Study Questions - Chapter 7
Behavior Analysis and Learning, Fourth Edition is an essential textbook covering the basic principles in the field of behavior analysis and learned behaviors, as pioneered by B. F. Skinner.
- 1. State what is meant by the dual function of a stimulus. Give an example of such a stimulus. (p. 149)
- Discuss a pigeon's key pecking as an operant and as a respondent. (p. 150)
- Outline the Brelands' effect of instinctive drift. How does this effect fit within a respondent conditioning view? (p. 151)
- What is sign tracking and how does it apparently challenge the operant, three-term contingency model (SD: R ? Sr)? Describe the Jenkins, Barrera, Ireland, and Woodside (1978) experiment and its findings. How do respondent relations help to explain these findings? (p. 152)
- Compare shaping by successive approximation with the autoshaping procedure of Brown and Jenkins (1968). Describe the research on autoshaping and the basic findings. (p. 153)
- What do sign tracking, autoshaping, and instinctive drift have in common? How can the dispute between operant and respondent accounts of biologically relevant behavior be resolved? (p. 154)
- Summarize the experiments on reinforcement of reflexive behavior. Show how Miller and DiCara (1967) solved the problem of operant behavior mediating reinforcement of a reflex. State and discuss the findings. (p. 155)
- What does Morris (1992) mean by context? How does the biological context establish and change operant (or respondent) relations (SD: R ? Sr)? (p. 159)
- Be able to describe how organisms acquire food aversions based on biologically relevant visual and taste cues. Use respondent conditioning and the concept of preparedness in your answer. (p. 158)
- Describe the Garcia and Koelling (1966) experiment on taste aversion and its major findings. What is unusual about their results and how can we explain them? After a dinner date at which you became ill, why would you probably give up pasta primavera rather than your date? (p. 159)
- FOCUS ON: What areas of the brain are related to taste aversion and how did the c-fos protein play a role in finding out? Discuss how the brain is involved in the craving for cigarettes. Draw out the implications of the brain research on taste aversion and craving for smoking. (p. 160)
- What three distinct types of behavior occur between food reinforcement on interval- or time-based schedules? Define the term polydipsia and explain how it occurs. (p. 162)
- Describe the adjunctive behavior that occurs for different reinforcers and species. (p. 163)
- What are the major conditions that regulate adjunctive behavior? How is the schedule of reinforcement related to the amount of adjunctive behavior? What about deprivation and adjunctive behavior? (p. 163)
- Discuss adjunctive responses as displacement behavior. Point to the adaptive value of such behavior. (p. 164)
- ON THE APPLIED SIDE: How are eating and exercise motivationally interrelated? What is the relationship between food deprivation and the reinforcement value of running? How does running affect the reinforcement value of eating? What is the evolutionary analysis of these relations and activity anorexia? (p. 165)
- ADVANCED SECTION: How could accidental reinforcement account for autoshaping? Show how Williams and Williams (1969) used omission training to test a reinforcement account of autoshaping. Be able to give a respondent analysis of this experiment. (p. 168)
- Describe the Schwartz and Williams (1972a, 1972b) experiments and the relevance of these studies for the autoshaping controversy. What other evidence suggests that autoshaping involves both operant and respondent processes? (p. 168)