Sniffy 1 Questions - Lab 1 PDF

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Lab 1...

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Sniffy Assignment 1 Questions Before you begin: all definitions must be in your own words. The educational purpose of this assignment is for you to struggle with these definitions, looking up information as necessary and going back to what you did, so that in the end you do understand what each of these terms means and can express it in your own words (if you can’t, you don’t yet really understand). (Educationally, it would be pointless to give you points for copying a definition from somewhere else!)

I. Acquisition of Bar press response Define: 1. magazine: It’s the food dispenser. 2. magazine training: It’s when you are presenting a conditioned and an unconditioned stimulus to create an association. In this case it’s creating an association of the sound of the food dispenser and food. 3. reinforcement: When we want a behavior to get stronger or stop through either positive or negative stimulation. 4. shaping: Modifying a behavior by presenting reinforcers like only giving Sniffy food when he stood on his back legs. Questions: 5. In magazine training what association is being made? The association of the sound of the magazine and food. 6. Why is magazine training completed before shaping can begin? We want Sniffy to know that when he hears the sound that means food. Therefore, he will learn that pressing the bar means getting food. So, we can get him to do the behavior we want, pressing the bar, will be easier to teach through shaping if he already knows that the sound means food. If he didn’t have that associations, it would have taken longer to shape he since rats learn through associations. 7. Magazine training is what kind of conditioning? (Are you sure?) Magazine training is classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is when you present a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus to get a conditioned response. Therefore, sound is the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus is the food. An association then is learned. 8. Shaping is what kind of conditioning? Shaping is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning happen though reinforcement, positive or negative. The reward/ reinforcer is getting food and the desired behavior is pressing the bar.

Revised Spring 2013

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II. Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery of bar press Define: 9. continuous reinforcement: Continuous reinforcement is giving continuous reinforcers to keep a wanted behavior. If reinforcement is slow or gradual the behavior will take a long time to modify or it will not be learned. 10. extinction: An extinction is when you take away the reinforcers to repress the associations and stop the modified behavior. 11. spontaneous recovery: When a reappearance of a previously extinguished responds such as pressing the bar comes back after being away from the test cage and return back after spending time in another environment. Report Your Data: 12. During the first extinction trial, how many bar presses did Sniffy make? How long did it take to extinguish Sniffy’s bar pressing to the stated criteria once reinforcement was withheld? During the first extinction trial, sniffy made 85 bar presses and it took 11.5 minutes to complete extinction. 13. After the first extinction trial, when you gave Sniffy a “time out,” what happened to Sniffy’s behavior when he was returned to the operant chamber? What is this called? Sniffy had a spontaneous recovery meaning upon returning to the operant chamber after the first extinction and time out Sniffy began to press the bar thinking he will get food as he was conditioned to think. After a while he learned he was not going to get food by pressing the bar. He went through another extinction, but this time it took less time than the first extinction for him to lose the behavior. 14. How many bar presses and how long did it take to re-extinguish Sniffy’s bar pressing behavior? To re-extinguish Sniffy’s pressing behavior it took 67 bar presses and 11 minutes. Questions: 15. What is the association being made in instrumental/operat conditioning? The association being made in operant conditioning is the bar pressing and the food. 16. Did extinction cause Sniffy to forget the relationship between bar pressing and food? What do you conclude about the effect of extinction and what is your evidence—that is, what does that mean? Extinction caused sniffy to forget the relationship between bar pressing and food because there was no continuous reinforcement present. While the effect of extinction is fast, but it cannot be fully get rid of the behavior since it was learned and you don’t really unlearn something. Though Sniffy’s behavior was extinguished he will still press on the bar in hopes of getting food and if we were to remove, he and put him put he will hope that pressing the bar will cause food to fall until he doesn’t get food and stop again.

Revised Spring 2013

3 17. If Sniffy were once again reinforced for bar pressing, do you hypothesize that it would take more or less time to re-extinguish his bar pressing behavior? (There is a correct answer—think about layers of learning.) Explain why you think so. It will take less time to re-extinguish Sniffy’s bar pressing behavior because it was already learned therefore, he will make the associations a lot quicker. Since it a learned behavior he will be able to move the information back to his working memory. 18. In both the abstract and body of the Skinner paper, a “social dyad” is mentioned. What is the dyad and what is its great importance? What does “successive approximation” refer to and why might it be used (think of pigeons bowling and Pliny, the rat’s behavior)? How is base rate (operant level) of a behavior related to the rate of conditioning and the use of shaping? The dyad is a verbal interaction and schemas were created through shaping. Successive approximation refers to shaping which is used through operant conditioning to modify a behavior. Base rate of a behavior is related to the rate of conditioning and the use of shaping because we need to understand the rate of the behavior before modifying it and see the actual difference before the behavior is modified and after it is modified.

III. Printouts of your Data You must include a printout of your cumulative record for the first extinction procedure (prior to spontaneous recovery and re-extinction). It is not necessary to include all of acquisition (you can save some paper here).Your answers to the above questions should match what is shown on the cumulative record (do you understand how to read the record?). Since everyone’s data is necessary for the information that is required for the paper you will write later, failure to include the data (or incomplete extinction) will result in 5 points being subtracted from your score for the assignment.

Revised Spring 2013...