who knew you could learn so much from a cat? Thorndike developed the law of effect where the cat tries to remember the last action done to help it escape. The law of recency is the action that is most likely to occur to try to escape again. The law of exercise is when the action takes place so much that the action is strengthened. I will admit that I wasn't too creative with developing ways to study animal intelligence. It is something I have really never pondered on.
I liked this section! :)
I think that this section was very interesting! Even though you had told me that relearning about the psychologists was going to be boring I still had an easy time reading it. I find it super interesting that animals, who basically go on instinct, can learn behaviors to mazes, boxes and buttons to get the reward that they wanted.
This goes back to us now and how our behaviors for trial and error are put into the real world. Not that I'm all about valentines day but relationships is one way of trial and error. We date people we think we like and if it doesn't work out, most people try again to get the the result they want.
PS Happy Valentines Day :-)
I noticed that this section (3.1) was shorter than most which was nice for a change of pace. From other psychology classes I had learned about Pavlov's studies on animals but I had never heard of Edward Thorndike. Obviously he contributed a good amount of research and information to cats and what we 'know' about them. I do like, however, that the trial and error method can be applied to daily activities. I liked Sean's comment regarding the "stamping in & out" especially with products we have become to expect to be a certain way (Facebook example).
I liked section 3.1 because it was a refresher from what I learned in my Intro to Psychology class two years ago. I also liked how it went over and broke down the graphs we will be using.
Easiest chapter yet! It was really interesting though. I really enjoyed the video, it kind of makes me want to try this with my cats. I love learning about how animals learn. I have never understood it when people say that animals aren't intelligent. This chapter showed that by using positive reinforcement that animals can learn to emit a target behavior.
I loved my history and systems of psych class. Section 3.1 was a great review. It is easy to see how we use trial and error learning in real life. Thorndike's findings are so interesting. The graph features are helpful.
I liked reading section 3.1. I felt as if it was a review from some of my other psychology classes which is great. The graph was helpful in reading the section. I learned that Edward Thorndike began by studying cats could learn how to escape from the confinement of a wooden cage. Thorndike was primarily interested in animal intelligence. One way to study animal intelligence. He was interested in studying how a cat learned to manipulate strings and levers built into the box allowing a door to open thus freeing the cat. I did not remeber a lot on Thorndike so this was a good refresher of history.
I thought the methodological construct as a precursor to operant definition for behavior. It's interesting to see how those concepts get shaped and defined over time. How psychology can have an effect on psychology. I think the law of effect, even though originally tested on animals holds great truth even for humans. A personal example I've had a computer virus on my pc for like a week now and despite my best attempts to destroy the malicious little bugger it keeps popping back up. Having exhausted all my antispyware and cleaner programs, I started finding and deleting the files in my computer that actually contained the enemy code. Since that has not work I'm just going to go nuclear and reformat my hard-drive. If that doesn't work my computer is taking the plunge from the roof of Bartlett. Yes, I will record and post the video on the blog. Trial and error, reinforcement and extinction. At it's best.
This section was very interesting to me. I have thought about trial and error as a method of learning before, but I did not realize how widespread this method is. I thought that it was more limited to things like what Thorndike did with his cat. When I was thinking of examples though, I was struck by the fact that nearly everything that a baby or a child learns is learned by trial and error. Crawling, walking, running, talking, riding a bike - all these things are learned by trial and error. We do not really teach our children to walk, they just begin to try and keep trying until they get it right. This is exactly the type of concept that Thorndike showed with his cats. I also found the Law of Recency to be an interesting concept. It is very true that what you tried most recently is the response that you are most likely to use again. For instance, if I tried out a certain successful technique when baking cookies last night, I am more likely to use that technique when baking cookies today than I am to use a successful technique that was from five years ago. It just makes sense logically that I would remember the one from last night more clearly. Overall, I found this section very easy to understand and interesting.
This section i also found very interesting and chopped full of great facts about the history of behavioral theorems. The "law of effect" reminded me of my capstone class, Living in of Techno Savy World. Right now were talking about how science and technology interact with one another and we were just recently talking about trial and error in the production of technology. It always seemed to me that trial and error was a fancy way of dumbing down the scientific theory and process. Your basically coming up with a theory, although not in the same way you would with the scientific process, but none the less you are still trying to arrive at the same conclusion although you're going about it in a different way. The "law of recency" is a pretty obvious theorem to me. It would seem obvious that the most recent successful attempt at something, like hammer a nail with a blunt object rather than a rounded object, would be something that i would most likely repeat when i came upon the same problem again. This leads directly into the "law of exercise" in that once that behavior has been learned it is strength through repetition. I like the idea of "stamping out" behaviors through unsuccessful attempts. I can remember when i use to BMX and would mess up on a trick and hurt myself i would think back, what did i do wrong there. And you can bet the next time i did the trick and pulled it off, the old way of attempting the trick was stamped out of my mind because getting hurt like that was not an option again. All in all, a great lead in to the chapter that followed about Pavlovian conditioning.
This was a nice section to reiterate the previous section. The Law of Effect, The Law of Recency, and The Law of Exercise seem very applicable to even everyday behavior and were fairly easy to understand! The graph gave me a good outlook for whats expected with the graphs we will be making during our own behavior modification and recording of our behaviors.
Overall, I thought the summary on trial and error learning was very practical and made a lot of sense because it suggest that over a period of attempts, some lead to success and therefore are more likely to be repeated and ultimately learned. We tend to "stamp out" the behaviors that result in aversive outcomes and "stamp in" behaviors in which learning attempts were successful. Some examples that came to mind with trial and error learning include: riding a bike, cutting your own hair, or tying a shoe!
Section 3.1 was a fairly short section which is never bad news. The good thing was the information was clear and easy to understand. For me, trial and error learning as well as the laws of recency and exercise. When reading about these topics I thought of a story about my mom.(easy with the Frued jokes) So shes Radiologist tech at the hospital in my home town. She runs MRI and CT scanners on a daily basis. Over the years and even more recenly they have become more computer based. She knows how to run all these complicated things but she doesnt know how to set up an email account. She asked me one morning before I went to work to help her set up an email account. I was running out the door so I couldnt help. When I got home I asked her if she needed help and she said it took her a few tries but she thought she got it. So that made me think of the trial and error learning. Also, when at home visiting I notice she is on the computer more and doesnt ask for help anymore.(law of exercise)
This was an easy section to read which was nice. I think Thorndike had a lot of things figured out but he did not have the language to go with it.
This section was short and relatively easy to read and understand. I had difficulty thinking of other ways to study animal intelligence. The trial and error method of learning particularly interesting; I find that I emit quite a few behaviors in the hopes that I will achieve a particular outcome. I find that the law of recency helps me when I am studying for quizzes this semester; I tend to wait to read the chapter till the night before the quiz and therefore the information is more recent and stored in my short term memory. I would have enjoyed learning more about exactly what the imaginary cat was trying to perform. :-)
This was a short, yet fun and interesting section! I actually like learning about the different psychologists and Edward Thorndike's experiment with the wooden cage was something that I recall learning in history and systems of psychology. In this study the cat uses trial and error to try and remove itself from the cage. I like learning about trial and error because I definitely agree with the saying, "Try try again!!" This section also talks about animal intelligence and ways that we can study it. If a behavior is unsuccessful, such as an animal being unable to get out of a wooden cage, then it is called Law of effect. Thorndike came up with this law along with many other Laws that I found very intriguing!