Shaping and Chaining, Reinforcement Schedules, and One-Trial Learning PDF

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RUNNING HEAD: SHAPING AND CHAINING

Shaping and Chaining, Reinforcement Schedules, and One-Trial Learning Jeremy Boucher Annette Edwards University of Phoenix PSYCH 635 08/24/2017

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Forensic Psychology Literature Review Low academic skills and illiteracy rates are seen in incarcerated adults, showing that they are the most educationally disadvantaged population in the United States. When incarcerated adults re-enter society, the disadvantage tends to continue, and they hadn’t gained any more skills than the ones they already had when they entered prison. Ex-convicts do not have marketable skills, which makes them not to be hired for work. Klein, Tolbert, Burgarin, Cataldi, & Tauscheck (2004) stated that not being able to find work usually turns the ex-convict back to illegal activities that lead him or her back to prison. This paper will share strategies and techniques that will help adult education instructors to reduce illiteracy, innumeracy, other education deficits and hopefully recidivism. The techniques that are shared are geared toward the prisoner maximizing their memory while learning. The use of a literature review allows us to examine how the employment of shaping and chaining, the teaching of reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning techniques are used by prison staff psychologists to teach correctional staffs in teaching anger management skills to inmates. Theoretical or construct basis for the concepts of shaping and chaining, reinforcement schedules, and one-trial learning techniques, including historical development will be examined. Current understanding of the effective application of these learning techniques will also be analyzed. Through the use of the Loci method, prison staff psychologists can teach the employment of shaping and chaining, and reinforcement schedules to correctional staff. The Loci method is applying vivid images that do not make sense or may seem too far from the ordinary to memory is known as the Loci method. The Loci method is when we use a location we’re familiar with and apply it to something we want to remember. To make it more memorable, it’s best to pair the

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location and the factor with a vivid imagination that will help it stand out in our minds. For example, let’s say we were trying to pick up our child from school. You would first select a location such as the living room, and then use your imagination to picture your child all over the living room (in the chair, on the floor, in front of the television, on the couch, etc..). One would remember this vivid image of your child in many places of the living room because it is unordinary for one person to be in multiple places (of the living room) at once. However, the living room is a location one is familiar with and that you’re in multiple periods a day. Therefore, the connection between the factor and what you’re accustomed with allows you to remember to pick up your child. It also allows for a better remembrance of other things because the vivid images stay on your mind due to the familiarity. There is a saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, which many people have heard of. A child’s mind is more absorbent than an adult, but adults are still capable of learning everything and anything. We have to remember that it is all about how the adult strategizes to learn the things they want to learn. Since the Loci method emphasizes associations, especially within previous occurrences associated with new material, it becomes ideal for adults. Adults have the ability to make associations and also have numerous past experiences. Adults have it easier to use the method of associations because they carry more memories and experiences in life. Adults also have it easier to use the Loci method for learning than a child does, because children don’t have as much experience or memories and are still learning to make associations. The use of familiarization helps encoding processes and helps with retaining new information. Improvements in educational progress are seen when inmates are taught to use the Loci method. This is because inmates will be taught to mentally take themselves into another place, which helps them escape being in the mindset of being a prisoner. Educational progress is also

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improved in inmates through the use of the Loci method because it offers an abstract image by producing a memory palace to assist stimulation of his or her memory to develop, while also helping them recall specific details, such as if an inmate was trying to recall a minor poem or dialogue. This would help them remember significant information by assigning the material into that room. An example would be if the poem or sentence included the sentence “roses are red, violets are blue.” The inmate would take this information and divide it into different rooms (of their mental visualization), putting roses in their starting room, and make the next room painted red. Once the inmate can recall this information, they’ll be able to remember it by entering the memory palace of their choice and walking through the rooms where they placed the specific items. The Loci method is a method of memory and recalling that facilitates learning. An example of utilizing the Loci method in prisoner rehabilitation is helping prisoners use memories of positive experiences in learning to build self-confidence, literacy improvement, trust, and acceptance of support. Use of art projects in prison rehabilitation helps prisoners use the Loci method to draw out memories of positive experiences. Most prisoners have negative attitudes towards learning, due to prior experiences with education, which makes them resistant to education that is similar to traditional schooling. Tett, Anderson, McNeill, Overy, & Sparks, (2012, p. 173) stated that prisoners who participate in art projects that use the Loci method of memory with positive experiences would engage in learning in ways that work for and encourages them. An STP program, also known as Strategies for Thinking Productively, is another example of how the Loci method can be used in prisoner rehabilitation. The STP mission is to help the motivation of offenders into evolving their thought processes, to prevent anti-social behaviors

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and resolve conflicts in pro-social manners. STP programs focus on revealing existing attitudes and beliefs and showing prisoners how those current mindsets and viewpoints are affecting their behaviors. Teaching prisoners to think more slowly allows them to develop pro-social actions and attitudes, and understand the consequences of their behaviors. Prisoners are taught the principles of cognitive self-change. They’re also taught to create thought reports and how to keep diaries to be able to recognize patterns that resulted in criminal behavior. This allows them to pinpoint genuine interventions and alternatives that can restructure their thinking patterns. Diaries are used as a source to document thoughts and feelings, as well as the times they occur. These are used to help prisoners identify the cycles of their thoughts, which helps them problem-solve and change their behaviors into positive and pro-social behaviors, (Hogan, Lambert, & BartonBellessa, 2012, p. 379). Overall, this literature review touched on several techniques and strategies that help adult education instructors reduce illiteracy, innumeracy, other education deficits and hopefully recidivism. Understanding adult prison basic education and memory strategies are key components to providing hope through informed instruction. Educators that decide to teach inmates the Loci method will help them memorize events or things that are necessary for the thoughts of well-known places, and the visualization series of locations to place them in logical order, (Fleming, 2014). The Loci method allows inmates to mentally escape being a prisoner and to use imagination to take them into a new world. The Loci method strategies increase active memory and recalling helping facilitate learning. Increasing memory awareness among incarcerated adults will help boost academic skills, and increase literacy rates, which have been

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proven to provide the disadvantaged population of incarcerated adults’ successful opportunities in the United States, (Phoenix, 2015). References Association, (2014). In encyclopedia britannica. Retreived from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/39421/association Bigger, better, faster, more: Brain doping, (2011). Retrieved August 23rd, 2014 from http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=7967&xtid=47870 C., Vaterrodt-Plunnecke, B., Krings, L., & Hilbig, B., (2009). Effects of instruction on learners’ ability to generate. Dewey, R., (2007). The method of loci. Retrieved from http://www.intopsych.com/ch06_memory/method_of_loci.html Hogan, N. L., Lambert, E, G., & Barton-Bellessa, S. M., (2012). Evaluation of change: An involuntary cognitive program for high-risk inmates. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 51(6), 370-388. Massen. Effective pathway in the method of loci. Memory (Hove, England), 17(7), 724-731. Doi: 10.1080/09658210903012442 Schunk, D., (2016). Learning theories: An education perspective (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Study guides and strategies., (1996). Retrieved from http://www.stugygs.net/memory/memloci.htm Tett, L., Anderson, K., McNeill, F., Overy, K., & Sparks, R., (2012). Learning, rehabilitation and the arts in prisons: A scottish case study. Studies in the Education of Adults, 44(2), 171-185.

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