Respondent Conditioning Unit 2 Respondent Conditioning

Inheritance All organisms inherit unconditioned reflexes Instinctive/released behavior E.g., nest building The capacity to be conditioned Respondent and operant Environmental effects to be understood first

Respondent Vs Operant Respondent conditioning Important to explain emotional responses Functional relations revealed Stimulus control Operant Psychology = BAD NAME  Respondent = smooth muscles and glands Operant = stripped muscles

Skinner’s work DV = rate of responding Each participant exposed to all values of the IV Few subjects No significance tests No theory testing

Response Measures Response probability = Rate Latency, reaction time, time to complete a task, number of errors, trials to criterion, etc. Frequency and rate better than probability

Theory Hypothetico deductive Vs Inductive Relations between dependent and independent variables (rate of reinforcement/rate of responses) See quote on JM p, 115 Within subject Vs between subject Description Vs theory testing Visual inspection Vs significance tests

Behavior analysis… …is not only concerned with operant conditioning …does not insist that behavior changes only because of exposure to contingencies …acknowledges rule/instruction control …not anti-physiological …not anti-genetic …not anti-theoretical …is the science and technology of behavior

Group discussion Functional Vs Structural analyses What is topography? Object permanence – stage of intellectual development (inferred states) How can you analyze this behavior functionally?

Terms Elicited, emitted, evoked Response class Stimulus Class E.g., Lever press, call the waiter, etc Stimulus Class Stimulus Functions

Methods Dependent and Independent Variables Co-variation = changes in IV are functionally related to changes in DV Changes in IV precede changes in DV Eliminate confounds

Reversal Design Baseline – Criterion against which effects of IV will be assessed B – IV manipulation – repeated measure to assess behavioral change Reversal – Repeated measures to rule out other explanations (control) Problems?

Internal Validity History – conditions that change at the same time as the manipulation of the independent variable Maturation – Biological/physiological processes that change over time Instrument Decay – Problems with observers

External Validity Generalization Over time Place Dependent measures Similar manipulations As internal validity increases/external decreases

Replications Systematic Vs direct replications Direct – additional participants Generalization assessed by replication not by large samples Behavior analysts are interested in predicting and controlling behavior of individual organisms Participant serves as it’s own control group