Monday, June 11, 2007

Hello everybody!

I am Leah Yulevich, a radical behaviorist; please visit my profile page for information about myself.  My aim in this blog is to discuss agenda for expanding operant research, and I hope experimenters, too, will join in and take the ideas further.
I’d like to begin with the obvious:

The laboratory situation:
Pressing a bar in a lab, the animal does not move away; the organism stays in place.

An experimental question:
Does the animal's immobility depend on reinforcement?

Reviewing cumulative records
The animal is stationary. But a bar-pressing body part (e.g. a paw, a beak, a hand) moves
and the rate increases.  The cumulative curves reflect stationary individuals whose body-parts move and accelerate. Only by accident was this obvious to me.
I am as sure today - as I was in 1984 - that it is correct and has general significance.

Immobilization - as a function of reinforcement - raises wide issues, for instance:
· What moves creatures from afar?
· Does reinforcement make organisms approach?
· Do remote conditioned signs or signals systematically attract persons and animals?

As for aversion:
The definitions of punishment don’t mention locomotion as free-operant behavior.
· Why don’t  healthy animals evade the lever that will shock them?
· Why don’t they just move away when threatened with electricity?
I think the answer is, chamber walls are electrified and subjects have no choice but to remain where they are. (See note*)

In any case, neither approach nor avoidance can be fully grasped if an animal’s direction of movement remains controversial.  This is why I suggest the time has come to expand conditioning research and include not only the temporal but also the spatial dimension.

The points about stationary subjects are these:
as they press keys, animals invariably sit or stand; so locomotion does not come under scrutiny.  No one sees why the entire organism moves.
Nor do we report the datum that reinforcement keeps animals at a standstill as they obtain grain or water.  Since they never go to and fro in the lab, animal-subjects have been hidden from view and scientists have little to say about them.

I worry because psychology and behavior analysis have grown apart. I feel it would be good if we could bridge the conceptual gaps between the two fields. Should anyone agree that this is important, I shall be delighted to hear their thoughts and comments.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you!
---------------
*Note
For example, Azrin, N.H. and Holz W.C. (1966) Punishment: Figure 1.”Breakfast in Bed”; p. 385 in OPERANT BEHAVIOR: AREAS OF RESEARCH AND APPLICATION. Editor, Werner K. Honig

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Lea

As you know, I found no problem in defining Zero-movement as a behavior to be reinforced. When you see organism standing in one place under Sd for staying-and being reinforced at some schedule-this is it! (he might still do other activities)

Have a wonderful week

Michaeli

Leah said...

Yes, I agree: while increasing the bar-pressing rate, reinforcement also keeps subjects in place. So a record that shows fast responding, also implies the presence of an active though stationary organism. Hence we know reinforcement brings movement to zero: the individual stays there.
This may sound strange, but only because lab studies have not yet revealed motives for locomotion, ie: ‘taxis’ - as distinct from ‘tropism’.
Anyway, both standstill and movement, and certainly evidence concerning attraction, is necessary for inferring not only how ‘aversives’ but reinforcement besides, control human beings and other sentient creatures, prey and predators.
Which takes us to an issue about language among behaviorists:
Some prefer saying what reinforcement does to practice rather than practitioners.
I think this is unwise. To my mind, stressing activity apart from individuals makes it hard to spread conditioning principles. I see good reason why behaviorists should emphasize the survival of species, plus what members do or stop doing.
I hope readers will discuss extending lab studies. After all, applications derive from conditioning data so expanding this basis should provide fresh perspective about people and animals.

Anonymous said...

Dear Leah,
Very impressive and inspiring ideas!!
I wish a serious scientist will "pick up the glove" and will help the Behaviorism and the human kind move to its next phase.
Good luck
Erez Y

Leah said...

Thanks, Erez. One surprising idea came while watching individuals interact and realising they affect each other's brain, nerves and muscles!
E.g.:
if listeners go to someone who calls, the caller makes the listeners move; so he affects their neuro-muscular system also;
and as interactions continue back and forth, the effects are mutual.
Then - knowing sights and sounds can make us cry, laugh, expect - anyone can infer that heart, lungs and glands can react to something far away, outside the body.
Put differently:
What persons SEE and HEAR can influence their movement AND their physiology.
Furthermore, this can be healthy, normalising, invigorating.
Since most attempts to explain behavior, stress internal causes, thinking of origins beyond individuals, sounds revolutionary, but only at first: people remember causes - perhaps daily stimuli - that can be downright delightful!