8 September 2010

Catania’s concept of the operant revisited

Garry Oliver, James McEwan

Learning Behaviour & Welfare Research Unit

School of Psychology, University of Waikato

New Zealand

Acknowledgements

• We would like to thank:• Bill Temple

• Andrew Malcolm

• Jennifer Chandler

• The students at #3

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 2

Variations in response topographies

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 3

Figure 1: Hypothetical presentation of Skinner's operant. Distributions of response probabilities ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ are known to continue outside the range of ‘X’ and ‘Y’, but are nonetheless discarded.

Variations in response topographies

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 4

Figure 2: Hypothetical representation response and stimuli probabilities shown as a function of an arbitrary response parameter.

Variations in response topographies

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 5

Figure 3: Hypothetical response distributions where B, C, and D, shows a narrowing and shift of the response distribution toward X, the lower requirement of contingent reinforcement indicative of the law of least effort.

Auto shaping• Why?

• Quick to shape?

• Requires no intervention

• Prevents experimenter bias

• How?1968, Brown and Jenkins

• Key light was presented for 8-sec

• If key pecked during 8-sec then 4-sec access to food

• Else after 8-sec 4-sec access to food

• Mean interval of 60-sec between trials

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 6

Method Auto shaping

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 7

Food delivery

Infrared sensors

Active region of screen

Method Con 1 CRF

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 8

Method Con 2 CRF

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 9

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 10

8 September 2010© THE UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATO • TE WHARE WANANGA O WAIKATO 11