Developing New Behavior

Week 9

Non Contingent Reinforcement

• Potency (e.g. amount/quality) of “R+”• Include Extinction• Vary “Reinforcement”

Behavioral Momentum

• High Probability requests• Resistance to extinction

Functional Communication Training

• Differential Reinforcement• Look/ Watch me

Imitation

• Any physical functioning as “model” (e.g. antecedent)

• Immediate imitative behavior follows model– 5 seconds

• Both model and behavior must be similar– Must “do the same”

• Model must be controlling variable– “Doing the same is not enough”

Shaping

Shaping

Reinforcing successive approximations to the target response while extinguishing preceding approximations.

√ Does not have to be done in an exact way

This concept requires understanding of Reinforcement, extinction, and Differential Reinforcement.

TermsTerminal Behavior: The final goal of an intervention

Operant Level: Frequency of responding before reinforcement

Initial Behavior: Some behavior that resembles the terminal behavior in some way.

Intermediate behaviors: Those behaviors that more closely approximate the target responses.

Enhancing Shaping: Prompting & Fading

• Add an SD• Physical Guidance• Imitative response (Model)– These are all prompts that must be faded

Lookin’ for a volunteer

• Who wants to shape up their behavior?

Chaining

√ Must be done in a general stepwise formate. g. making a sandwich

√ Each response serves a dual function– Signal for next response– Reinforcer for completion of the previous

response.

Methods of Chaining

• Forward– R1 R1 R1 – R2 R2 R2 etc.

• Total-Task– R1 R2 R3 etc.– Provide help when needed– Stop when criterion met (3 times with no help?)

• Backward– Start with final link– With leap ahead…

Task Analysis

• Breaking a behavioral chain into its smaller responses.

• Extent to which you are successful with teaching new behaviors from a chaining perspective is directly related to your ability to do a good task analysis.

Time to make a chain

Do a task analysis for making an omelet

Do a task analysis for a chain of responses that you consider yourself an expert in that perhaps no one else in the class is.

Chaining Assessment

• Single Opportunity– Measurement of all steps in correct sequence– Quick to conduct– More conservative– Tells little information

• Multiple-Opportunity– Measurement of each link

Stimulus Discrimination and Stimulus Generalization

3 Types of Stimuli

• Discriminative Stimulus: Reinforcement is available (SD)

• Neutral Stimulus: No reinforcement or punishment is available (SΔ )

• Warning Stimulus: Punishments is available

Discrimination Training

• Learning when to behave and when not to behave

• Reinforcing a response in presence of one stimulus but not another

e. g. Colors

Color Discrimination

What about you?

• When have you engaged in stimulus discrimination today?

Stimulus Control

• Degree of correlation between stimulus and response

• Degree to which a behavior occurs in presence of a specific stimulus– e.g. Traffic light

• Stimulus Generalization Gradient: Probability of response reinforced in one stimulus condition are emitted in the presence of untrained stimuli.

Color Discrimination Revisited

What about you?

• What behaviors do you have that are under stimulus control?

Let’s discriminate

Learning an Alien Language

Effective discrimination training

• Choose distinct signals• Minimize opportunities for error– Minimize stimulus array

• Maximize Number of learning trials• Make use of rules

Stimulus Generalization

• Responding similarly across two or more stimuli

√ The more the stimuli are alike the more likely the response to take place

e.g. finding your car

What about you?

• What behaviors/responses do you generalize across settings?

• Can that response always be generalized?

• Should that response always be generalized?

Classes of Stimuli

Stimulus Class: Set of stimuli with similar characteristics in common

AKA: Concept

Equivalence Class: Set of stimuli with different characteristics, but represent the same thing

e.g. Written name, verbal name, picture of person

Inducing Stimuli Classes

√ Explicit training is not necessarily needed to induce stimulus control across stimuli

• Symmetry: A = B• Reflexivity: A = A• Transivity: A = B; B = C; A = C

Discriminating discrimination among other discriminative stimuli

Stimulus discrimination and escapee.g. hailing a taxi out in the cold: Must

have no patrons in it.

Stimulus discrimination and punishmente.g. Boiling pan: Do not touch or you get burned.

Stimulus Discrimination and Differential Reinforcement

DR- 2 responses (right way and wrong way)and 1 stimuluse.g. Asking mom for money

SD- Two stimuli (Right signal wrong Signal) and 1 responsee.g. Asking mom OR dad for money?

Requirements for stimulus control

• Attention of the subject

• Sensory capabilities of the subject

• The stimulus must stand out relative to other stimuli.

Generalization Part 2

Response Generalization• Behavior becomes more probable in the presence of

a stimulus as a

• result of another behavior that was reinforced in the presences of that stimulus√ Do not confuse with stimulus generalization

e.g. Behavioral Momentum: Compliance high pe.g. Computer vs. worksheet vs. flashcards

How to get response generalization to occur

• Train sufficient response exemplars:e.g. Plurals

• Vary the acceptable responses during training: – Only reinforce less probable responses

• Program Common Stimuli• Train Loosely – Just mixing it up• Teach Behavior to Required Levels• Program Indiscriminable contingencies

• √ Make use of rules to speed it up

Your turn

• Each of you write down an example of how response generalization has occurred with your behavior.

Maintenance (i.e. “Memory”)

• Continuing performance after it was first established

• Behavior Trap: Built in reinforcers take control of artificially delivered reinforcers

• Perpetual Performance Contracting does not exist

Verbal Behavior

• A response reinforced by another person’s response.

• 6 “Verbal Operants”– Mands: Asking

• Only type that benefits speaker (Remember MO)

– Tacts: Naming– Echoic: Repeating back– Intraverbal: Answer questions– Textual: Reading– Transcription: Writing