Ch.11 Positive Reinforcement

importance of immediacy of reinforcement

bxs other than the target bx will occur during a delay and its the bx temporally closest to the presentation of a reinforcer that will be strengthened by its presentation

Automatic Reinforcement

bxs that produce their own reinforcement commonly in the form of a naturally produced sensory experience that "feels good". its the response itself that (sensory feedback of some sort) produces the feedback( i.e. self-stimulatory bxs, scratching an insect bite on your leg, sound, touch, taste and movement)

Positive Punishment

decrease in a bx by/due to adding a stimulus (a.k.a. punishment by contingent stimulation)

Negative Punishment

decrease in bx due to removing a stimulus (a.k.a. punishment by contingent withdrawal of a positive reinforcer)

Abolishing Operation (AO)

decreases the current effectiveness of a reinforcer (i.e. satiation)

Superstitious Behaviors

demonstrates the arbitrary nature of behaviors selected by reinforcement

Reinforcement

describes an empirically demonstrated functional relation between a stimulus change (consequence) immediately following a response and an increase in the future frequency of similar responses. -the fundamental building block for the selection of operant behavior

Motivating Operations

determines/indicates the momentary effectiveness of an unconditioned (only unconditionedy ipad has always been a strong reinforcer in the past, why not now? he was satiated bc he played with it everyday during school break)

Delayed Consequences

do not reinforce bx directly, or, are not a direct effect of reinforcement - usually are a result of rule following or instructional control

Level of Motivation

effects the momentary effectiveness of any stimulus change as reinforcement with respect to that stimulus change

Positive Reinforcer (aka reinforcer)

the stimulus presented as a consequence and responsible for the subsequent increase in responding * a reinforcer does not (and cannot) affect the response that it follows, it only can increase the likelihood that similar responses will be emitted in the future

Reinforcer (noun)

thing, event, or change of conditions

To Reinforce (verb)

to deliver a reinforcer contingent on a behavior

Stimulus Preference Assessment & Reinforcement Assessment

two assessments often done in tandem

Reversal Design

using the withdrawl of the reinforcement contingency (i.e. extinction)

Behavior (general use)

usually used in refernce to to a larger "set" or"class" of responses that share certain physical dimensions (i.e. hand flapping) OR share functions (i.e. study behavior).

Punishment

when a behavior DECREASES in the future (what type of contingency is this)

Example of Response-Deprivation Hypothesis

when students were given access to coloring, they spent more time doing their math but ONLY if the reinforcement schedule represented a RESTRICTION of the amount of time spent coloring compared to baseline (if the contingency is that the students could earn more time coloring than they did in baseline it proves ineffective)

Activity Reinforcer (include the term Premack)

when the opportunity to engage in a certain behavior serves as reinforcement (i.e.everyday activities, privileges or special events- board games, leisure reading, lunch with the teacher, first in line). This type of reinforcer can be identified by looking at the relative distribution of behaviors in a free operant situation

Preferred Stimuli

_______ ________ do not always function as reinforcers and stimulus preferences often change over time

Positive Reinforcement Control Procedures

________ is demonstrated when by comparing rates of responding in the absence and presence of a contingency, and then showing that with the absence and presence of the contingency the bx can be turned on or off, up or down

(Preference) (Reinforcer)

__________ assessment only allows judgment about which of several items/activities a person prefers—this is used to decide what MIGHT be reinforcing (methods include free operant, asking and trial-based comparisons) vs. __________ assessment which involves experimentally/ACTUALLY determining if something ACTS AS A reinforcer

Reinforcement

_____________ is the most important concept in ABA

Discriminated Operant

a bx that occurs more frequently under some antecedent conditions than it does in others (i.e. answering the phone-- we answer the phone when it's ringing, not when it's silent) - has its origin in the three-term contingency (ABCs)

Generalized Conditioned Reinforcer

a conditioned reinforcer that as a result of having been paired with many unconditioned and conditioned reinforcers does not depend on a current EO for any particular form of reinforcement for effectiveness (i.e. social attention, money)

Circular Reasoning

a form of faulty logic in which cause and effect are confused and not independent of each other

Positive Reinforcement

a functional relation defined by a two-term contingency: a response is followed immediately by the presentation of a stimulus, and, as a result, similar responses occur more frequently in the future -the most important and most widely applied principle of behavior analysis

Response Class

a group of responses of varying topography all of which produce the same effect on the environment (i.e. have the same FUNCTION example = "ways to open a bag of peanuts"

Example of Premack Principle

a kid that spends more time watching tv than doing homework. The contingency is, "when you have finished your homework you can watch tv." (what is this an example of...)

Secondary/Conditioned Reinforcer

a previously neutral stimulus change that has acquired the capability to function as a reinforcer through stimulus-stimulus pairing with one or more unconditioned reinforcers or conditioned reinforcers (i.e. after a tone has been paired repeatedly with food, when food is delivered as a reinforcer, the tone will function as a reinforcer when an EO has made food currently effective reinforcer)

Extinction

a reinforcement technique in which the reinforcement is withheld for all members of a previously reinforced response class

Unconditioned/Primary Reinforcer

a stimulus change that functions as reinforcement even though the learner has had no particular history with it (a.k.a. primary reinforcer, unlearned reinforcers)

Ultimate impact of reinforcement depends on:

-the pattern -motivation at that moment -reinforcement for other behaviors in the same setting -immediacy

Noncontingent Reinforcement (NCR)

*offers the most thorough demonstration of the effects of positive reinforcement

Key Characteristic of All Reinforcement (both positive & negative)

- always involves an INCREASE in behavior (can be positive or negative) - they are all the same in that their most important characteristic is that they INCREASE the likelihood of that behavior to happen in the FUTURE

Response-Deprivation Hypothesis

- an extension of the Premack principle - a model for predicting whether contingent access to one behavior will function as reinforcement for engaging in another behavior based on whether access to the contingent behavior represents a restriction of the activity compared to the baseline level of engagement (i.e. restricting access to a certain behaviors acts as a form of deprivation that serves as an EO) - using a low probability activities to reinforce high probability activities - the idea behind this is that if you restrict/deprive ANY activity, it can be made to be reinforcing and trumps Premacks ideas

Negative Reinforcement

- an increase in behavior to to withdraw or terminate an aversive stimulus (i.e. baby escaping the loud music on the mobile by striking the lever with her hand)

Factors that Influence Responses (classes)

- antecedent events (i.e. motivating operations, discriminative stimuli) - consequences (focus of this module)

Establishing Operation (EO)

- increases the momentary effectiveness of a stimulus change as a reinforcer - increases the current effectiveness of the reinforcer by determining what an individual "wants" at any particular moment (i.e. food deprivation makes the food more effective as a reinforcer)

Indicators that the Behavior is the Result of Rule Following

- no immediate consequence for the bx is apparent - the response-consequence delay is greater than 30 seconds - behavior changes without reinforcement - a large increase in the frequency of bx occurs following one instance of renforcement

Reinforcement Assessment

- refers to a variety of direct, data-based methods used to present one or more stimuli contingent on a target response and then measuring the future effects on the rate of responding - determines the relative effects of a given stimulus as reinforcement under different and changing conditions - when the reinforcing effects the highly preferred stimuli [as determined in the stimulus preference assessment] are evaluated - puts the potential reinforcers to a direct test by presenting them contingent on occurrences of a behavior and measuring any effects on response rate

Challenges of Identifying Effective Reinforcers

1) preferred stimuli do not always function as reinforcers 2) preferred stimuli at one point in time changed later 3) although common events and things serve as reliable reinforcers for most people, these stimuli may not serve as reinforcer for all learners (i.e. kids with developmental disabilities) 4) kids with DDs may engage in activities for such a limited time that it is difficult to clearly determine whether a stimulus change is a reinforcer

Guidelines for Using Positive Reinforcement Effectively

1) set an easily achieved initial criterion for reinforcement 2) use high quality reinforcers of sufficient magnitude 3) used varied reinforcers 4) use a direct rather than indirect reinforcement whenever possible 5) combine response prompts and reinforcement 6) initially reinforce each occurrence of the bx, then gradually thin reinforcement schedule 7) use contingent praise and attention 8) gradually increase the response-to-reinforcement delay 9) gradually shift from contrived to naturally occurring reinforcers

3 Basic Methods to Conduct Stimulus Preference Assessments

1. Asking about stimulus preferences (the target person, a significant other, pre-task choice) 2. Free operant observation (contrived or naturalistic) 3. Trial-based methods (single stimulus, paired stimuli or multiple stimuli)

Ways to Conduct a Stimulus Preference Assessment

1. Asking the target person or significant others what the person prefers 2. conducting free operant observations 3. conducting trial-based assessments (i.e. single-paired or multiple-stimulus presentations)

Classification of Reinforcers (i.e.Types)

1. By origin (i.e. unconditioned vs. conditioned reinforcers) 2. By formal properties (i.e. edible, sensory, tangible and activity, social reinforcers)

Implications of The History of Reinforcement

1. Every human has their own unique repertoire (the repertoire of bxs that each person brings to to any situation has been selected, shaped, and maintained by his or her unique history of reinforcement). It is this unique repertoire that defines him or her as a person. 2. We are what we do" and "We do what we have learned to do" (i.e. individual differences do not need to be attributed to internal traits or tendencies but rather to the orderly result of different histories of reinforcement) 3. the assertion that early experiences determine the personality of the mature organism assumes that the effect of operant conditioning is long-lasting

3 Ways To Describe Stimulus Events

1. Formally (i.e. physical features) 2. temporally (when they occur) 3. functionally (their effects on bx) (3 ways to describe ______ ______)

3 Control Procedures for Positive Reinforcement

1. Noncontingent Reinforcement (NCR) 2. Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO) 3. Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA)

Positive Reinforcement

= increase in bx by adding a stimulus (i.e. baby swats at mobile to turn ON music, which presumably she likes?) (i.e. parents give praise or attention (ADDING a stimulus) when child is engaged in independent play--- the likelihood of independent play in the future is INCREASED)

Negative Reinforcement

= increase in bx by removing a stimulus (i.e. baby INCREASES the bx of batting the mobile to DECREASE/REMOVE the aversive noise of the music) (child covering their ears when something is too loud?)

Two-Term Contingency for Positive Reinforcement

1. a response is followed immediately by the presentation of a stimulus 2. as a result of the first contingency, similar responses occur more frequently in the future

Ideas Critical To Understanding Reinforcement

1. automaticity of reinforcement 2. arbitrariness of the behavior that is reinforced 3. selection by consequences 4. the context in which reinforcement occurs

Key Traits of Operant Conditioning

1. encompasses reinforcement and punishment 2. consequences can only affect future bx 3. consequences select response classes, not individual reaponses 4. consequences select ANY bx that precedes them 5. occurs automatically

2 Types of Motivating Operations

1. establishing operation (EO) 2. abolishing operation (AO)

Characteristics of Conditioned Reinforcers

1. not related to any biological need 2. their ability to modify bx is a result of each person's unique history of interactions with his or her environment (ontogeny) 3. conditioned reinforcers are idiosyncratic by nature (since we all experience the world in different ways, events or stimuli that can serve as conditioned reinforcers at any particular time is idiosyncratic to each individual) 4. conditioned reinforcers are always changing 5. to the extent that two people have had similar experiences, they are likely to be effected in similar ways to many similar events (i.e. social praise and attention are examples of widely effective conditioned reinforcers in our culture. Because these are paired with so many other reinforcers they exert powerful control over human bx)

Types of Control Conditions for Reinforcement

1. reversal design 2. noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) 3. differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) 4. differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA)

Example of Positive Reinforcement

A teenager gains the attention of his peers after he egged his teacher's property

Four-Term Contingency

EO→ SD→ R→ SR+ (this is the description of what...) (i.e. spending hours in a hot and stuffy room without water is an EO that makes water more effective as a reinforcer)

Positive Reinforcement

a stimulus change when something is added (or already present and increased) contingent on a response, which increases the future probability of the response in similar settings *the future increase in the response is a critical feature in defining reinforcement

Stimulus Preference Assessment

a variety of procedures used to determine a) the stimuli that a person prefers b) the preference values of those stimuli and c) the conditions under which those preference values remain in effect - identifies stimuli that are likely to serve as reinforcers - when a large number of stimuli are evaluated to identify preferred stimuli - efficient to identify potential reinforcers from a large number of stimuli but DOES NOT evaluate the reinforcing effects of the stimuli

Superstitious

accidentally reinforced behavior because it has no influence on whether reinforcement follows (reinforcement is NOT contingent/dependent on the bx) - can result in the acquisition of maladaptive and challenging behaviors (i.e. when social reinforcement maintains a self-injurious behavior)

(three term contingency)

all ABA procedures involve the manipulation of one or more components of the ______ ______ _______ (i.e. the "ABCs" of behavioral analysis)

Stimulus Control

an outcome when a discriminated operant occurs more frequently under some antecedent conditions than it does under others

Three-term Contingency

antecedent, behavior, consequence SD→ R→ SR+ (ABC) (illustrates positive reinforcement of the discriminated operant) (name the type of contingency)

The Nature of Operant Conditioning

as each of us experiences varying contingencies of reinforcement (and punishment), some behaviors are strengthened (selected by the contingencies) and others are weakened

Why Reinforcement is NOT a Circular Concept

because the two components of the response-consequence relation can be separated and the consequence can be manipulated to determine whether it increases the frequency of the bx it follows (why reinforcement is not a _______ ________)

Motivating Operations (MOs)

environmental variables that do 2 things: a) alter the operant reinforcing effectiveness of some specific stimuli (value-altering effect) b) alter the momentary frequency of all bx that has been reinforced by those stimuli (behavior-altering effect) ...alter the current value of stimulus change of reinforcement

Concurrent Schedule of Reinforcement

essentially pits two stimuli against each other to see which will produce the larger increase in responding - used as a vehicle for reinforcer assessment (i.e. to determine the more effective reinforcer)

Examples of Unconditioned Reinforcers

food, water, oxygen, warmth, sexual stimulation, human touch

(motivation)

for a stimulus change "to work" there must be ________ (i.e the learner must already want it)

Antecedent Stimuli

in addition to increasing future frequency of the bx it follows, reinforcement also changes the function of the ________ _________ bc it now evokes bx because its correlated with availability of reinforcement

Discriminative Stimulus (SD)

is an antecedent stimulus correlated with the availability of reinforcement for a particular response class (i.e. responding the presence of the SD produces reinforcement, the person learns to make more responses in the presence of the SD than in its absence)

Predictive Science

is not only about "response" (singluar) but a class of responses.....because of the way operant conditioning works we can only predict that the probability of a similar response will occur

Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing Procedure

is responsible for the creation of conditioned reinforcers or punishers

"Operant"

is used by skinner to decribe response class because the term emphasizes the fact that the bx OPERATES on the enviornment to generate consequencea (i.e. example of pigeon raising his head. the behavior of "raising its head" is the eperant)

Premack Principle

making the opportunity to engage in a high-probability behavior contingent on the occurrence of low-frequency behavior. - using high probability activities to reinforce low probability activities - high probability activity acts as the reinforcer - engaging in activities themselves, can be used as reinforcement - the frequency of that bx is an important factor in determining how effective a given bx might be as a reinforcer of the opportunity to engage in the bx is contingent on another bx

Immediacy of Reinforcement

most be emphasized because a response-to-reinforcement delay of just 1 second can diminish intended effects because the behavior temporally closest to the presentation of the reinforcer will be strengthened by its presentation

Social Reinforcer

one of the most powerful and effective forms of reinforcement for children(i.e. physical contact, attention and praise)

Response

refers to a specific instance of behavior

Reinforcer Assessment

refers to a variety of direct, data based methods for determining the relative effects of a given stimulus as reinforcement under different and changing conditions OR the comparative effects of multiple stimuli as reinforcers for a given behavior under specific conditions. - often conducted with concurrent schedules of reinforcement, multiple schedules of reinforcement and progressive reinforcement schedules

Automaticity of Reinforcement

refers to the fact that a person does not have to understand or be aware of the relation between his behavior and a reinforcing consequence for reinforcement to occur

Operant Conditioning

refers to the process and the selected effects of consequences on behavior. The goal is to "strengthen" the operant in the sense of making a response either more probable/ frequent or less probable/frequent. this type of conditioning also establishes functional relations between bx and certain antecedent conditions - 2 types- reinforcement and punishment

Operant Conditioning

refers to theencompasses

behavior-environment relations

reinforcement and punishment are not simply the products of certain stimulus events without reference to a given bx and environmental conditions. There is no inherent property of a stimuli that determine their permanent status as reinforcers and punishers. Rather, reinforcers and punishers denote FUNCTIONAL classes of stimulus events

Arbitrariness of The Behavior That is Reinforced

reinforcement will strengthen whatever behavior it immediately follows (i.e. pigeon example and superstition) all other relations (i.e. whats logical, desirable, useful) must compete with the critical temporal relation between behavior and consequence (i.e.

Selection By Consequences (does this term infer it is "operant" by nature?

requires variation in behavior. The behaviors that produce the most favorable outcomes are selected and "survive" which leads to a more adaptive repertoire - shows us that human behavior is highly malleable and susceptible to the influence of the consequences that follow it (i.e. natural selection of behavior)

Conditioned Reinforcer

stimulus events or conditions that are present/occur just before or simultaneous with the occurance of other reinforcers acquire the ability to reinforce later when they occur on their own as consequences. These stimulus changes function as reinforcers ONLY B/C of their prior pairing with other reinforcers or punishers.

contingency

the DEPENDENCY of a particular consequence on the occurance of the bx

Reinforcement (noun)

the delivery of the reinforcer and the resulting change in behavior (best to think of the whole process which is a 'thing' or noun)

History of Reinforcement

the fact that no two people ever experience the world in exactly the same way. (i.e. Each of us arrives at a given situation with a different ________ __ __________.)

Reinforcement vs. Punishment

the goal is to INCREASE the future frequency of the behavior VS. the goal is to DECREASE the future frequency of the behavior (i.e. the two types of operant conditioning)