#operant behaviour

[behaviouristatplay]

Something which has been puzzling me for a while now: Respondent conditioning is said to apply to respondant behaviour only. Conditioned reinforcers are said to be a product of respondent conditioning. How can this be though, when a conditioned reinforcer is not an eliciting stimulus? Thanks.

Hi Anonymous

Thanks for the question. It can get confusing when behavioural scenarios involve components of both respondent and operant conditioning.  Before I go too far into answering a little primer on some of the terms used:

Respondent conditioning (a la Pavlov’s dog) - where a few pairings of some novel item (e.g., bell) with an unconditioned item (e.g., food) can cause the new item (i.e., the bell) to elicit a respondent behaviour associated with the unconditioned stimulus (e.g., salivating).  

Meanwhile operant conditioning is learning that occurs because of signals in our environment and events that happened after the behaviour.  When a pleasant event occurs (reinforcer) after a behaviour it is likely to increase or occur again in the same situation.  If the event after the behaviour was unpleasant (punisher), the behaviour will likely diminish or fail to occur again.

Conditioned reinforcers are those items or events that were at one point in our learning history conditioned with one of our primary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers are those items or sensations that are inherently rewarding in all humans and do not require a learning history. They are food, water, warmth, pleasure/comfort, sex.  Many of our tangible and social reinforcers stem from being paired with one of these needs.  Pairing occurs because of respondent conditioning.   

Let’s use an example of a sweater or mittens.  Early in our learning, these items meant nothing to us. Their presence at the same time as us receiving warmth over and over eventually conditioned them as “warmth providers”. Now when we’re feeling cold or about to go outside they signal the availability of warmth and we’re likely to put them on.  The act of putting on a sweater or mittens is reinforced via the warmth it provides.

A conditioned item (i.e., stimulus) can function both as a reinforcer for operant behaviour AND be an eliciting stimulus for a respondent behaviour depending on the context and related events.  Many of our behavioural scenarios involve an interplay of responses from both respondent and operant learning.  The difference between them is in the timing of events and their responses.  

In each person and each scenario the interplay of events and responses are assessed before determining which types of learning are involved.  Trying to put certain stimuli or certain responses as being one type of learning or the other may be the cause of confusion.  Unfortunately life and its many contexts combined with our learning history make it hard to apply a rule to the events we see.   

Hope this helps to clarify labels and functions for items/reinforcers - whether it be in respondent or operant learning.

Cheers and R+!

~ Tricia-Lee    

[behaviouristatplay]

One of these things belongs in an apple crisp and the other: well, not so much.

I almost ruined a batch of apple crisp grabbing the package on the right instead of the left. In the cupboard they look the same: yellow packaging and black print.  Perhaps it's easy to see how I could have (almost) made such a mistake.

You would also have to find out more about my reinforcement history with the package on the left to analyze my mistake even further.  Everyday I put cinnamon in my coffee.  Each day, I grab that yellow package with the black print.  And my behaviour is reinforced by provisions of cinnamon I desire. Because I use it so much, there is sits at the front of the spice shelf.  

Insert husband who cooked us a lovely meal; likely using onion powder; likely placing the package on the right at the front of the spice shelf.

Now back to the apple crisp.  Needing cinnamon, I grab the yellow package with the black print just as I have always done.  My cinnamon getting behaviour has been under stimulus control of these variables/conditions and not what the print says or the colour of the powder showing through the cellophane.  It wasn't until I caught the scent of the powder just as I was about to sprinkle it blindly on my apple crisp that the difference was signaled: this is not cinnamon.  There would be no reinforcement for putting that in the apple crisp - YUCK!

Mistakes happen (or almost happen) thanks in part to weak stimulus control or stimulus generalization - i.e., responding to a slightly different stimulus as if it were the discriminative stimulus (SD) conditioned before.  This occurs because the two stimuli shares one or more features.  Sometimes this different stimulus gets us the same results and sometimes it doesn't (like in my case). This is one way we learn to make subtle, conditional distinctions between stimuli in our environment so that we respond with the correct action at the correct time.  Mistakes like this are actually good for us in the long-term; though, in the short-term are often seen as a huge inconvenience.  

Don't be hard on yourself or others for their mistakes. Instead, you can plan for better stimulus control (i.e., re-arrange your environment) so that the right behaviour happens when you want or need it to.  When thinking about students - was there a distinct enough cue?  Were expectations clear?  Was our student responding as we had taught him or her before only today the situation was just slightly different?  Again, the learner is not to blame; rather we can blame the environment and the process known as stimulus generalization. 

As for my behaviour, I now make sure the cinnamon package is on the lower shelf with the coffee and baking ingredients while the onion power stays close to the other savoury spices more often used in cooking.           

Related posts:

Examples of discriminative stimuli

Spot the stimulus control

Making it clear where one should pee

[behaviouristatplay]

Smile and Smile Back

Yesterday I went for a walk around the neighbourhood near my work.  It was a lovely morning and I was in a pretty good mood.  As I was walking, I began to smile at the people passing by.  Some people smiled back; others did not.  I kept this going for some time just to see what people would do.  Perhaps people were surprised by my actions - a sure sign we're not smiling enough at each other.  

Being the behaviourist that I am, I wondered, was my smiling elicited by stimuli in the environment or was it emitted as a result of reinforcement I've received in the past?  To put it another way, is smiling an automatic (respondent) behaviour or is it an operant behaviour?  Respondent behaviour are reflexes or biologically driven actions (e.g., I retract my hand immediately upon touching something I did not know was hot).  In this respect, it is possible that smiling is elicited by things in our environment that have been associated with pleasure.  Smiling can be an automatic reaction to those items regardless of what occurs afterwards.  A common occurrence however, is that respondent behaviour is followed by another reaction or consequence.  Now smiling serves a purpose based on the consequences that occurred after.  For example, infants have a "reflexive" smile when they are born where they smile in response to auditory, visual and touch stimuli.  In just 4-8 weeks, that baby learns that their smile results in attention from their parents in the form of touch and other forms of affection and this reflexive smile soon evolves into a social smile.  A smile now has the purpose of getting someone else's attention.  In the case of infants this attention is needed for survival; thus, smiling has a very important function. 

So, while smiling may be an automatic response to pleasurable things, over time it has also acquired a communicative function in our social lives.  Smiles may communicate agreement or indicate, "I know" as a gesture of support without saying a word.  A smile may result in someone smiling back at you or it can say "I'm interested" and get you invited into the group or a social activity - all sources of positive reinforcement.  In other times, smiling by others indicates to you that good things (i.e., reinforcers) are possible or available making certain behaviours (for example, helping) more likely.  

Smiling may be a reaction to what is happening in our environment but if you ponder all the circumstances under which smiling occurs, the sources of social reinforcement for smiling are endless.  So, while I cannot pinpoint what I may have been reacting to on my walk o' smiles, I can speculate that I was smiling in my attempt to maintain my good mood through the smiles of others.  As people smiled back, I experienced inclusion and assurances that nothing bad could happen in that moment.  My happiness remained.  My smiling continued.

References:

Gueguen, N. & De Gail, M.  The effect of smiling on helping behavior: Smiling and good Samaritan behavior.  Communication Reports, 16(2), 133-140.

Tautermannova, M.  (1973).  Smiling in infants.  Child Development, 44, 701-704.