The metallic foam of 7.113 is brazed to the surface of a

Psychology of Learning: limits of human freedom + rules and behavior Potential quiz question: What would be the relative response rate on lever A if 75% of the reinforcement was on that lever ­­­Even if he didn’t ask for “relative response rate,” you can know that that’s what he wants in 1 of 2 ways: 1. Remember what everything in the equation stands for. 2. If you’re given VI (schedule of reinforcement), then whatever you’d need is obviously the response rate. Quiz 5 will be on Ch. 6­9 and Pryor Ch. 6 (good to know if you plan on taking the remedial) Also study the following if taking remedial quiz 5!!! 1. Learned helplessness occurs after repeated experience with an inescapable, unavoidable aversive stimulus. 2. The two factors of the “Two Factor Theory of Avoidance” are respondent and operant conditioning. 3. If you introduce a punitive contingency and the intensity of the aversive stimulus is too low, you may do any of the following things: observe an initial suppression of responding, see eventual habituation to the aversive stimulus, and have to resort to greater intensities of aversive stimulation that you would have if you had used a slightly intense stimulus from the outset. 4. In autoshaping, the type of unconditioned stimulus used will determine stimulus discrimination. 5. Taste aversion learning is a unique form of respondent conditioning for the following reasons: only one trial of pairing is required, a long time usually passes between the presentation of the conditioned stimulus and the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus, and in most cases the organism has little prior history with the conditioned stimulus. 6. Variable interval schedules of reinforcement provide the best baselines for studying the effects of punishment because punishment reduces the overall rape of responding while allowing responses to still occur at a steady rate, and response rate decreases are unlikely to significantly affect reinforcement rate. The Open Mind – Video (***Quiz 6***) The link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=Cn5hS3fzqlk Points from the video:  limits on human choice; Charles Frinkel stresses the importance of voluntary and involuntary behavior  Skinner argues that we feel coerced when escaping situations, so it’s not exactly our free will  Skinner: you have choice to act or not to act  Skinner: It’s not so much a matter of voluntary or involuntary behavior, but rather or not a behavior is reinforced  Frinkel: I might want to go to sleep when I am exhausted, and I enjoy that choice. But it in fact is not a choice, because it’s a bodily act, and I need to sleep.  Frinkel: There are times in which I don’t exactly feel free in my choices or satisfied with them, but it’s still a choice.  Frinkel’s prison/ water example! (Someone in a prison might love water and maybe would have chosen to drink water outside of prison, but in prison that is his only choice. So even though he likes the water and would have picked it anyway, it’s not his free choice.)  Skinner talked about getting rid of an evil man vs. fixing the situation in which the evil man rises to power; stresses the importance of changing the situation/ only changing the man would not fix the problem  Frinkel: Believes in freedom in certain instances, whereas he perceives Skinner to think of freedom as an illusion  Skinner: “Emotions are not causal”, meaning they don’t cause your actions ­ feelings are a bi­product  Skinner would say that someone didn’t jump off a bridge because of their broken heart, but rather because of the break­up. This means that the emotion is there, but that the emotion does not cause the jump; rather, another behavior causes it.  Be mindful that when you’re making a choice, there are factors that play into that (what Skinner is saying; what Price wants us to take from this class)  Where you are raised can impact your future choices (if you grow up raised by scientists, and your sister is a scientist, your chances of becoming a scientist are higher) Generalized Imitation  Generalized imitation can establish new operant classes by efficiently bringing behavior into contact with new contingencies  Population that struggles with generalized imitation: children with autism ­If a child can imitate, there are countless skills we can teach them. If they are unable to imitate, then we will likely first try to teach them the skill of generalized imitation.  Most of how we learn to speak comes from generalized imitation. Rule Governed vs. Contingency­shaped behavior  Rule governed example: choosing not to speed even though you’ve never gotten a speeding ticket  Contingency­shaped: kid sticks a fork in an outlet and gets shocked, so kid never sticks a fork in an outlet again  Rule governed behavior listener’s behavior under discriminative control of speaker’s instruction  Contingency shaped behavior is more powerful in making people learn or follow a behavior.  Rule governed behavior tends to only work if the reinforcer is around when it happens (this is why people tend to speed when no cops are around).  Rule­governed behavior is a class of contingency­shaped behavior (meaning… we learn to follow the rules, because as children, we are punished if we do not follow the rules). 2 types of rules: Plys & Tracks (Plys and Pliance are the same thing)  Plys: rules following maintained by socially­mediated consequences ­ Ex: Mom tells you to put on your jacket before you go outside, so you do it.  Tracks: rules that bring behavior into contact with reinforcing contingencies ­ Ex: When you need to go trdthe bathroom and someone tells you, “Go down the hall and enter the 3 door on the left.” You follow this rule because, though the action doesn’t mean much, you are reinforced by being able to go to the bathroom. ­ Ex #2: When you wear your jacket outside, it brings you warmth. So from then on out, it’s a track rule to you, because you wear your jacket because of the reinforcement of the warmth. *Rule governed behavior has some cons, too. (i.e. Rule governed behavior is frequently less sensitive to changes in contingencies.)