1. Respondent Conditioning
Unit 2
Respondent Conditioning

2. 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

3. 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

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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

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

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

10. 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

11. 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?

12. 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

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

14. 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