1. Making Responses for your Reinforcer

2. Instrumental Conditioning Procedures There are 4 basic types of instrumental conditioning Table 5.1 Instrumental Conditioning Procedures Table 1. Nature of the outcome controlled by the behavior – Appetitive stimulus – pleasant outcome (food) – Aversive stimulus – unpleasant outcome (shock) 2. Relationship or contingency between the response “R” and the outcome “O” – a. Positive contingency – R produces O – b. Negative contingency – R eliminates/prevents O

3. The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. Mow lawn – money Get on table - yelling Close window – prevents rain Stay out late – removes driving

4. Instrumental Conditioning Procedures Positive reinforcement – response produces an appetitive outcome – positive contingency between the response and an appetitive stimulus – Experimental Examples rat bar-press for food Pigeon key pecks for food – Everyday examples Child gets a cookie for putting toys away Student gets praise for a good report – Positive reinforcement will increase responses

5. Instrumental Conditioning Procedures Punishment – response produces an aversive outcome – positive contingency between the response and an aversive stimulus – if the subject performs the response, it receives the aversive outcome – if the subject does not perform the response, it does not receive the aversive outcome – Experimental example shock a rat whenever it makes a bar press – Everyday examples parents spank their child for playing in the street Robber is put in prison – Punishment will decrease responses

6. Instrumental Conditioning Procedures Negative reinforcement – negative contingency between the response and an aversive stimulus – the response terminates or prevents the delivery of an aversive stimulus – Experimental Example rat could jump over a barrier to prevent getting shocked – Everyday example students can study before an exam to avoid getting a bad grade Look both ways before crossing a street to prevent getting squished – Negative reinforcement will increase responses

7. Instrumental Conditioning Procedures Omission Training “Negative Punishment” – negative contingency between the response and an appetitive stimulus – the response prevents the delivery of a pleasant event – Experimental example negative automaintenance: start with sign tracking procedure Then food access was cancelled if a key peck occurred while the response key was illuminated – Every day example a child is told to go to his room when he does something bad suspending a driver’s license for impaired driving – Omission Training will decrease responses Also called Differential Reinforcement of Other behaviors (DRO) – When the subject can receive the reward for engaging in other behaviors – used in clinical settings to reduce self-injurious behavior – See figure 5.7

8. The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. FIGURE 5.7 Rate of Bridget’s self-injurious behavior during baseline sessions (1–19 and 25–31) and during sessions in which a DRO contingency was in effect (20–24 and 32–72) (based on Lindberg et al.,1999). DRO

9. Fundamental Elements of Instrumental Conditioning involves three key elements – an instrumental response ( R ) – an instrumental reinforcer (the outcome) ( O ) – a relation, or contingency, between the R and O

10. The Instrumental Response Instrumental response is the behavior producing the outcome Most of the example will involve positive reinforcement Negative reinforcement and Punishment are covered in chapter 10 Characteristics of the response determine how easy it is to modify the response with reinforcers which is explained in the following subsections – Behavioral Variability versus Stereotypy – Detrimental Effects of Rewards – Relevance, or Belongingness – Behavior Systems and constraints on Instrumental Conditioning

11. Behavioral Variability versus Stereotypy Behavioural Stereotypy vs Behavioural Variability – Stereotyped responding – Thorndike - "stamping in“ the behavior – Skinner - "reinforced“ behavior Although reinforcement often leads to repetitive, even stereotyped responding, this is not a necessary outcome. Does instrumental conditioning produce a stereotyped response? – Depends on the training requirements – Neuringer 1985, required variability as part of the instrumental response Draw rectangles to get points One group unknowing got points for variable rectangle shapes Yoked group got points when ever the variable group got points – See Figure 5.8

12. The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. FIGURE 5.8 Degree response variability along three dimensions of drawing a rectangle (size, shape, and location) for human participants who were reinforced for varying the type of rectangles they drew (VARY) or received reinforcement on the same trials but without any requirement to vary the nature of their drawings (YOKED). Higher values of U indicate greater variability in responding (based on Ross & Neuringer, 2002).

13. Use of Rewards in Educational Settings Common to use rewards in classroom to encourage students to read and do their assignments – possible detrimental effects on a child's intrinsic interest, creativity, originality – decreased willingness to perform a task once the reinforcement procedure is removed Intrinsic motivation – is a psychological need for confidence and self determination – perceptions of confidence and self determination are influenced by rewards, evaluations, deadlines – external events such as rewards have two aspects informational which conveys itself determine competence and thus enhances intrinsic motivation controlling which prompts an external perceived locals of causality and undermines intrinsic motivation – measured by a free choice technique or by self-reported interest

14. Type of Extrinsic rewards – Verbal rewards positive feedback with explicit positive performance feedback likely to enhance perceived competence and thus enhance intrinsic motivation however they also have a controlling aspect so they also have the potential to undermine intrinsic motivation modulated by interpersonal context – Tangible rewards such as gold stars, awards, grades, honor roles, pizza offer as an inducement to engage in a behavior in which they might not otherwise engage what about their effect on tasks that children find interesting and would do on their own? will be experienced as controlling so they can decrease intrinsic motivation expected tangible rewards will produce more problems than unexpected tangible rewards Use of Rewards in Educational Settings

15. Relevance, or Belongingness Certain responses naturally ‘belong with’ the reinforcer because of the animal’s evolutionary history Thorndike used belongingness to explain why he – could not train yawning or scratching – could easily train latch operation or string pulling Just like all CSs are not equally associable with all USs, not all responses are equally conditioned with all reinforcers Breland & Breland: “The Misbehavior of Organisms” – animal training for entertainment such as drop a coin in a bank – Instinctive drift gradual movement away from the operant behaviour that produces the reinforcer Behavior becomes more species-typical or "instinctive" responses related to the reinforcer or other stimuli in the experimental situation

16. Behavior Systems and constraints on Instrumental Conditioning Behavior systems covered in chapter four – Example of wolves foraging – Hungry animals engage in food related behaviors – Most instrumental conditioning is with hungry animals – Each type of animal has a specific set of foraging behavior Birds peck Rats handle food pieces Shettleworth (1975)rewarded a number of different behaviors such as digging or face-washing with food reward. – some responses are more relevant to food reward than others – behavior such as digging increase the chances of coming in contact with food – face-washing does not increase the chances of coming in contact with food; may even interfere with food-related behaviors

17. The Instrumental Reinforcer Characteristics of the reinforcer influence learning instrumental responses Increases in the quantity or quality of the reinforcer can increase the rate of responding Relationship between quantity of reinforcer and rate of responding will not be linear – There is subjective value that mediates the relationship – Value of reinforcers and quantity of reinforcer are not the same thing Quality of reinforcer is difficult to control or measure – Sweetness of food – Verbal praise Quality and quantity of reinforcers interact

18. Quantity and Quality of Reinforcer In runway experiments animals will run faster for "bigger" reward – Although this outcome is as expected the increase in responding across the increase in quantity of reinforcer is not a linear nor is it linear for change in quality of the reinforcer and one would expect quantity and quality to interact For operant procedures – quantity and quality of reinforcer will influence amount of responding increase in responding with increased quantity and quality However, getting a large quantity of food with one response will not maintain responding OR getting a very small quantity of food for many responses will not maintain responding

19. Quantity and Quality of Reinforcer Study with autistic child using social attention as a reinforcer – magnitude of the reinforcer varied by duration of social attention Either 10, 105 or 120 seconds – Required to press a button to get attention number of responses required to get the reinforcer changed progressively from 1 through 40 In progressive ratio need to complete the lower ratio before moving to the next highest ratio See Figure 5.9 Magnitude of the reinforcer in drug abstinence programs – drug addicts given vouchers for not using drugs – larger voucher amounts was more effective in reducing drug use – getting the voucher immediately after the test for $10 or more was most effective

20. The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. FIGURE 5.9 Average number of reinforcers earned by Chad per session as the response requirement was increased from 1 to 40. (The maximum possible was two reinforcers per session at each response requirement.) Notice that responding was maintained much more effectively in the face of increasing response requirements when the reinforcer was 120 seconds long [from Trosclair-Lasserre et al. (2008), Figure 3, p. 215].

21. Shifts in Reinforcer Quality or Quantity Responding to a particular reinforcer also depends on past experience with reinforcers Past experience with reinforcers results in expectations with regard to Response (R) - Outcome (O) contingencies Behavioral Contrast – Positive behavioral contrast Shift from small to large reward – Negative behavioral contrast Shift from large to small reward Ortega study – Shifted from 32% sucrose to 4% sucrose – Under respond to the 4% – See figure 5.10 – Anticipatory negative contrast Drugs of abuse such as cocaine are reinforcing – will produce conditioned place preference – however will not produce conditioned drinking of sweet solution – drinking something sweet before receiving cocaine is a negative contrast effect

22. The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.