Teaching the Dog to Go Outside

Classical Conditioning is learning to associate two stimuli and to anticipate an event.

Recently I got a dog. We have been trying to train her to go to the bathroom outside, because she would always go to the bathroom on the carpet, and I would have to clean it up, which I hated. First we started trying to crate train meaning that she would be in her crate all day and then when we came home from school/work, we would take her out and she could take care of her business outside. It was working for a while, but then we stopped crate training her and she was taking care of her business inside again. Then we had to go back to crate training and we would give her treats every time she would come back from her walk after going to the bathroom outside, but then she started to get fat. Nothing was working, but that's probably just because we hadn't been training her long enough.

Anyways, reason for me telling you this: As we were training her to go to the bathroom outside, my mom told me a story about her friend and how her friend trained her dog in a classical conditioning type of way . What m mom's friend did was that every time they would take the dog out for a walk and to go to the bathroom, they would take the dog's paw and tap it on a bell that was hanging on the door, which would make the noise. After a while the dog had learned to associate the bell and going to the bathroom. The dog learned to tap the bell when it needed to go outside to go to the bathroom.

When my mom told me about the dog, we had not learned about classical conditioning yet, so I just thought that it was a cool idea that the dog was able to do that after a while. After learning about classical conditioning, I actually understand what was going on with the dog while it was learning to go to the bathroom outside. Maybe we should try that on my dog and maybe she will stop going to the bathroom on all of our carpets.

Learned Helplessness

While conducting research on classical conditioning at the University of Pennsylvania in the 60's, Martin Seligman accidentally discovered the theory of learned helplessness. He observed that dogs that received a shock on one side of a box didn't even try to jump over the dividing fence to the other side of the box where, unbeknown to the poor pup, there would be no shock given. The dog here illustrated the concept of learned helplessness- he didn't even attempt to escape to safety because he assumed the shock would be on the other side of the fence as well. This assumption is an example of the cognitive element of classical conditioning.

Learned helplessness is very much present in humans too. In life we are constantly faced with failures and defeats that crush us. They make us feel like we are helpless, that we have no control over our lives and what goes on in it. Learned helplessness explains why we often remain passive or indifferent to adverse situations in life even when we have the capability of changing the outcome. The idea of earned helplessness has even been used in relation to very weighty situations and disorders such as depression, domestic abuse, poverty, discrimination, addiction, etc.

The moral of the story: We have control over our lives and situations. Want to lose those few extra pounds? Hard work will get you there! Want to improve your grades? Better get on it, sister! Want to make some extra moolah? Find someone in need of a babysitter! You got this, I promise.
(Am I as inspiring as Charlie Harary yet?)

I'll end here with a fun fact: Martin Seligman's favorite color is magenta because of its amazing calming effects on then body. Cool.

Generalizations vs. Discriminations

Generalization: when the same response occurs for similar stimuli.
Discrimination: learning to respond differently to different stimuli.

These two things are so fascinating. They're opposites of one another, yet they both happen rather frequently.

Let's look at some examples of the two things..

Generalization: when a child learns how to say dog when he sees a specific type of dog (ex. a poodle) and then he says dog again when he sees a different type of dog (ex. a german shepherd) the child has generalized between the two stimuli.

Discrimination: going back to the example of Pavlov's dogs - if the dog had salivated only at the sound of the tone that had been paired with the food and not a similar tone that was slightly different it would have been discriminating.

What I want to know is how does one thing happen over another??

I think that a lot of it has to do with the stimulus and also the persons mindset at the time. It just goes to show you that classical conditioning is just another one of those things we can use the bio-pscho-social approach for!

There are biological influences (genetic predispositions, unconditioned responses, adaptive responses), psychological influences (previous experiences, predictability of associations, generalization, discrimination), and social-cultural influences (culturally learned preferences and motivating, affected by presence of others).

The marshmallow test.

A test was done on children. They wanted to see how much patience and understanding kids have. They sad a kid in a room with one marshmallow. They told them that if they don't eat the marshmallow the whole time they have to wait then they get another one. The results where interesting. Some kids ate it right away. Some waited but then couldn't resist. A few withstood the challenge and kept out until they received the second one.  They realized that by suffering now they will get a larger reward later.

How much to we understand and learn about time. Do we learn and understand how we should act today to benefit tomorrow? What age do we learn that concept. I wonder if those kids turn out differently when they are older. Are the patient kids more successful?  Do they do better at school? The way we learn is a fascinating subject. But how much do personality play into it all?

Bad Parenting...or is it?

While we were learning about operant conditioning in class, we learned all about reinforcement and punishment. We also learned about how positive and negative mean adding something and taking something away, respectively. As we were going through all of the concepts and related examples in class, all I could think of was parenting. How do our parents use reinforcements and punishments to get their children to behave the way they want them to behave? Then, on Saturday night, I was sitting in my room, when "What Would You Do?" came on. Funny enough, the episode was about parents who put their kids on leashes. Here's the video:

Naturally, as they said at the start of the video, this video was a representation of the leash concept's extreme conclusion. I would like to examine the concept of putting a child, or even a dog, on a leash. First of all, using a least is a form of positive punishment. It adds the leash to help get rid of the negative behavior: running away. Yes, I understand that this is not always the case. Sometimes, leashes are merely used as safety measures to keep dogs and children close by.

Imagine that your two-year-old kid loves running away from you in the middle of the grocery store. As a parent, you have a few options. For example, you can either take the kid outside when he runs away (negative punishment) or you can put a leash on the kid to keep him from running too far (positive punishment and safety). Recently, I have noticed that many parents are opting for the leash method, especially for toddlers and energetic children. Interestingly enough, a lot of parents actually think that putting their kids on leashes isn't a form of punishment at all. I suppose it depends on the situation. Even so, leashes have gotten a bad rap recently because some parents, like the "mom" in the video, treat their children like actual animals.

Here are some questions to consider:  What would you have done if you saw the child in the video tied to the post? As a future parent, will you even consider using this form of positive punishment on your children? Do you think it actually works?

Why Are Seals and Dogs So Talented?

This past May, I took a family vacation to California, and oh boy, do I miss it. Anyways, when we were at Sea World in San Diego, the last show that we say of a seal/sea lion show. Even if you have been to the Memphis Zoo, you have probably seen seal and sea lions perform right?

It was a hot day, and my family and I were getting tired. We decided to see one last show before heading out. Oh man, did we choose wisely. As we sat down and were waiting for the show to start, I looked at the stage and saw the trainers practicing with the seals and sea lions. Every time they had done a trick correctly they got a fish. At the time, I really didn't think anything of it at the time. Of course they would give them fish, because in their wild habitat, that is what they would eat anyways. So basically, I thought of it as a simple snack.

This past week in class we had started the unit on learning. There are three types of learning, but I want to focus on one particular one, called operant conditioning. Operant conditioning can be described as when an organism's behavior is reinforced by its consequence. Now the fish for a trick thing made sense. I can now understand that the trainers were giving the seals and sea lions fish as positive reinforcement. The fish, being the positive reinforcement, made the seals and sea lions think that, "oh, maybe if I do that trick again, I'll get another fish!" Because of this amazing concept of operant conditioning, Seamore, the sea lion can entertain America!

Besides, positive reinforcement, there is also something called positive punishment. Now, I know what you might be thinking, how can punishment be positive. We must not think of punishment as a bad thing because in psychological terms all it means is doing an action to make a behavior stop. For example, when my dog was puppy and was not house trained, he used to pee all over the house. When he did so, we called him over to the puddle and stuck his nose in the pee. I mean, I don't think pee smells so good, so between that and taking him outside to pee as often as possible he learned not to pee in the house. So, let me break it down. Leo peed in the house (the behavior that we didn't like), we took his nose and stuck it in the pee (positive punishment because it was adding something to make the action stop), and he eventually stopped peeing in the house (desired response). Leo is just so smart! (I love funny memes)

Is Punishment Really Worth It?

         As we continue to learn about learning, I find it more and more interesting. This week we focused more on operant conditioning, the second idea? method? of learning. Operant conditioning is where we learn to associate our behavior with the consequences of this behavior and thus to repeat acts followed by good results and to avoid acts followed by bad results. Pretty much, operant conditioning revolves around reinforcements (rewards) and punishments (punishments).

         Unlike classical conditioning, which upholds the beliefs of Pavlov and John Watson, operant conditioning revolves around the ideas of Thorndike and Skinner. Thorndike believed in the law of effect, which states that something that is reinforced will continue to be performed in the future, and vice versa. Skinner developed the operant chamber (or the Skinner box) that revealed principles of behavior control. In this box, there would be different things for testing behavior, such as lights, bars, food and water dispensers, etc. Through this box, Skinner wanted to see if a rat could learn to push the bar when being reinforced with water or only when the light comes on.

         These ideas contained the principles of shaping and reinforcement/punishment. In shaping, reinforcers are any events that strengthens a preceding response. There is also successive approximations, or chaining, where the animal would be reinforced first for going near the bar, then touching the bar, and then eventually pressing the bar- you are using successive approximations and reinforcement to get the animal to produce the desired behavior.

         The discriminative stimulus is also part of these ideas. The animal learns to discriminate from the desired product. For instance, if a rat was conditioned to only press the bar when a square came up, it would discriminate any other shape.

         Reinforcements and punishments are the basis of operant conditioning. It is important to remember the the psychological definitions of reinforcement and punishment differ from the normal definition. In psychology, reinforcement is any event that strengthens a preceding response and increases the likelihood that it will occur again in the future. Punishment is any event that diminishes a preceding response and decreases the likelihood that the behavior will occur again in the future.

         Another part of reinforcements and punishments that aren't how we usually think are positive and negative reinforcements and punishments. Positive reinforcements is where something added to make the behavior continue and positive punishments is where something is added to make the behavior stop. Negative reinforcements is where something is taken away to make the behavior continue and negative punishments is where something is taken away to make the behavior stop.

         On psychologytoday.com, there is an article entitled "Should You Punish Your Child" that clearly applies these ideas. According to Gina Green, the best way to reduce undesired behavior is to provide reinforcement for good behavior. Instead of using punishments, which often lead to resentment, emotional strife, or avoidance, use positive reinforcement! By looking at the situation in a different light, there's a better chance that you'll get the desired behavior.

Your Brain Lies To You

The article refers to "source amnesia". In the comic, Calvin is pretending to have actual amnesia. The point is: I love Calvin.

The New York Times posted an article written by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt on June 29, 2008 entitled "Your brain lies to you". READ IT. CLICK HERE. YOU'LL LOVE IT. I know it's not a TEDx video, but it's still worth something in my eyes.

False beliefs; this is the premise of the article. This article was written, remember, back in the summer of 2008, when current President Barack Obama was still a just a senator on a campaign. And on this groundbreaking campaign of his, he was faced with many an obstacle. One such obstacle was the accusation that he was a "Muslim". Now, I know. It sounds dumb to discriminate against someone because he/she is a Muslim. But, you know... Discrimination is odd and fears are irrational. Anyways, the point is that 10 percent of the citizens in this country believed Obama to be a Muslim even though he's Christian. How is this possible? Well, the brain is a weird and complex thing. (It's not as weird and complex as Americans,  but it's cutting it close.. ;) ) 

The article goes on to describe how brain stores information. Facts are stored in the hippocampus, but every time we recall information, our brain writes it down again. It is reprocessed. In time, the fact is gathered in the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. Do you remember how you learned every fact you know? Do you think you could trace all your known-facts back to their sources?  This phenomenon is known as source amnesia; because of this, people might be lead to forget whether a statement is true or false- even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer.

Misremembering gets worse over time. "A false statement from a non-credible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage." Have you ever found yourself believing something to be true when you knew the source wasn't credible? Campaign strategists use source amnesia to spread misinformation. Over time, when repeating a falsehood, people may back it up with "I think I read it somewhere" or something like that. The more you're exposed to a falsehood, the more likely you are to believe it and give it credibility. The article then quotes the Stanford study with the students who either opposed or favored capital punishment. Hey! That was in the book! Fun! But in the book it focused on how we like to believe things that favor our opinions. Indeed, so does the article- "ideas can spread by emotional selection, rather than by their factual merits, encouraging the persistence of falsehoods." Are you quicker to believe ideas that you agree with? Be honest! 

Things to think about:

What does it take to get people to listen to ideas outside their personal beliefs?

Do you think source amnesia is dangerous? 

Behavior Modification in Modern Culture

During last night's whirlwind of a storm, I browsed through the handy-dandy interweb, looking for "blogspiration."Suddenly, as the rain pattered against my window, I stumbled across a perfect example of operant conditioning. The laugh-inducing video, from an episode of The Big Bang Theory, describes how Sheldon Cooper attempts to modify Penny's behaviors using operant conditioning.

First, let's define operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is learning to associate a behavior (a response) with the consequences of this behavior and thus to repeat acts followed by good results and to avoid acts followed by bad results. Organisms associate their own actions with consequences. Learning takes place after the response and is used to impact future behavior.

Operant conditioning is based off the ideas of Edward L. Thorndike and B.F. Skinner. Thorndike introduced his law of effect which is the basis of operant conditioning. His idea was the principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely. Skinner developed a behavioral technology that revealed principles of behavior control. Skinner designed an operant chamber, otherwise known as a Skinner box, containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer. Attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking. To form behavior, Skinner used shaping, a procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.

The first part of the four-minute, twenty-two second clip, is of Penny doing behaviors that are favorable in Sheldon's eyes. She clears his plate, assures he has a seat on the couch, remains quiet, and takes her phone call outside. Each time she does so, she receives a chocolate. Sheldon was using positive reinforcement to strengthen Penny's response. Sheldon added a desirable stimulus, the chocolate, following the correct behavior so that it would continue. 

Leonard realizes this, and is soon offered a chocolate for his correct assumption. He declines, but Sheldon assures him that he can train Penny to jump out of the pool bouncing a beach ball on her head (that had me laughing). When Leonard forbids Sheldon from applying the principles of operant conditioning on Penny, Sheldon sprays Leonard with water, therefore using positive punishment to stop the behavior. He administered an aversive stimulus to cease the behavior or response from occurring again. 

Sheldon then tells Leonard that if he were to use negative reinforcement, he could train Penny by the time they were ready to go to sleep. In negative reinforcement, Sheldon would remove something each time so that for example, Penny's voice could be lowered to a more "pleasing register."

Anyways, I found this video incredibly entertaining. On a side note, Sheldon ends his plans by making warm milk and then going to sleep (a reference to the sleep chapter)! 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. 

For your viewing pleasure, here is the video. 

Punish Your Child!

The most interesting scenario we talked about last week, in my opinion, was the parent dealing with the kid throwing a tantrum in the store. We talked about quite a few scenarios this week, but this one I found particularly relatable. In the scenario, the father is pushing around his child in a grocery store. The child is throwing a tantrum. She is screaming and begging for a lollipop. If the parent gives in and gives the child the lollipop, then the child is likely to throw a tantrum again when she wants something. This is known as positive reinforcement (adding a desirable stimulus that increases a certain behavior). If the parent is giving the child a lollipop just to get her to stop screaming then it is negative punishment (removing an aversive stimulus that increases a certain behavior). No matter which kind of reinforcement it is, the child is likely to throw another tantrum every time she does not get what she wants. This, my friends, is what we call the creation of a monster.

I'm sure parents and even siblings can attest to how awful and painful it can be to listen to a little kid scream and shriek about not getting exactly what they want all the time. Girls are the worst. As a an older sister, I have had my fair share of experiences when I have had to deal with a little girl screaming in public because we are not willing to buy her an expensive, useless piece of junk. The issue is, a little girl is also daddy's little princess. And the Dad never wants to punish or say no to his little princess. The problem is, each time you can't say no to your child or can't push yourself to punish your child when they misbehave, the more likely it is that they will continue to display this type of undersized behavior. This is why we always yell at my dad when he gives in to Emma's demands. According to operant conditioning, the more you give in to a child when they act poorly/scream/yell, the more likely they are to do it again. It would even be better to just ignore the child, which is negative punishment (withdrawing an undersized stimulus).

Studies have even shown that adults who are not punished as a child are more likely to act cruelly and commit crimes. These children  are not used to limitations since their parents did not punish them and just gave in whenever they wanted something. Psychologists have also said that cruelty in adolescents is a sign of their inability to accept any punishment. So, what this means is that punishment is important. I don't mean physical violence or abuse, but the psychological meaning of punishment in relation to operant conditioning--decreasing the likelihood of a behavior by adding or removing a stimulus. Punishing a child not only saves you money, it also decreases the likelihood that your child will become a criminal! So it's about time parents stop worrying about making their child cry for 10 minutes and actually do something that will help in the long run. Punishment is not bad--it actually is a win-win situation. Parents have to deal with the kid's temper less often, won't have to buy their kids unnecessary toys or give in to whatever they want, and the kid will learn valuable lessons while also not becoming prone to getting their way. And of course there's that plus of not being a criminal.