Month: February 2018

Symbols and Notation in Behavior Analysis

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / Leave a comment

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Symbols and notation in behavior analytic research is fascinating. I find myself thrilled coming across the diagrams in the professional literature and getting so much from so little. A few letters, an arrow, a nice Δ (delta); it’s beautiful. If you are familiar with journals like the Behavior Analyst, The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), or The Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, you might have encountered some of these symbols. Now what these symbols and notations do, is help take large concepts like a Response, or Stimulus, or Reinforcement and Punishment, and lay them out into an orderly system of presentation without the need for paragraphs of explanation. Let’s look at this one for example:

SR

It shows some very common symbolic notation.

S, stands for stimulus.

The arrow, stands for “followed by” or “elicits” depending on whether it’s operant or respondent.

R, stands for response.

These are the foundational pieces of behavior analytic symbol and notation. I’ve created a chart below to show you these and some of the other variations you might come across.

Symbols

We can see some interesting variations between the notation symbols, mainly when it comes to how we use them in terms of conditioned and unconditioned. When we are talking about stimuli and responses that are not reinforcers/punishers, we use the abbreviations; S for Stimulus, R for Response, C for conditioned, and U for unconditioned. The status of the stimulus or response as either conditioned/unconditioned always comes as the first letter of the initialism.

When we talk about reinforcement, punishment, discriminative, and delta, the S for stimulus always comes first as a capital letter, followed by the type of stimulus in superscript. Now, unlike the basic conditioned/unconditioned stimuli/responses above, these superscripts use capitalization to distinguish between a conditioned reinforcer/punisher, and an unconditioned reinforcer/punisher, so remember to keep an eye out for that. Unconditioned punishers and reinforcers use a capital letter in superscript, while conditioned punishers and reinforcers use a lower case letter in superscript. Following the conditioned/unconditioned formatting, we distinguish between “positive” and “negative” by using + for positive reinforcers and punishers, and – for negative reinforcers and punishers.

This is very helpful when we want to nail down exactly what kind of contingencies we are seeing. You may remember that reinforcement is a process where a behavior is more likely to occur in the presence of an antecedent, because it has been reinforced in the past in those conditions. What that kind of reinforcer was, is important. Was it unconditioned? Things like food, water, etc. The basics things we as humans seek out naturally.  They are very effective, but can become subject to satiation. Now what about an unconditioned reinforcer? Something trained, or taught, through past experience. Money is a common one, tokens as well, or even art. The distinction between conditioned and unconditioned is no small gap, conceptually, so we want to be clear when we read these symbols as to what we are actually talking about.

Now that we have the symbols, let’s combine what we know to examine this example!

SR+

We would read this as, a Stimulus (S) is followed by a Response (R) which is followed by the presentation of an Unconditioned Positive Reinforcer SR+.

What kind of examples can you come up with? Leave them below!

 

 

 

Sources:

COOPER, JOHN O.. HERON, TIMOTHY E.. HEWARD, WILLIAM L. (2018). APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. S.l.: PEARSON.

Sundel, M., & Sundel, S. S. (2018). Behavior change in the human services: behavioral and cognitive principles and applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Photo Credits:
http://www.pexels.com

 

 

Behavior is like Dinosaurs: Behavioral Selectionism Theory

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 1 Comment

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Selectionism is a mind-blower when it comes to the conceptual and philosophical framework of behavior analysis, behaviorism, and even psychology as a whole. Like the Lawfulness of Behavior, it was also a concept B. F Skinner wrote about, but there are countless contributions from prior philosophical works that contributed to its conceptualization.

Think of it like this; Behavior is like dinosaurs. Or humans. Or rabbits. Anything alive really. It only keeps “happening” (continuing to exist) if it can adapt in its environment. It is selected either by adaptation or consequences, thus the term Selectionism.

What we are going to be drawing parallels to here is the work of Charles Darwin in evolution. Adaptation. Survival of the fittest. He introduced a concept to the world called “natural selection”, in which species were selected through random traits that served to aid them in survival. This was his theory of evolution. He describes this discovery:

“In October 1838, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work.” (Darwin, 1887)

But what does that mean for behavior? These same things that apply to evolution, and continuation of species, Skinner believed also apply to how our behaviors are shaped and maintained. Our behaviors are very much like living creatures, and we can even see terminology in behavioral science that hearkens back to it. Take these examples:

Dinosaurs that survived through cataclysm and successfully reproduced are said to have adapted. This is Darwinian terminology, and is called phylogenic adaptation. It involves a species. All the little dinosaur survivors who eventually passed on their genetic traits and “became” birds.

An operant behavior, that undergoes reinforcement, is more likely to happen again under the same antecedent conditions in the future. That is to say, a behavior that “works”, is more likely to happen again. It is a foundation of learning. This is called ontogenic adaptation, and happens within a single lifetime.

Do you see the parallels? Dinosaurs that survived the cataclysm passed on their genes. A behavior that successfully achieves or gets something, happens again in the future in those same conditions, most likely.

Now this isn’t just unidirectional. It can also be stopped. For both theories, the term extinction is used.

Dinosaurs that did not adapt through cataclysm and could not pass on their genes eventually died out. Their species underwent extinction. There were no more of those dinosaurs.

An operant behavior, which does not receive reinforcement, is less likely to continue in the future and eventually becomes extinguished. It undergoes extinction. If it does not work under those antecedent conditions, repeatedly, it “dies out” in very much the same way. That behavior does not occur again in those situations.

The choice of those words were not just coincidental. When B.F Skinner was formulating his theories of human behavior that went beyond simple stimulus-response conditions, he wanted to explain how certain behaviors came about, maintained, and eventually were lost. We see this within a single individual’s lifetime, and it seems like common sense: If it doesn’t work, you just don’t keep doing it. Now this may happen at varying rates of loss, which is why the terminology of behavior focuses on a scale of reduction in probability rather than complete loss immediately, but it follows the same route of “passing on” due to “usefulness”.

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Do you remember those words phylogenic and ontogenic used above? Phylogenic regarding species, ontogenic regarding individual. This terminology can also describe behavior. You could say a phylogenic behavior, is one that all human beings have. It is a species-wide set of behaviors. The “nature” part of nature and nuture. So, blinking, for example is a phylogenic behavior. It is also a reflex, but one humans in general share. It would not take any learning to acquire or shape. Now, an ontogenic behavior, one shaped through reinforcement in a lifetime, say writing a great speech, is something that not all human beings would have from birth. It was learned through successive experiences of language being reinforced, then public speaking being reinforced, then the combining of the two to make a solid speech. Behavior shaped within a lifetime. Behavior can also take on shaping from broader aspects of contingencies in our society, or metacontingencies in culture as well. Culture, rules, laws, other people, can shape our behavior as well through these same processes.

Skinner would describe this in his book “Science and Human Nature”:

“Reflexes, conditioned or otherwise, are mainly concerned with the internal physiology of the organism. We are most often interested, however, in behavior which has some effect upon the surrounding world. Such behavior raises most of the practical problems in human affairs and is also of
particular theoretical interest because of its special characteristics. The consequences of behavior may “feed
back” into the organism. When they do so, they may change the probability that the behavior which produced them will occur again. The English language contains many words, such as “reward” and “punishment,” which refer to this effect, but we can get a clear picture of it only through experimental analysis.” (Skinner, 1953)

Behaviors, are a lot like dinosaurs. The most fit, and adaptive, survive. We often call this process learning. We learn to do things better. Behaviors, skills, what have you, continue and shape themselves because they are reinforced (rewarded), and become more successful, and continue to receive reinforcement under those right conditions. If they don’t, they undergo extinction. Just like dinosaurs.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Give them to me.

Sources:

COOPER, JOHN O.. HERON, TIMOTHY E.. HEWARD, WILLIAM L. (2018). APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. S.l.: PEARSON.
Darwin, C. (1958). The autobiography of Charles Darwin (N. Barlow, Ed.). New York: Norton. (Original work published 1887)

Skinner, B. F., & Skinner, B. F. (2012). Science And Human Behavior. Riverside: Free Press.

Image Credits:

http://www.pixabay.com Stock Photos

The Lawfulness of Behavior

/ Chris Sawyer, M.Ed.,BCBA / 2 Comments

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This is one of the big concept pieces seen in Applied Behavior Analysis, and Behaviorism in general. The Lawfulness of Behavior. What does that mean, exactly?

Let’s pick the concept apart. To be lawful, something has to follow some kind of order.

It comes from the philosophy of Determinism in which behavior, like any other natural phenomena, is affected and caused by external events, including its history; and that behavior is something that can be studied, just like other natural phenomena. Behavior follows rules, and can impact and be impacted by other phenomena that we can observe and track. The Lawfulness of Behavior is a foundational precept of behavioral science, and has roots in one of B.F Skinner’s earlier and seminal works “Science and Human Behavior” where he states:

“Science is more than the mere description of events as they occur. It
is an attempt to discover order, to show that certain events stand in
lawful relations to other events. No practical technology can be
based upon science until such relations have been discovered. But
order is not only a possible end product; it is a working assumption
which must be adopted at the very start. We cannot apply the methods
of science to a subject matter which is assumed to move about
capriciously. Science not only describes, it predicts. It deals not only
with the past but with the future…If we are to use the methods
of science in the field of human affairs, we must assume that behavior
is lawful and determined. We must expect to discover that what a
man does is the result of specifiable conditions and that once these
conditions have been discovered, we can anticipate and to some
extent determine his actions.” (Skinner, 1951).

That was just in the first ten pages of the book too. Imagine, if you are not already, reading that concept for the first time. It is a strong statement to make about humanity. The same scientific method and principles which can reasonably predict an object falling to gravity, can understand and predict human behavior as well. That is, behavior, is lawful. Science itself has been known to have three main purposes; Description, Prediction, and Control. It’s a process. It’s how we test and replicate our hypotheses about the world.

For this to work, the universe has to be a lawful, orderly place where everything occurs as a result of other events. Events occur because they have had factors leading up to them that contribute to a change, or action (or inaction). The universe around us, then, is not completely random. It is not a bed of chaos where anything and everything can happen at any minute without order. In science, the scientist assumes lawfulness first and then moves on to find the lawful relations between variables. This process, according to Skinner, can be applied exactly the same way in behavior.

With enough understanding: Behavior can be described. Behavior can be predicted. Behavior can be controlled.

The idea of the Lawfulness of Behavior has, and has had, some critics. When taking this principle and thinking about the free will of human beings, we can begin to see some discrepancies between the two. If behavior is subjected to the same laws as anything else, is determined by cause and effect, and it can be described, predicted, and controlled; what might that mean for the place of true independent choice and personal agency? What about something that can not be observed, like a thought, or a dream.

Take a thought, for example. Can an external observer describe a thought in someone else’s head? No. Then how could they predict something like a thought? Control something like a thought? It sounds impossible.

Behaviorist philosophies, such as methodological behaviorism, and radical behaviorism, both see ideas and thoughts as what are called “private events”. Methodological behavioral philosophy refuses to tackle these as legitimate phenomenon, as they are seen as tangential to external causes of behavior which are much more reliable at prediction. Radical behavioral philosophy, coined by B.F Skinner, do not deny “private events” specifically in scientific exploration, but they consider them behavior that can not be seen by outside observers. They exist, have impact, just as any behavior, but can not be studied as reliably as an event that can have multiple observers. Also, as a behavior, ideas and thoughts can come under the same lawfulness and order as any other phenomena, just more difficult to objectively observe.

What do you think?

Sources:

COOPER, JOHN O.. HERON, TIMOTHY E.. HEWARD, WILLIAM L. (2018). APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. S.l.: PEARSON.

Skinner, B. F., & Skinner, B. F. (2012). Science And Human Behavior. Riverside: Free Press.