The Behavior of Organisms: Purposive Behavior as a Type of Reflex

Pigeon's key pecking was reinforced with food in two experiments in which the correspondence between preference for starting one of two reinforced behavior patterns and the likelihood of finishing it subsequently was examined. Reinforcers were scheduled according to concurrent schedules for two classes of interresponse times, modified such that reinforcers followed a center-key peck terminating either a shorter interresponse time started by a left-key peck or a longer interresponse time started by a right-key peck. In Experiment 1, the times when reinforcers potentially were available were not discriminated, whereas in Experiment 2 they were. Absolute reinforced pattern durations were varied. The relative frequency of starting a particular pattern was highly correlated with relative frequency of that completed pattern in both experiments. Other relations between starting and finishing a pattern depended on whether reinforced interresponse times were discriminated. For instance, preference for starting a pattern sometimes correlated negatively with the likelihood of subsequently completing it. The present experiments are described as capturing part of the ordinary language meaning of "intention," according to which an organism's behavior at one moment sets the occasion for an observer to say that the organism "intends" in the future to engage in one behavior rather than another.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference for Starting and Finishing Behavior Patterns

Shimp

Sabulsky

Childers

1989

“…To remove mentalistic concepts, Skinner reduced processing and integration to a single consequence-response relation (including discriminative stimuli) that was strengthened by reinforcers. Initially, Skinner (1938) added the concept of reflex reserve to account for longterm effects of reinforcement (Killeen, 1988;Timberlake, 1988). However, the function of the reflex reserve was gradually taken over by the organism's reinforcement history, a concept that apparently escapes mediational status by residing at the interface of the environment and the subject.…”

Section: Skinnermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key to both the conceptual simplicity and relative inflexibility of Skinner's approach was his technique of codefining his basic set of concepts-discriminative stimuli, responses, reinforcers (consequences), and reinforcement effect (Jenkins, 1979;Timberlake, 1988). In Skinner's approach, a reinforcer is an event that changes the rate of a response (an operant class) upon which it is closely contingent, a response is a member of a class of movement that is changed in rate by a reinforcer, a stimulus is an environmental change that controls the rate of a response, and reinforcement is a change in response rate that occurs following the presentation of a reinforcer.…”

Section: Skinnermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Skinner's approach, a reinforcer is an event that changes the rate of a response (an operant class) upon which it is closely contingent, a response is a member of a class of movement that is changed in rate by a reinforcer, a stimulus is an environmental change that controls the rate of a response, and reinforcement is a change in response rate that occurs following the presentation of a reinforcer. These phenomena do not exist independently of each other except perhaps in the form of "candi-ill dates," a term Skinner disliked but that appropriately implies that reinforcers, responses, and stimuli have been selected in a preliminary way by the experimenter but cannot be actually confirmed until reinforcement occurs (Timberlake, 1988).…”

Section: Skinnermentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Behavior Systems and Reinforcement: An Integrative Approach

Timberlake¹

1993

Self Cite

180

110

Most traditional conceptions of reinforcement are based on a simple causal model in which responding is strengthened by the presentation of a reinforcer. I argue that reinforcement is better viewed as the outcome of constraint of a functioning causal system comprised of multiple interrelated causal sequences, complex linkages between causes and effects, and a set of initial conditions. Using a simplified system conception of the reinforcement situation, I review the similarities and drawbacks of traditional reinforcement models and analyze the recent contributions of cognitive, regulatory, and ecological approaches. Finally, I show how the concept of behavior systems can begin to incorporate both traditional and recent conceptions of reinforcement in an integrative approach.

“…They are tinkered with, so that "research that appears to test hypotheses … really tests only procedures" (Smedslund, 2002 p. 51). Such "tuning" has been present ab ovo (Staddon, 2014;Timberlake, 1988). The matching paradigm makes functional behavior dysfunctional: Organisms naturally choose what they prefer in order to get more of it, but getting more of it-beyond the values scheduled by the experimenter-is seldom permitted on concurrent interval schedules.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The logistics of choice

Killeen

2015

The generalized matching law (GML) is reconstructed as a logistic regression equation that privileges no particular value of the sensitivity parameter, a. That value will often approach 1 due to the feedback that drives switching that is intrinsic to most concurrent schedules. A model of that feedback reproduced some features of concurrent data. The GML is a law only in the strained sense that any equation that maps data is a law. The machine under the hood of matching is in all likelihood the very law that was displaced by the Matching Law. It is now time to return the Law of Effect to centrality in our science.