September 2010 Archives

Does the markings of wild animals function as discriminative stimuli? Many poisonous animals are brightly colored or distinctly marked - why do you think this is?

 

How is this an example of discriminitive stimulus? What kind of schedule of reinforcement it? Is this a good example of operant behavior - how so?

 

Please read section 2.4.

After reading the section, think of all the terms and concepts used in all of sections (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4) please respond to the following questions and try to use these terms and concepts as you respond to the following questions.

What did you like about the section? How do they relate to the sections you have covered so far? What are three things you will remember from these sections? What if anything would you like me to be sure and go over in class when we meet?

Do you think the behavior modification techniques you have learned so far can be applied to the real world? How so or Why not?

Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)

Our Behavioral Story

Recall the other week we had an assignment to work on a behavioral story as a class. It worked out pretty good, actually it is pretty funny - clearly this class has a great sense of humor which makes this fun to read.

You might want to go back and see how we did and see if there is anything you/we can do to make it evolve and grow with the class and with our understanding of the material.
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2010/09/behavioral-story.html#comments

What I would like this time is to make the story a little more challenging and to try to get you to use more of the terms and terminology that we have learned so far in class.

When you write your section of the story, you can use any of the terms we have learned so far BUT one term has to be an original term to the entire story so far - inother wordsw it can't have been used already in the story.

So that we know what your original word is please write that one original word in CAPS. Just so it makes it easier on the rest of us.

We will start the story by picking up near where the last story left off.

"My counselor decided that the most obvious targeted behavior that needed to be controlled was the obnoxious screaming that was emitted whenever the counselor began to talk."

What's in the News?

What I would like you to do is to start applying what we are learning in class to real world matters. Some might ask, "What good is learning psychology if we can't apply it to real world matters?" So that is what we are going to do with this divergence assignment.

What I would like you to do is to either go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ) or the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to what we have been learning in the class.

Please respond the blog by telling us what the piece you chose was and why you picked it (what made it interesting for you)? What did you expect to see? What did you find most interesting about the piece?

Next discuss how it relates to the class using terms, terminology, and concepts that we have learned so far in class.

Include the URL in your post.

Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.

Let me know if you have any questions,

--Dr. M

 

"We're surrounded by superstitions every day -- don't walk under a ladder, don't step on a crack, avoid black cats -- but where do these beliefs come from and why do we follow them?"

http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/dont-kiss-a-mustachioed-man-the-origins-of-13-weird-superstitions/19619609

What do we know from our text about superstitions? How do supersititious behaviors start? How would you breakdown these behaviors into the ABCs of behavior? What behavioral techniques can be used to reduce these behaviors?

 

This prank really give you the idea of how much our behaviors are under the control of the discriminative stimulus (the traffic light).

 

By now you should be familiar with the ABC's of behavior. I have an example of how to do a breakdown and analysis of a video (http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2010/09/positive-punishment-abcs.html  ). By now you should have all revisited your original posts from last week's assignment and re evaluated it for the ABCs. I would like you to find a video that has some sort of discriminative stimulus, pick one behavior that has some sort of distinguishable consequence and do a break down and analysis of the video.  Make sure you include the video link.

Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)

Let me know if you have any questions.

By now you should be familiar with the ABC's of behavior. I have an example of how to do a breakdown and analysis of a video (http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2010/09/positive-punishment-abcs.html ). By now you should have all revisited your original posts from last week's assignment and re evaluated it for the ABCs. I would like you to find a video that has some sort of establishing operation, pick one behavior that has some sort of distinguishable consequence and do a break down and analysis of the video.  Make sure you include the video link.

Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)

Let me know if you have any questions.

Please read section 2.3.

After reading the section, think of all the terms and concepts used in all of sections  (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) please respond to the following questions and try to use these terms and concepts as you respond to the following questions.

What did you like about the section? How does it relate to the sections you have covered so far? What are three things you will remember from these section? What if anything would you like me to be sure and go over in class when we meet?

Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)

Please read section 2.2.

After reading the section, think of all the terms and concepts used in all of sections  (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2) please respond to the following questions and try to use these terms and concepts as you respond to the following questions.

What did you like about the section? How does it relate to the sections you have covered so far? What are three things you will remember from these section? What if anything would you like me to be sure and go over in class when we meet?

Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)

Students sometimes find the concept of target behavior a little difficult. One of the main problems is that in day to day life we tend to speak generally of behavior, while in behavior modification we have to speak about specific behaviors. Keep in mind that the language of behavior is very precise. So we have to be precise when we are talking about behaviors as well.

We might say "eat your vegetables," and we all know what that means because the behavior is generally agreed on. You can probably get a good vision in your head about a kid sitting at a table with the last thing left on the plate being some string beans or spinach eating one bite at a time.

Let's suppose that I hate mushrooms and you like them. And you think if I ate them every day for a month that I would like them too. You feel so strongly about this that you are willing to pay me $100 if I eat mushrooms everyday for a month (face it you like to be right and it is worth $100 to prove your point).

 

(confusing signs)

Students sometimes ask what the difference between an establishing operation and a discriminative stimulus is.

These are both very important concepts in behavior modification and it is important to fully understand the differences. What might initially be a source of confusion is that both establishing operations and discriminative stimuli are antecedents (A) to a behavior (B). He are some informal definitions of the two.

Establishing operations work by changing the reinforcement properties of a reinforcer. If a reinforcer is made to be more reinforcing, the consequence will be more desirable which should have a greater effect on eliciting the target behavior. Establishing operations for reinforcers make us want something more that we might have.

Discriminative stimuli work by telling us what behaviors will get reinforced or punished. In this way discriminative stimuli control our behavior and tell us what to do or how to act. When we reliably and predictably change our behavior in the presence of a discriminative stimulus we are said to be under stimulus control.

NOTE: This website does a nice job with showing us what types of reinforcers to use when training dogs. Keep in mind that the trainer uses the terms reinforcer and reward interchangeably. WE DON'T do this. Reinforcers are something specific. Rewards seem like reinforcers, but we don't want to make the mistake of using the term reward when we really mean reinforcer.

 

 

What might be some examples of reinforcers for dogs? What might be reinforcers for cats? What are your reinforcers?

What I would like you to do is to find a topic that you are interested in and related to Behavior Modification and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. I would like you to use quality informative website though.

Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the class, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it in an informative manner so the reader will learn about the topic through your writings (not by referring them to a website) . At the end, please include working URLs for the websites used.

Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.

Please use spaces between your paragraphs to make your post easier to read - thanks in advance

Let me know if you have any questions.

By now you should be familiar with the ABC's of behavior. I have an example of how to do a breakdown and analysis of a video (http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2010/09/positive-punishment-abcs.html). By now you should have all revisited your original posts from last week's assignment and re evaluated it for the ABCs. I would like you to find a random video, pick one behavior that has some sort of distinguishable consequence and do a break down and analysis of the video.  Make sure you include the video link.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Please read section 2.1 for this week.

After reading the section, think of all the terms and concepts used in all of section 1 (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1) please respond to the following questions and try to use these terms and concepts as you respond to the following questions.

What did you like about this section? How does it relate to the sections you have covered so far? What are three things you will remember from this section? What if anything would you like me to be sure and go over in class when we meet?

How do you think knowing behavior modification techniques will change the way you do things in the future?

Our Behavioral Story

Recall in class that we were making stories based on behavioral terms. Recall that Marshall started a story, then he called an Matt to provide the next sentence and then Matt called on Cort...

What I would like to do here is to start a story thread using behavioral terms. I'll start it and the next person to read this post can add the next sentence, and so forth. If you are not clear what we are doing here just wait and watch to see what the others are doing and then jump in.

This is required of you to do (sorry if you don't group activities) but is should be fun. Be as creative as you like (but clean - you know what I mean : -).

Brief description of clip.

This is a link to an unsubscribe page from a site called Groupon.com. When you click on its unsubscribe page you get a button where you can click on to punish Derrick. Derrick is the guy that subscribed you in the first place.

http://www.groupon.com/new-york/unsubscribed

Breakdown:

A=In the context of an internet company
B=Derrick subscribing people
C=Gets beverage tossed in his face

Getting a beverage tossed in his face is aversive so Derrick will subscribe people less often.
Since "C" involves adding something it is Positive.
Since "B" will decrease it is Punishment.

Therefore this is Positive Punishment.

Analysis: In the context of an internet website where subscribers to the groupon.com can go to unsubscribe to their email service. Once at the site there is a button that says PUNNISH DERRICK. Derrick is presumable the guy that signed you up in the first place.

The button elicits a clicking behavior on my part (although this is not the target behavior I am interest in this example. Once I emit a clicking behavior the video starts with a co-worker possibly a boss of Derrick's approaching and scolding him which is an aversive consequence, and then he throws his beverage (presumably coffee) in Derrick's face.

This is an example of positive punishment because an aversive consequence is added to reduce the unwanted behavior of Derrick's. As a result this should decrease the frequency of Derrick subscribing people to their email list.

Extended notes below....

"The Misconception: If you are in a bad situation, you will do whatever you can do to escape it.

The Truth: If you feel like you aren't in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in."

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2009/11/11/learned-helplessness/