Just to repeat what I said in
class - watch Sniffy for a few minutes - slowing him down to his
slowest speed under File-Preferences may help. Then make a list of 6-10
behaviors that you see Sniffy do. Take a shot at operationally defining
each of the behaviors.
Remember that this is NOT
a test. It's a little project to get the ball rolling.
Write
up your thoughts in a Word document, or something that Word can open.
All computers on campus have Word. When in doubt, take a shot at it
yourself.
"Send" me the file via Blackboard's Drop Box function before
Wednesday's class.
If you have any problems - DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT!! We'll figure things
out, not to worry :)
Have fun with Sniffy and don't forget to bring him to class on
Wednesday!
Project 2
Ok, now we're going to jump deep into the book to match what Sniffy is
up to with what the text is discussing.
Read the material on pages 187-188 and run Exercise 38 (pages
189-194). There are some references to Classical Conditioning
here, a topic we haven't covered yet. Don't worry about those
references. What they mean will become clear later in the
course. Here we're doing an exercise that will demonstrate the
phenomena of Sensitization and Habituation. When you follow the
directions, you'll see that you're opening a file that represents a
pretained Sniffy. He'll be pounding away on the lever for food
reinforcement. You're going to start delivering shock to Sniffy
at Low, Medium, or High levels. Sniffy will habituate to one and
sensitize to one. Just follow the directions in the book
and you'll do fine. The Sniffy VR25 file is available on your
CD-ROM - the good news about this version of the file, versus the one I
discussed in class, is that you can't accidentally save over it - you
can't save on the CD-ROM at all. Caution it's VERY important that
you end up with 3 different files at the end of this - again, follow
the Sniffy book and you'll be OK. At the end of this, I want
these three files submitted through the Drop Box. I'd also like
you to do the following:
Print, or examine on the computer screen, the Cumulative Record of
conditioning trials 1-5, 21-25, and 46-50 for each level of
shock.
Calculate the average time that Sniffy's bar pressing is suppressed for
the three periods of the three intensity conditions. Remember
that the Cumulative Record represents 10 min of time by the space
between two SOLID vertical lines. To calculate the time of
suppression, measure the length of the Cumulative Recorder's line that
remains flat following the shock (measure everything in millimeters -
it'll be more accurate). Then measure the length of Cumulative
Record between the 10 min marker lines (you only have to record this
number once - it's a constant). Divide the length of your
first measure by the length of the second and multiply by 10 to produce
a value in minutes. Plot your averaged results as a bar
chart. If you love Excel, you could make a chart there and submit
the file, but I'll be just as happy for this to be turned in on paper
in the folder outside my office. Have the average time on the
vertical axis and the three time periods on the horizontal axis (1-5,
21-25, and 46-50). Over each of those labels, put 3 bars right
together for low, middle, and high shock intensities. Have a
space between each cluster of 3 bars. If you've done something
else that makes sense, that's OK too.
Enjoy!!
Project 3
It's Classical Conditioning time. In the preceding
example, there was no specific cue (other than time) that told Sniffy
when shock would be delivered. Here, you will associate a
specific cue with the shock and I think you'll see a difference in his
behavior. You'll watch Sniffy learn the association between the
cue and shock and then you'll remove the linkage and sniffy will learn
that the cue no longer is associated with shock, the association will
extinguish.
You'll be doing Exercises 20 and 21 (starting on p 104) in Chapter
7. Basically, you run 20, save it, and then use that file to run
21 and save that - you'll see. NOTE!!!, we will make one change
to the Sniffy Manual directions, instead of running 10 trials we will
run 20. So, Type "20" in the text box located to the right of the
Present Each Trial Type
instead of "10."
Before running Exercise 20 - please read the bit of text that precedes
it in Chapter 7 (beginning on p. 103). A wise student would also
read ALL of Chapter 6 before doing any of the above. This, I must
warn you, involves a fair amount of reading (83-101) and discussion of
menu options. It isn't life and death that you look at it,
because Chapter 7 does give you all the steps you need to run the
exercises, but you'll be a better-informed consumer of the results and
processes if you do take the time to read Chapter 6.
Through
the Drop Box, I want you to submit ONLY the file that
represents Exercise 21 (I'll see 20 in there too, since 21 is based on
having run 20). Please also print the Suppression Ratio and CS
Response Strength windows for each of your files and submit them in the
folder outside of my office.
Project 4
It's shaping
time!! This is going to be simple to explain. Do Exercises
1 and 2 in the Manual and submit the Exercise 2 file into Drop
Box. On the Discussion Board there will be a new Sniffy
thread. On there (the new one - NOT the old one) tell us the
story of what you experienced in each of the two exercises. I'm
not looking for long essays here. Just tell us how long it took
to do each exercise and anything you noticed about Sniff and or the
training process. So, to review, by the deadline you should have
one file in Drop Box and a brief thoughtful posting on the Discussion
Board.
Project 5
Now we'll try to replicate Skinner's first experience with partial
reinforcement schedules on that sunny Saturday afternoon at Harvard, as
well as a few other schedules. Get Sniffy solidly performing on
Continuous Reinforcement. What do I mean by solidly
performing? Both of his mind bars should be maxed out and you
should detect no "trend" in responding over the course of at least 5
minutes (if your saved Sniffy file from Project 4 meets these criteria,
you can simply open that one up, or, I have to admit, use the CRF
Sniffy file that came with your program).
OK, now go to Experiment-Design
Operant Experiment put Sniffy on one of the following: FI
1-min, VI 1-min, FR 20, or VR 20 (we'll divide up these tasks in
class). Let Sniffy run on the new schedule watching her/him in
real time for at least 10 minutes. Then put Sniffy into
accelerated time and let him/her run until the computer won't let
her/him run anymore. Take a peek at what Sniffy ended up doing at
the end of the session.
Having done the above, save and Drop Box the file and post your
commentary about Sniffy's initial reaction (watch his brain bars) to
the experience and describe how he/she ended up.
Project 6
Now we'll do it the
right way - that is we'll get Sniffy onto a partial reinforcement
schedule without causing frustration to the point that Sniffy stops
hitting the lever. First, look at Exercises 8 and 9 for a
discussion of how to move Sniffy from continuous reinforcement and
follow these principles to get Sniffy on the schedule you used in
Project 5 (Exercises 10, 11, and 12 have graphs that may be relevant to
your specific schedule). Look at the end of Exercise 8 for how to
recognize that Sniffy is "happy" on your partial reinforcement
schedule. Stop Sniffy at this point and, to be safe, save your
file. Then do Exercise 13 and follow its directions, skipping
Step 10, for what to hand in by hard copy. I'd also like the
final file submitted by Drop Box. Enjoy!
Project 7
Important - read the
beginning of the chapter before doing Exercises 14 and 15.
Project 8
Exercises 16 and 17
Project 9
Exercises 18 and 19