Comparing graphs

We often need to analyze and compare cumulative graphs. Malott discusses the cumulative graph in Ch. 17 and Cooper, Heron, and Heward discuss it in Ch. 6. Three basic ways in which you can compare graphs are in terms of their level, trend, and variability.

The level of behavior depicted on a graph refers to the average frequency of the behavior across time. Calculate it by dividing the number of responses by the amount of time in which those responses were made. For example, if a rat pressed a lever 120 times in an hour, then one way to express the level of behavior would be 2 responses per minute (120 lever presses divided by 60 minutes). When visually analyzing a graph, imagine a straight horizontal line running across the graph at the level on the vertical axis that represents the average frequency based on all the data points. Sometimes a graph actually shows this "mean level line" (sometimes it's a "median level line"). The higher the mean level line is from the baseline, the greater the average frequency of the behavior across the period of time represented by the graph.

Trend refers to the overall tendency across time for the behavior to increase in frequency, decrease in frequency, or remain stable. Again, imagine a straight line, this time running through the data points in such a way that approximately half of them are above the line and half of them are below the line. If this trend line is horizontal, it tells you that, overall, the behavior did not change in frequency over the time period represented by the graph. If the line slopes upward from left to right, the frequency increased across time, and if it slopes downward, the frequency decreased. Another word for trend that you'll often see is slope.

Variability refers to the average change in frequency from one data point to the next. Imagine the trend line again. If the actual data points tend to be far from the line, then variability is high. This would indicate that the frequency of the behavior tended to change a lot from moment to moment during the session. There were periods of fast responding mixed in with periods of slow responding. We'd probably describe a line like this as very "jagged." When variability is low, the line is less jagged, more smooth.

The following graph shows a low level of behavior, a near-zero trend, and low or fairly stable variability.


The following graph shows a moderate level of behavior, an increasing trend, and high variability. Notice that a trend line has been added.


The following graph shows a low level of behavior, a slightly increasing trend, and moderate variability:

What gets paired in a verbal pairing procedure?

Several times in the chapters on rule-governed behavior (23, 24, 25, maybe elsewhere too), Malott discusses the verbal analog to the pairing procedure (“verbal pairing procedure” for short). Remember that a neutral stimulus becomes a learned reinforcer or a learned aversive stimulus (punisher) by being paired with a stimulus that’s already a reinforcer or aversive stimulus (Ch. 11). Like this...


According to Malott’s theory of how rule-governed behavior works, in order for a rule to control behavior, there has to be an aversive stimulus/condition that’s escaped by performing the target behavior that the rule specifies. This direct acting escape contingency is the engine at the heart of rule control. If behavior is controlled by its immediate consequences, as Malott posits, then in order to understand any behavior, including complex rule-governed behavior, we have to dig deep until we uncover whatever direct acting contingency is actually doing the work of controlling the behavior.

So in rule-governed behavior, where does the necessary aversive stimulus/condition come from? Malott makes it clear that when a rule is stated (by someone else or by oneself), and if there’s a deadline, then the combination of noncompliance with the rule (not performing the target behavior) and the approaching deadline constitutes an aversive stimulus/condition. It’s a conditional aversive stimulus because each of the two components (noncompliance and approaching deadline) by itself would not be aversive. The aversiveness of one of the components is conditional upon its being combined with the other.

But what still requires a little further clarification, I think, is why that conditional stimulus is aversive. The mere combining of noncompliance and an approaching deadline isn’t necessarily aversive. For instance, consider this rule: Take your kid to the dentist before the end of the week and you’ll receive 5 cents. Most of us would not worry about losing the opportunity for that 5 cents. So noncompliance (I haven’t taken the kid to the dentist yet) plus the approaching deadline (It’s already Friday afternoon) would not constitute an aversive stimulus/condition. But if the amount were $100 instead of 5 cents, we’d probably worry and noncompliance plus approaching deadline would be aversive. So whether or not this kind of conditional stimulus is aversive depends on the consequence specified in the contingency that the rule describes. If the consequence is sizable enough and/or probable enough, then the conditional stimulus (noncompliance + approaching deadline) will be aversive.

So back to the original question about the verbal pairing procedure. Remember that in order to turn a neutral stimulus into an aversive stimulus, it has to be paired with an already-aversive stimulus. As explained above, noncompliance with a rule plus an approaching deadline constitutes a conditional stimulus which, by itself, is neutral, that is, it’s not aversive. It only becomes aversive when it’s paired with an already-aversive stimulus, such as loss of the opportunity to receive a sizable and/or probable reinforcer. Like this…


Pardon me for getting mentalistic for just a moment, but this “pairing” doesn’t take place in the outside, observable world, but “in your head.” The proper way to say that is that the neutral conditional stimulus and the already-aversive stimulus are “verbally paired.” Or to say it another way, because we’re not talking about actually physically pairing two stimuli, this is a verbal analog of the pairing procedure.

Anyway, this verbal pairing procedure makes “it's Friday afternoon and kid hasn't been taken to dentist” an aversive condition. So now it can function as the before condition in the direct acting escape contingency that ultimately controls the target behavior, as in the diagram in the 2nd column on p. 405. This contingency and the 3rd contingency in the 1st column on that page are essentially the same, or at least we’ll treat them the same for now. I believe the before conditions described in these two contingencies are different from each other. But for present purposes they can be treated as interchangeable because under normal circumstances they would always occur together.

Tinkering with some contingencies in Ch. 26B

(1) In Ch. 26B on the web, Malott calls the contingency at the top of p. 7 an analog to penalty. But I think it's an analog to punishment by prevention of a reinforcer. What do you think?

Before: You will enter Heaven when you die.
Behavior: You dump a barrel of toxic waste.
After: You will not enter Heaven when you die.

(2) At the bottom of p. 12 there's a description of a rule-governed analog to punishment, and on the top of the next page it's diagrammed, but incorrectly, I think. It seems to me that the diagram should say:

Before: You won't enter Hell when you die.
Behavior: You commit one mortal sin.
After: You will enter Hell when you die.

(3) On pgs. 13-14 Malott offers the example of an analog to avoidance of the loss of the opportunity for a reinforcer (AALOR). As we've learned, if a contingency looks like an analog to reinforcement, but it includes a deadline, then it's really an AALOR. In this example, the rule is to do a good deed before the end of the day so you'll go to Heaven if you die before you wake. Malott says the deadline is the end of the day and that it functions as an S^D. But I don't think so. I think the deadline is something like "before you fall asleep and never wake up." If this rule is effective in controlling someone's good deed behavior, it's because noncompliance as sleepy time approaches is highly aversive since you won't get another chance to earn entry into Heaven if you die before you wake. This deadline is not an S^D because the corresponding S^Δ would be something like "after you wake up, still alive." In that circumstance, the target behavior of doing a good deed would still earn the reinforcer of getting to Heaven, or at least getting closer. So I think this is another example of a deadline that functions as an opportunity to respond. So I'd change the diagram at the top of p. 14 to:

Before: You won't go to Heaven.
Opportunity to Respond/Deadline: Before you fall asleep and never wake up.
Behavior: You perform a good deed.
After: You will go to Heaven.

(4) The stranded motorist scenario is another example in which the deadline functions as an opportunity to respond rather than as an S^D.

Another "opportunity to respond" vs. SD

On p. 366 Malott explained how some stimulus situations that were formerly thought to function as S^Ds don't really fit that definition. The example was Mary having to eat her meal before the deadline (mealtime's end) in order to avoid losing the reinforcer that would be delivered the next day. If that deadline functions as an S^D, then the corresponding S^Δ would be after mealtime ends. The problem with that is that after mealtime ends, it's no longer possible to carry out the target behavior of eating her meal. So instead of the deadline functioning as an S^D, Malott tells us it functions as an "opportunity to respond." This is like situations in which an operandum (e.g., the lever in a Skinner box) might seem to function as an S^D but, in fact, since the target behavior cannot even occur in its absence, the presence of the operandum really functions as the opportunity to respond.

OK, on to p. 380. Carefully think about the examples diagrammed there. It seems to me that after the play ends (labeled as the S^Δ), the target behavior of making a good play cannot be performed. If I'm right about this, then in those two diagrams, there should be no S^Δ box nor its corresponding "after" box, and the box describing the deadline should be labeled "Opportunity to respond" instead of S^D.

What do you think?

Does feedback really function as an SD?

I don’t think so, and I think Dr. Malott might agree. It’s obvious from reading his book that he and his team are always thinking more and more deeply about various issues. And my guess is that deeper thought about this issue will result in the view that rather than feedback functioning as an S^D, it functions more like a prompt.

Here’s why. In order for there to be an S^D, there also has to be an S^Δ, which is a stimulus in the presence of which the target behavior is not reinforced/punished. So think about the football scenario in Ch. 23. If feedback delivered before a play functions as an S^D, in the presence of which the target behavior will be reinforced, then the corresponding S^Δ would be no feedback delivered before the play. But if no feedback were delivered before the play, yet the target behavior occurred anyway (that is, the play was executed correctly), it would still be reinforced. This means that the “no feedback” condition is not an S^Δ. And this further means that feedback is not an S^D.

Now remember the definition of prompt - a supplemental stimulus that raises the probability of a correct response. Seems to fit, right?

Motivating operations

The concept of motivating operation (MO) is defined and discussed quite differently in Ch. 16 of Applied Behavior Analysis and in Ch. 9 of Principles of Behavior. In the former, Michael defines and describes MOs as having two kinds of effects – behavior-altering (BA) effects and value-altering (VA) effects. BA effects are the temporary effects of the MO on the frequency of current behavior. For example, the MO of food deprivation temporarily increases the frequency of behaviors that have been reinforced by food in the past. VA effects are the temporary effects of the MO on the reinforcing or punishing effectiveness of a stimulus, event, object, or condition. For example, the MO of food deprivation temporarily increases the reinforcing effectiveness of food.

These two effects of an MO are usually presented as if they were two different and independent types of effects that are brought about by an MO. But in my opinion this is an incorrect understanding. An alternative description of an MO's effect, which I prefer, is that MOs have only one kind of effect – a behavior-altering effect. An MO causes a change in the frequency of behaviors that have been reinforced or punished by a stimulus, event, object, or condition in the past. The so-called value-altering effect is not a second, different effect that's independent of the BA effect. We see that when we realize that the value or effectiveness of a reinforcer or punisher can only be understood in terms of whatever changes in behavioral frequency are observed. In other words, when we talk about an MO's value-altering effect, it's really just another way of talking about its behavior-altering effect.

Malott seems to be on the same track, although he doesn't say so explicitly. But he defines MO as "a procedure or condition that affects learning and performance with respect to a particular reinforcer or aversive stimulus." By "affects learning and performance" he can only mean "changes the frequency of the target behavior." So this definition focuses on the MO's BA effects and says nothing about the value or effectiveness of the relevant reinforcer or punisher (which he calls "aversive stimulus"), that is, it says nothing about the MO's VA effect.

As Michael points out in Ch. 16 of ABA, there's still a lot of work to be done before we'll fully understand MOs, especially MO's for punishment. In the meantime, I think Malott's definition is not only simpler to understand, but I also think it's more conceptually accurate because of its focus on the MO's BA effect without claiming that MOs also have a VA effect.

Kinds of reinforcers, Part 2

Revised on 12/22/14

I suggest reading this post after you read the post called Kinds of reinforcers, Part 1.

See the definition of Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer) on p. 3. Be sure you understand that stimulus is not a synonym of reinforcer and reinforcer is not a synonym of stimulus. These two words DO NOT mean the same thing. Stimulus is the larger category and reinforcer is a subcategory of that larger category. So every reinforcer is a stimulus, but not every stimulus is a reinforcer. Sometimes a particular stimulus functions as a reinforcer, but sometimes it has a different function.

Stimulus, like many other words, has multiple meanings. In the second column on p. 3 Malott says that a stimulus is any physical change, such as a change in sound, light, pressure, or temperature. This is a “default” definition of stimulus as the word is commonly used in everyday language. In his list of four types of stimuli, Malott refers to this as the “restricted sense” of the word. But he also says that throughout Principles of Behavior, when the word is used, it might refer to this kind of physical change, but it also might refer to an event, activity, or condition. So looking again at the definition of Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer), we should understand that a stimulus that functions as a reinforcer might be a physical change, event, activity, or condition. Any of these kinds of stimuli might function as a reinforcer in a particular situation.

Another way to think about Malott’s list is that there are four basic kinds of reinforcers. A stimulus (in the restricted sense of the word), such as a pleasant taste or aroma, can function as a reinforcer. So can an event, like a football game or a concert. So can a condition or, more specifically, a change in condition. For instance, if it's dark and you can't see, then the behavior of flipping a light switch may change the visibility condition, and that change in condition is a reinforcer. As for activities as reinforcers, I'll expand a little on what Malott says. Rather than an activity functioning as a reinforcer, it's more often the opportunity to engage in a particular activity that functions as a reinforcer. For example, if you wash the dishes (target behavior), you'll have the opportunity to engage in the activity of playing video games for a while. That opportunity, then, functions as a reinforcer.

More on SDs & SΔs

According to Malott, and just about everyone else as far as I can tell, the term, discriminative stimulus, is the "proper" name for the antecedent variable whose abbreviation is S^D. Its opposite, whose abbreviation is S^Δ, doesn't seem to have a proper name. Instead, we're usually told that the abbreviation stands for S-delta, which is really just a way of spelling out S^Δ that makes it clear how it should be pronounced and accommodates keyboards that don't know Greek.

In my opinion, discriminative stimulus should be the label for the category of antecedent variables that includes both S^D and S^Δ. In other words, there are two kinds of discriminative stimuli – S^Ds and S^Δs. An S^D is a stimulus in the presence of which a particular response will be reinforced or punished (depending on whether we're dealing with a reinforcement or punishment contingency), and an S^Δ is a stimulus in the presence of which a particular response will not be reinforced or punished.

SD & SΔ: Two sides of the coin

Revised on 3/29/14

Malott’s definitions of S^D and S^Δ are procedural (see footnote on p. 199). They’re stimuli in the presence of which a reinforcement or punishment contingency is present or absent. This is different from the way some others define these terms. As Malott points out, some other definitions put the emphasis on either (1) the likelihood of the response happening in the presence of the stimulus, or (2) the likelihood that, if the response happens in the presence of the stimulus, it will be reinforced/punished. These two events – response happening and response being reinforced/punished – both depend on whether the reinforcement/punishment contingency is present or absent. This seems to make the presence or absence of the contingency primary and those two events are secondary.

An S^Δ is a stimulus in the presence of which the target response will not be reinforced/punished because the relevant contingency is absent. If there are no stimuli (circumstances, settings, occasions) in the presence of which the target response would not be reinforced/punished, then by definition there’s no S^Δ. This also means that the contingency is present all the time, so that there’s no particular stimulus “signaling” that the contingency is present. All of this is why Malott says that if there’s no S^Δ, then there’s no S^D.

The thing about coins is that they have two sides. There’s no such thing as a one-sided coin; you can’t have one without the other. And if you DON’T have one of them, then you don’t have the other either. That’s the way it is with S^Ds and S^Δs. If you don’t have an S^Δ, then you don’t have an S^D either (and vice versa, of course).

How do analogs to punishment work?

In Ch. 24 Malott explained in great detail how rule-governed analogs to avoidance of the loss of a reinforcer work. Now maybe I just missed it (always possible), but I don't think he's explained how rule-governed analogs to punishment work. In the PDF version of Ch. 26 he writes “Commit a single mortal sin and you will definitely spend eternity in hell. The statement of that rule does make noncompliance a most aversive condition (for believers). This is an effective rule-governed analog to punishment.” So what is the mechanism by which a rule like this works?

For rule-governed analogs to avoidance of the loss of a reinforcer, stating the rule establishes noncompliance (not performing the target behavior) as an aversive before condition which can be escaped or decreased by performing the target behavior. This outcome follows the target behavior immediately and the result is an increased frequency of the target behavior in similar situations.

But in a rule-governed analog to punishment, noncompliance with the rule means PERFORMING the target behavior, and noncompliance (having performed the target behavior) is an aversive AFTER condition. Depending on the particular circumstances, that aversive condition might be what we'd call guilt or, perhaps, fear of punishment. This aversive after condition follows the target behavior immediately as part of a direct-acting punishment contingency. When a rule is stated prohibiting a behavior, that behavior becomes a member of the response class of prohibited behaviors. Even if the particular target behavior has never been performed before, other prohibited behaviors have been performed in the past and have been punished. So because members of this response class have been punished in the past, resulting in a decreased frequency of performing such behaviors, the frequency of newly prohibited behaviors should also be reduced.

I think that's how rule-governed analogs to punishment work.

Direct-acting, indirect-acting, and ineffective

All behavioral contingencies consist of three elements: the occasion for a behavior/response, the actual behavior/response, and the outcome of the behavior/response (p. 16). The contingencies we learned about first are the direct-acting contingencies, which Malott defines on p. 366 as those for which "the outcome of the response reinforces or punishes that response." The outcome (such as presentation of a reinforcer or an aversive stimulus) reinforces or punishes the target behavior because it immediately follows that behavior. In other words, the outcome directly affects the future frequency of the target behavior.

Indirect-acting contingencies consist of the same three elements, but we call them indirect-acting because the outcome (such as presentation of a reinforcer or an aversive stimulus) does NOT reinforce or punish the target behavior because it does not immediately follow that behavior but, instead, comes after some delay. This delayed outcome still affects the future frequency of the target behavior, but it affects it indirectly instead of directly. These indirect effects on the behavior's frequency are not called "reinforcement" or "punishment" because, by definition, reinforcement and punishment involve outcomes that follow the target behavior immediately.

These indirect-acting contingencies are one type of analog contingency (or what Malott calls "analogs to behavioral contingencies"). They're analogs because they resemble the direct-acting contingencies, but they're different because of their delayed outcomes. For our present purposes, indirect-acting contingencies and analog contingencies are the same thing.

In order for an indirect-acting contingency to be effective (affect the future frequency of the behavior), the contingency must be described to the behaver. A statement that describes a contingency (direct-acting or indirect-acting) is a rule. If the statement of a rule describing an indirect-acting contingency affects the frequency of the target behavior, then we can say that the behavior is "rule-governed."

When we talk about analog/indirect-acting contingencies, we need to say more. We need to say what kind of analog/indirect-acting contingency we're talking about. For instance, in Ch. 22 Malott talks about analog reinforcement contingencies and analog discriminated avoidance contingencies.

To our visitors...

It could be that some folks who are not fellow students in your class may be visiting the ole DMT site from time to time. If so, this post is intended mainly for them.

I hope our guests will feel free to explore and to add their comments to any of the posts here. For now, at least, things are set up so that anyone can add comments without restraint. I trust that all comments, whether from students or guests, will be offered in the same spirit that motivated creating DMT in the first place. That spirit is best-expressed in the words of Rudolph the Rat, who appears in the upper-left of our front page. Getting a little more specific, our goal at DMT is for more and more people to learn the principles of behavior analysis and how to use them to improve our lives. And we're always open to suggestions about how we can do that better. If you'd like to communicate directly with me (PW), you can send an email to williamspsATgmail.com (replace AT with @).

How do you avoid something immediately?

Most of the behavioral contingencies that we deal with in Principles of Behavior have immediate consequences, that is, reinforcing or aversive consequences that follow the target behavior immediately. Starting with Ch. 22 we get deeper into analog contingencies, which often means that the consequences don't follow the target behavior immediately, or so it seems. Actually, we'll learn that even with these analogs, the consequences that directly affect the future frequency of the target behavior do, indeed, follow the target behavior immediately.

But I digress .... In the case of some avoidance contingencies, it's hard to see how this immediacy criterion applies. In other cases it's obvious. If you're a race car driver whizzing around a track surrounded by lots of other drivers in close quarters, you're going to experience something pretty aversive any second unless you're continuously performing several different behaviors. Because all kinds of nasty stuff threatens to happen to you immediately, within seconds if not less, then whatever behaviors you perform to prevent those things from happening have the immediate consequence of avoiding/preventing aversive consequences. This is the sense in which the consequences of avoidance follow the target behavior immediately.

What that means when you're inventing avoidance CAs is that the aversive stimulus described in your before box must be something that's going to be experienced within seconds UNLESS the target behavior happens. Another way to say this is that the aversive stimulus is going to experienced within seconds unless the next thing you do is the target behavior.

What that also means is that behaviors like taking an alternate route so you won't have to put up with the heavy traffic on your regular route, or telling them to "hold the onions" when you order bean burritos from Taco Bell so you won't gross out everyone you talk to, are not examples of avoidance. In this latter case, when you tell them to hold the onions, you haven't yet eaten them, right? So at the time you tell them to hold the onions, the aversive condition of onion breath is not going to happen within seconds. That aversive condition won't happen unless you do something else first, namely actually eating a burrito with onions on it. So telling them to hold the onions is not an avoidance behavior. In an avoidance situation, the aversive stimulus or condition is going to happen within seconds unless the next thing you do is the target behavior.

But even though it's not avoidance, you should still tell them to hold the onions.

Learned imitative reinforcers

This is a difficult concept for some students to get, so I'll see if I can supplement Malott's discussion a little bit.

If you do something and I do the same thing, I can tell that I'm doing the same thing you're doing because I can see that we're doing the same thing. If you say something and I say the same thing, then I can hear that I said the same thing. In other words, I know when my actions match yours because of the perceptual feedback I get from you and from myself. But it goes beyond seeing and hearing. If you raise your arm in the air and I do the same, even if my eyes are closed I'm getting perceptual (proprioceptive) feedback informing me that my arm is raised. All of these types of perceptual feedback are stimuli.

If a child imitates someone else's behavior and it's reinforced, then those reinforcers are paired with those stimuli that inform the child that their behaviors are matching the model's. When this has happened a sufficient number of times and in a variety of imitative situations, then stimuli showing us that our behavior matches a model's become learned reinforcers. From that point on, whenever we perceive that our behavior matches someone else's, that matching (imitative) behavior will be automatically reinforced by those learned imitative reinforcers.

That's how generalized imitation happens.

What is a response class?

Revised on 3/29/14

In Ch. 7 (p. 128) Malott discusses the three ways to define a response class. Skinner pointed out that no one ever performs a response/behavior the same way twice. Opening the refrigerator with your right hand is basically the same behavior as opening it with your left hand, even though they're obviously different too. But because they're more similar in important ways than they are different, they're considered members of the same response class. So a response class is a collection of similar behaviors.

What Malott does for us in Ch. 7 is to explain the three ways in which the members of a response class can be similar to each other. If two or more responses are similar in one or more of these ways, then they're members of the same response class.

(1) First, behaviors can be similar on one or more response dimensions. A response dimension is a physical property of a response. So this means that responses may be members of the same response class because they're physically similar.

(2) Behaviors can also be similar because they share the effects of reinforcement or punishment. That means that if one member of a response class is reinforced or punished, and its frequency subsequently changes, the frequency of the other members of the response class will also change in the same direction, even though they haven't been directly reinforced or punished. An implication of this is that if reinforcing or punishing a behavior changes its frequency, and the frequency of another behavior also changes in the same way, that's an indication that the two behaviors are members of the same response class.

(3) Behaviors can also be similar because they serve the same function or produce the same outcome. That means that if a behavior is followed by a particular reinforcer or aversive stimulus (punisher), then other members of the same response class will also be followed by that reinforcer or punisher. So if two behaviors produce the same reinforcing or punishing consequence, that's an indication that they're members of the same response class. This doesn't prove that they're members of the same response class, but it may suggest that you should investigate further to determine if, in fact, they are.

Dipper training CyberRat: What's going on

What's really going on when you conduct the procedure that Malott calls "dipper training" and that is often called "magazine training?"

As you'll learn in Ch. 20, a stimulus can have more than one function. In the case of the sound that Malott calls the "dipper click," this stimulus takes on more than one function as a result of dipper training. We start the process by pairing the sound with a stimulus that's already an effective reinforcer for a thirsty rat – a drop of water. As we learn in Ch. 11, this pairing of a neutral stimulus with a reinforcer causes the neutral stimulus to become a reinforcer too – a learned reinforcer. It's important for this sound to become a learned reinforcer so that we can then use it to provide immediate reinforcement for other behaviors in the Skinner box. Imagine that you wanted to train the rat to stand on its hind legs in the left front corner of the Skinner box. If a drop of water were the only reinforcer available, then could you present it immediately following that behavior? No way.

But if the sound of the dipper click has become a reinforcer, then you can present that sound immediately following whatever behavior you choose. That's why dipper training is so important, and why it has to happen before any other training can take place in the Skinner box.

Now, as we learn in Ch. 12, a discriminative stimulus (S^D) is a stimulus that functions as if it's a signal that if the target behavior is performed, it will be reinforced. When we conduct dipper training properly, in addition to the dipper click becoming a learned reinforcer, it also becomes an S^D for the behavior of going to the dipper. When the dipper click sounds, if the rat goes to the dipper that behavior is reinforced by the drop of water that's there. But remember that in order for a stimulus to be an S^D, there also has to be an S^Δ. In this case, the S^Δ is the lack of a dipper click. If the rat goes to the dipper in the S^Δ condition, that behavior is not reinforced.

In the dipper training exercise with CyberRat, the indicator that we've been successful is that the rat will go to the dipper from anywhere in the Skinner box upon hearing the click. In other words, the sound functions as an S^D. When we see this, we can also be confident that the dipper click has become a learned reinforcer, which is what we are trying to accomplish in this lab.

Remember, though, that when we do the exercise properly, the dipper click is not being used to reinforce any behavior. In a reinforcement contingency, the reinforcer is presented after the target behavior, and during dipper training the dipper click is presented before the behavior we want to see, which is going to the dipper. This is why the instructions warn you not to present the dipper click consistently when the rat is in a particular place or doing a particular thing, because that would result in reinforcing that behavior or being in that spot. Instead it's important to allow the rat to go different places in the box and to do different things before presenting the dipper click.

When we get to Ch. 20 on behavioral chains, we'll revisit this idea of a particular stimulus functioning as both a reinforcer and an S^D.

Your discrimination CA: What to watch for

When students don't get the discrimination CA right, very often it's because of what they write in the S^Δ box. In a discrimination situation, the behaver must be able to perceive (thru seeing, hearing, or any of the other senses) the difference between the S^D and the S^Δ BEFORE the target behavior is performed. So make sure you don't describe an S^Δ that the behaver can't perceive as different from the S^D until after the behavior has already been performed. An example of this mistake might be saying that the S^D is an ATM machine that has money in it, the S^Δ is an ATM that's empty, and the target behavior is punching in your code and requesting money. In this situation, the target behavior has to be performed before the behaver knows that the ATM is empty. So an empty ATM can't be an S^Δ in this case.

Think of it this way: In the case of reinforcement-based discrimination, the S^D functions like a signal that if the target behavior is performed, it will be reinforced, and the S^Δ functions like a signal that it won't be. In the case of punishment-based discrimination, the S^D signals that the target behavior will be punished and the S^Δ signals that it won't. And in order for these stimuli to function like signals, the behaver has to be able to perceive the difference between them BEFORE performing the target behavior.

Your shaping CA: What to watch for

Revised on 9/30/14

In order to get credit for your shaping CA, there are a few details that you have to be careful about. Shaping is a natural extension of differential reinforcement (or punishment) because, in effect, it's a connected series of differential reinforcement (or punishment) contingencies. That means that the behaviors in each phase have to be members of the same response class. And that means they're pretty similar to each other, except for the differences along the chosen dimension that get reinforced (or punished).

In the case of shaping using reinforcement, as the frequency of the behavior during a particular phase becomes more frequent, there are naturally some variations in how it's performed. Once the frequency stabilizes at a new, higher level, the performance manager watches for variations in occurrences of the behavior that are a little bit closer to the desired terminal behavior. The next phase begins when these variations become the only occurrences that are reinforced. After a while, these once-rare variations become the most common form of the behavior, and occasionally new variations appear that are even closer to the terminal behavior.

So the occurrences of the behavior during subsequent phases must overlap with each other. Another way to think about it is that the behavior in the earlier phase naturally "flows into" the behavior in the next phase. Still another way to think about it is that the behavior that's going to be reinforced in the next phase must occur occasionally during the present phase. Think about this as you put together and revise your CAs. The behavior you're thinking of describing in the next phase ... Is it a behavior that you see occasionally in the present phase? If not, then change the behavior you're thinking of describing in the next phase.

One more detail to be careful of: Your description of the behavior that gets extinguished in the 2nd phase should be identical to your description of the behavior that was reinforced in the 1st phase, and your description of the behavior that gets extinguished in the 3rd phase should be identical to your description of the behavior that was reinforced in the 2nd phase. You won't see that in all of the examples in the textbook, but this is the way you should do it.

Note that it's often appropriate to indicate "N/A" as the behavior being extinguished in the 1st phase. That's because during the 1st phase, there was no previous phase during which there was a behavior that was being reinforced. Therefore, you can't describe a behavior, so you say "N/A" instead.

Your differential reinforcement CA: What to watch for

Revised on 3/29/14

Some of you have begun turning in your differential reinforcement CAs for Ch. 7. That reminds me that it's time to say something about the most common stumbling block for students doing this CA. And if you choose one of the other differential contingencies for extra credit, what I'm going to say here will apply to that one too.

In the differential contingencies, the two behaviors start out (that is, before the contingency is imposed) being members of the same response class. In simple terms, this means that they're similar to each other. Look at the diagram on p. 124. Hitting a tennis ball with some skill and hitting it without any skill are members of the response class that we could call "hitting a tennis ball." We could say that they're two subclasses of the larger response class. They're similar, though there's a key difference between them.

When a differential contingency is applied, members of one subclass are reinforced or punished (depending on the particular contingency) while members of the other subclass are not. As a result, the frequencies of the two subclasses diverge. The frequency of one subclass ends up being higher than the other. At this point we can say that the two subclasses have each become new response classes in their own right. In sum, the result of a differential contingency is to divide a response class into two different response classes.

But back to the point I started with. In an example of a differential contingency, the two behaviors have to be similar to each other in at least one of the ways that Malott says members of a response class are similar to each other (p. 128). So when you're preparing your differential reinforcement CA, be sure the two behaviors are similar.

Doing that will also help you avoid another common mistake made by students on the differential contingencies – describing a non-behavior in one of the behavior boxes. If you're reinforcing the behavior described in the upper behavior box, and not reinforcing (extinguishing) the "not doing" of that behavior as described in the lower behavior box, then that's no different from simple reinforcement, in which you reinforce the behavior described in the upper behavior box. Make sure what's described in both behavior boxes is something a dead man can't do.

Extinction distinctions

Important stuff starting in the middle of the 1st column on p. 106. It's easy to get extinction mixed up with the two kinds of penalty contingencies because all involve the lack of a reinforcer for the target behavior. Read that short section carefully so you won't get them mixed up. Also note that in response cost, the reinforcer that gets removed is NOT the one that was reinforcing the target behavior, whereas in extinction, the reinforcer we're concerned with IS the one that's reinforcing the target behavior.

Other important distinctions between extinction and the penalty contingencies are summarized in the table on p. 107.

Spontaneous recovery and CyberRat

In one of your CyberRat exercises you'll extinguish lever pressing after having strengthened it through reinforcement. The lab report will ask you to study your graphs and report evidence of spontaneous recovery. Remember what Malott tells us in the middle of the 2nd column on p. 105: Spontaneous recovery can't occur during the first extinction session. Why? He explains that too.

Ignorance is no excuse.

It's sometimes thought that the extinction procedure simply amounts to "ignoring the behavior." If you want to use everyday terms, then yes, that's sometimes what's going on when a behavior gets extinguished. But this is too simple; extinction is NOT simply ignoring a behavior that you want to decrease in frequency. Extinction requires you to figure out what's reinforcing the undesirable behavior. Functional assessment, right? Then you have to figure out how to arrange conditions so that when that behavior happens, it's not followed by the reinforcer. There are all kinds of ways to do this, and ignoring the behavior is only one of them. Ignoring only works when the reinforcer is your attention. In those cases, if, by "ignoring," we mean not giving attention when the target behavior occurs, then this is an example of extinction.

Rolling over the dead man

Please pay very careful attention to this section that starts on p. 92. I wasn't kidding when I said, in the About DMT part of this blog, that there are probably more dead man rule violations in this course than anything else. So when it happens to you, you need to know exactly how to fix it.

Important tables

The tables on p. 87 are very important and very useful. You should probably tattoo them on the inside of your eyeballs. Both tables contain the same information, just organized in different ways, so you don't have to tattoo both of them. The tree diagram on the next page also contains the same information, but in a different format that might make it easier to remember and use.

The reinforcer that's lost in penalty

It's small, so you might miss it... On p. 81 Malott tells us that the reinforcer that's lost in a penalty contingency cannot be the one that maintains the penalized behavior. Good thing to remember if you do an extra credit CA showing a penalty contingency.

Nobody wants to hurt themselves

And nobody hurts themselves in order to get attention. This is a topic where it's easy to violate the Don't Say Rule.

As weird as it may sound to your ears, all behaviors, including self-injurious behaviors, happen because they've been reinforced. In the complexities of real life, we're swimming in an ocean of simultaneously intertwining behavioral contingencies that are constantly interacting in such ways that the effects on our behavior can be unpredictable and surprising. That's why we begin the course, and end up spending most of it, on the basic principles of behavior, which we learn by studying pretty simple examples. You're already realizing that mastering even those basic principles is quite a challenge.

Chapter 19 is about concurrent contingencies, and there we'll be looking specifically at how simultaneous behavioral contingencies interact to control behavior. You could make an argument that it's the most important chapter in the book because it formally introduces the reality of that ocean of intertwining contingencies that I referred to, which is the real world.

Whether you like it or not

On p. 57 Malott emphasizes that "An aversive stimulus is one we tend to minimize contact with." This is one of the ways to characterize aversive stimuli without saying that they're things you don't like. The fact is that in most cases we don't like aversive stimuli (which are also often called "punishers"). But that fact is peripheral to the best sort of definition.

In BA-speak, as much as possible we define things functionally, that is, in terms of the functions they have or demonstrate. This is similar to defining things operationally, which is a notion that many of you have run into in your other psychology courses.

To put it simply, we try to define things in terms of what they do, the effects they have on other things, or how they affect behavior. So another way to characterize the aversive stimulus (or "punisher") is to say that it's a stimulus which, if it immediately follows a behavior, has the effect of decreasing the future frequency of that behavior.

It can be positively (or negatively) confusing!

In BehaviorAnalysis-speak, "positive" refers to presenting a stimulus immediately following the target behavior. You might find it useful to remember that both "positive" and "present" start with a "p." "Negative" refers to removing a stimulus immediately following the target behavior. If you think of a memory trick for that one, let us know.

The result is that there's positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, as well as positive punishment (sounds weird, doesn't it?) and negative punishment (sounds redundant, doesn't it?).

The potential for confusion is why Malott uses different terms for these 4 basic kinds of behavioral contingencies. You should become fluent with these 4 traditional terms, because they get used a lot and you need to know what they mean when you encounter them, even though you won't see some of them ("positive punishment?") very much in our textbook.

He has autistic behaviors ...

Some people get upset with Malott or others who seem to say that there's no underlying psychological condition that's responsible for autistic behaviors. I don't think he really explains his position as well as I wish he would. Or maybe it's that I don't think he explains my position.

Whether we're talking about autism or anything else that manifests in the form of abnormal or undesirable behaviors, the 1st approach should always be to try changing the behavior. Very often that will work, and if it does, then there's no need for medication, surgery, or other expensive, invasive methods. Behavioral therapies are the most natural, least expensive, and very often the most effective. For many reasons this should be the 1st approach that's tried.

Awareness not required

In the 1st column on p. 41 Malott makes a very important point that's true not just for escape contingencies, but for all behavioral contingencies. In order for a behavioral contingency to control someone's behavior, they don't have to have any awareness of the contingency at all. On p. 51 Malott summarizes a classic experiment that really gives additional force to this point.

It's not uncommon for someone to become aware of a contingency that's controlling their behavior. But when that happens, it's a byproduct of the operation of the contingency, and their behavior would have changed in the same way if they'd never become aware of the contingency.

BehaviorAnalysis-Speak

Revised on 1/4/14

In your class discussion posts, in your CAs, and in whatever you do as a part of your course, or whenever you're dealing with your fellow behavior analysts on professional matters (when you're hanging out at a bar it's different), you should use behavioral language. Think before you speak or write. Are you about to indulge in mentalistic language? Say or write something that invites or reveals circular reasoning? The stuff in the latter part of Ch. 2 (starting with "Avoid Circular Reasoning" on p. 26 & through p. 32) just might be the most important material in the book. There's a close connection between how you think and how you speak/write. Each has effects on the other. If you want to understand behavior, you have to speak and write about it properly. If you speak and write about it properly, you're more likely to think about it properly too.

Quizzes require fluency

By now some of you have had your 1st experience with the quizzes in your course. At the beginning of every semester there are often protests about how little time is allowed for quizzes, and requests that more time be allowed. You'll get better at completing the quizzes in the time that's allowed. These quizzes put a premium on fluency, which is the ability to respond not only correctly but quickly. In order to master something you must become fluent, just like when learning a new language. You must be able to speak and understand others not only correctly, but at a high rate of speed.

In your course there should NOT be enough time to look up answers to quiz questions. Instead, if you're studying well, you'll know the answers without looking them up, and in that situation, there's plenty of time to complete the quiz.

Read the comments!

Readers have the option of replying to these posts by clicking on the comments link at the end of each post. This blog is not primarily designed for discussion, but thru its comments capability, it can be used that way. That means that the comments made by other readers might contain useful information for you. So read the comments!

To help you find the comments, look at the Archive on the left side of the page. It's a list of the posts that I've made. If someone has commented on a post and you haven't read that comment yet, the post's title will be highlighted, and clicking on it will take you to that post and all of its comments.

They really oughta wanna do it

Revised on 1/4/14

Nobody ever does anything just because they ought to or because it's the right thing to do. The only reason behaviors ever happen is because they've been reinforced. This is an important rule of thumb that you really oughta wanna keep close at hand. If you want to understand why a behavior happens, figure out what's reinforcing it or what has reinforced it in the past.

When we say we did something because it was the right thing to do, we're speaking metaphorically or poetically, and not scientifically. Language like that seems to provide an explanation, but really doesn't. It tends to put an end to our search for the true explanation. Metaphor and poetry are wonderful, but they're not science. Behavior analysis is the science of behavior.

The ABCs of behavior

Revised on 1/4/14

On p. 18 there's a definition of behavioral contingency. There's a little formula that you'll often see for this: ABC.

• A stands for antecedent, which means something that "comes before." The occasion for a response can be thought of as the situation or circumstances that exist right before the target behavior occurs.
• B stands for behavior, that is, the target behavior that we're interested in understanding or whose frequency we want to change.
• C stands for consequence. Every behavior has one or more consequences or outcomes, which may be the presentation or receipt of a reinforcer or an aversive stimulus.

Every behavior happens in some kind of situation, circumstance, setting, occasion, and every behavior has some kind of consequence or outcome. In order to understand a behavior, you have to understand at least these three aspects of the behavioral contingency that it's a part of.

More on immediacy

Revised on 1/4/14

In the 2nd column on p. 17 and on p. 32 Malott talks about immediacy again. This is a big deal in this course. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more immediacy errors in the CAs you'll turn in than any other kind of error. One of the reasons is that it seems so obvious that a reinforcer sometimes follows a behavior by more than 60 seconds, yet it still causes the behavior's frequency to increase. Yes, there are lots of situations in which it looks like that's what's going on. Many of those situations are what Malott calls analogs to reinforcement. Toward the end of the book we'll get into that topic in a big way. In the meantime, in discussions of examples of behavior in your course, and especially when you're creating CAs, remember that your consequence (e.g., a reinforcer or an aversive stimulus, event, or condition) must follow the target behavior immediately.

Asynchronicity

This blog is an example of asynchronicity (look it up) in a couple of ways. First, the online course you're taking is an example of asynchronous learning, meaning that the class never has to be assembled, all together, at the same time. You can "go to class" in the middle of the night from your bedroom in your pajamas, and you'll still see and read and participate in all aspects of the class.

Secondly, this blog serves two different classes during this current spring semester of 2007. Some of you are in an undergraduate class called Learning and Behavior at UH-Downtown, and some of you are in a graduate class call Learning Principles at UH-Clear Lake. The subject matter of the two courses is the same, and one of the things you have in common is the textbook, Principles of Behavior. But the UHCL class has a 2nd textbook too, which means that they're moving through PoB faster than the UHD class. My aim is to post chapter-related stuff here so that it appears while the UHCL class is on that chapter. That will make it a little early for the UHD class, but that shouldn't be a problem, and it might even be a help.

If you want to see all of the posts on a particular chapter (or any of the other topics), click on the appropriate link under Topics on the left side of the page.

Ch. 2 previews of coming attractions

Revised on 1/4/14

On p. 16, 2nd column, we get a preview of what's sometimes called "thinning the schedule." Right before this Malott described how, in addition to grandmother reinforcing certain of grandfather's behaviors, Juke was reinforcing grandmother's behavior of reinforcing grandfather's behaviors. This gives us a peek at how complex real life is, with many intertwined and interacting behavioral contingencies in operation at every moment. Anyway, on p. 16 we see Juke reinforcing grandmother's behavior less and less frequently. This was possible because the more grandmother practiced reinforcing grandfather's behaviors, the more her own behavior of reinforcing was, itself, reinforced by its consequences. This is what's known as a "behavior trap," which you can look up in the index if you want to read ahead. And we'll learn more about "thinning the schedule" in several places, including the chapters on extinction (6), intermittent reinforcement (17 and 18), and maintenance (27).

Feedback on a reinforcement CA

One of your classmates has submitted a reinforcement contingency analysis (CA) for Ch. 2. I returned it with feedback for revising it, and I want to share that feedback with the rest of you. The target behavior was mowing someone's lawn and the reinforcer was the pay received for the job.

There are 2 problems with this as an example of a reinforcement contingency. The first is that mowing a lawn is a series or chain of behaviors (mow a while, take a rest, mow some more, get a drink, etc.) rather than a discrete behavior with a clear starting and ending point & no other behaviors in between. That makes it unclear what it would mean to say that a reinforcer follows this "behavior" immediately.

Second, even if we allowed mowing the lawn as an acceptable target behavior in an example of a reinforcement contingency, it's not likely that the reinforcer ($) immediately follows the "behavior." In all of your examples, we need target behaviors that are discrete behaviors (additional discussion about this in another Ch. 2 post) & that are followed by their reinforcing or punishing consequence immediately.

Class discussions

Please read the syllabus for your course carefully. You'll see that a significant portion of your grade is based on class discussion on the discussion boards for your course. You'll receive a class participation grade each week. The 1st week ends on Saturday at midnight. Though everyone gets a free point toward their 1st week's grade for their 1st post, regardless of what it says, all other posts, in order to receive credit, must meet the criteria for mastery posts as explained in your course's syllabus.

How immediate is immediate?

Revised on 1/4/14

Besides the dead man test, the thing that we may remind ourselves of more than anything else, as we go through the semester, is that we should always be looking at the immediate consequences of whatever target behavior we're interested in. On p. 4 Malott reminds us that immediate means 60 seconds or less, and even that is stretching things. As you construct contingency analyses, always keep in mind that whatever you think is the consequence of the target behavior (e.g., a reinforcing or aversive stimulus, event, or condition) must follow the target behavior immediately.

Additional comment, posted on Jan. 21, 2011: Malott puts a lot of emphasis on the proposition that a behavior's frequency changes as a result of its immediate consequences, & I agree with him. This may make you wonder about the many situations in which a behavior seems to be reinforced or punished by a consequence that is not immediate. For instance, seeing an "A" on your quiz paper might seem to reinforce the studying you did last night. Understanding why situations like this don't contradict what I said above is tricky. But Malott explains it by the end of the book.

In the meantime, for purposes of learning the fundamental principles of behavior, it's important for us to stick to examples & scenarios in which it's very obvious that the target behavior's frequency is changed because of its immediate consequences. That's why I'll probably say to you, when you turn in some of your contingency analyses, that they need to be revised because the reinforcing or punishing consequence doesn't follow the target behavior immediately.

First task always: Pinpoint the target behavior

Revised on 1/4/14

The 1st thing you must always do when trying to understand or change an organism's behavior (including your own) is to specify exactly what behavior you want to understand or change. You'll probably hear this from me over and over throughout the semester.

The term, "target behavior," as we use it in this course, refers to the behavior (or "response;" they're synonyms, as we see in Ch. 1) that's of most interest to us in the present scenario. We may be interested in a behavior because we want to understand why it happens. Or we may want to change the frequency of a certain behavior. In both kinds of cases, the behavior of primary interest is the "target behavior."

In the 3 diagrams on p. 2, the target behavior in each one is described in the "Behavior" box in the middle of the diagram. In each of these cases, Malott is suggesting why those behaviors happen. It's because they're immediately followed by the delivery of a reinforcer. In the 1st diagram, before Rod cries he doesn't have the reinforcer of Dawn's attention. Then he performs the target behavior, & immediately following that behavior, he has that reinforcer. That's why the frequency of Rod's crying in these kinds of situations is high - it's usually reinforced. Can you see the same kind of explanation in the other 2 diagrams?

BTW, helping you to identify the correct target behavior is the main purpose of the dead man test.