Category Archives: Methods

Operant Conditioning and Shaping: Dog Plays Dead

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At the end of last summer, my family bought a new golden retriever puppy to add to the family.  Our old golden retriever had been the most well behaved dog around so it was only right to get another retriever.  My family loves teaching our dogs tricks so they can show them off to neighbors so it did not surprise me that the training started within a few days. It was not until taking psychology that I realized the psychological discoveries and aspects that are used in everyday life.  Operant conditioning and shaping helped me understand how our dog came to learn these ticks and how it happened so quickly.  Operant conditioning is when an association is formed between behaviors and resulting events.  Giving the dog a treat for their good behavior is commonly and widely used.  We also used shaping without even realizing it.  Shaping is guiding behavior closer toward the desired behavior.  This was necessary to get the puppy to do tricks that are more advanced.

With our dog, we were able to place a treat on her nose and have her sit there until we said “okay”.  Then she would flip the treat up in the air and catch it in her mouth on the way down.  We had to shape her by teaching her to catch the treat normally first and how to sit.  When our new dog got home everyone so excited to teach it that trick because it seemed to woo everyone.  To me, that was our old dog’s trick and this one needed a new one.  I came up with the idea to teach our dog to play dead on one single command and began my efforts without the family knowing.  I would give the dog a treat every time she got the desired behavior right, which I know was an example of classic operant conditioning.  Teaching a dog to play dead seems simple but it was more work than expected.  That is where the shaping came into play.

First, my family taught the dog to sit down. Easy enough. Then from there we had to teach her to lay down.  She picked that up easily with the help of me pushing her down a couple times.  Then I when they were not around I would proceed the shaping in the ultimate goal to get her to play dead on one command.  Next, I had to get her to roll over which was even harder than the first two commands.  All these commands took a different word to get her to do so now I needed something to link all three together.  After she was able to roll over every time I said it, she would go all the way back to her upright position, but I needed her to stay on her back.  During the last stage, I held her on her back and would give her the treat while she was still facing upwards so she would learn she has to stay in that position to get the treat.  From her sitting position, I would push her over onto her back in one fluid motion, hold her there and then give her the treat.

Soon enough with a little time, commitment, operant conditioning, and shaping; I was able to point a finger gun at my dog and say bang, and she would fall to the floor and lie on her back.  My parents and siblings were impressed with the trick and got a good laugh out of it too.  Playing dead became my new dog’s signature move so my parents could woo the guests.  So far, the audiences have not been disappointed.   While learning this in psychology, I found it interesting how people everywhere already use these methods and may not even know the details behind conditioning and shaping and unconsciously know how they work.  I thought it was interesting how psychology can tie into and exhibited in everyday life.

Above is a quick video I uploaded of my sister performing the completed trick with my dog so you can see how the intended, final trick is performed.  poor quality but achieves its intended purpose.  The dog did it flawlessly and the conditioning worked well despite the dogs lethargic attitude.

 

My Types of Learning

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People and animals use different types of learning methods such as cognitive learning, observational learning, operant conditioning, and classical conditioning to gain new knowledge and to understand how to conduct their behaviors. After we discussed the different types of learning in class I started to think about which type of learning methods that I mostly relied on and used as I was growing up or possibly used without even knowing. I discovered that I mostly relied on operant conditioning and observational learning.
Operant conditioning forms associations between behaviors that operate on environment and the resulting events either being consequences by using punishment to decrease the given behavior that follows or reinforcers that strengthen the behaviors that follow. When I was growing up and going through school my parents always stressed that they expected me to get good grades. They would often offer me rewards such as money if I received honor roll or distinguished honor roll which was very appealing to me. Although I did not know at the time, my parents were using the process of shaping by offering me money as a reinforcer to guide me and my attitude to have a desire to study hard and get good grades. Also there were times when my parents would have to use punishment so I would form the association between my behavior and the resulting events. Most of the time when I did something bad such as get in trouble at school, I would be punished by negative punishment and removing a desirable stimulus. Often my parents grounded me from playing my video game systems or from hanging out with friends which I really enjoyed doing so I quickly learned that my behavior was not acceptable and therefore I made the association.
Also, I just recently participated in a very good example of observational learning. This past weekend I had to purchase a new vehicle because my old jeep was falling apart. I ended up buying a jeep wrangler that happened to have a manual transmission unlike my old jeep which was an automatic. I had one problem though and that was that I didn’t know how or never drove a stick shift. My dad ended up driving the car home and I rode around in the passenger’s seat observing how my dad used the clutch and when he shifted. I realized at that time that I was using observational learning in order to learn how to drive my new jeep. I was very successful using the method of observational learning because within a couple of hours of practicing I got it down.

My Sister: A Classical Conditioning Demon (who I still love)

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My sister and I have a “special” relationship. I, being the older brother, purposely give her a hard time with general life. Example: It’s funny to tell her that her make-up is messed up cause then she spends countless minutes looking at a mirror, attempting to fix what doesn’t need to be fixed. This usually bothers her for the whole day. On the other hand, she enjoys to give me a hard time with life in small bursts. Example: I take a shower before school every morning, and one day, she woke up extra early and decided to place her Justin Bieber life-size cardboard cutout(which now creepily has a picture of Channing Tatum’s face taped onto it) in the shower, curtain closed. You can only guess my reaction to this shadowy human-like figure awaiting me in the shower at 5:30 in the morning. I thought that was the end of it, but the next day, instead, she decided to put herself in the shower (about the same height as Channing Bieber) and scare the absolute hell out of me. If there is one thing I don’t enjoy and am easily frightened by in the morning, it’s loud noises. Eventually, this gave root to a problem. Every time I woke up to take a shower before school, I would open the shower curtain and immediately jump back in fear of a noisy sister or the life-size cardboard cutout of Channing Bieber, even if they weren’t there.

Classical conditioning occurs when two stimuli are paired to result in an unconditioned response. One stimulus is labeled the unconditioned stimulus, while the other is labeled the neutral stimulus. Soon enough, the continual pairing of the unconditioned and neutral stimulus to create this unconditioned response will lead to the response (now known as the conditioned response) being triggered by only the conditioned stimulus (the former unconditioned stimulus). In my situation, the unconditioned stimulus was my opening of the shower curtain, while the neutral stimulus was my sister or Channing Bieber, to create the unconditioned response of me becoming frightened. After my sister repeated her devious practical jokes enough, the act of opening the shower curtain became the conditioned stimulus. This became clear when I displayed the conditioned response of being frightened after opening the curtain even if neither my sister or Channing Bieber lie awaiting my arrival. Although my sister’s mischief has caused me much grief throughout my past high school years, her acts still managed to help me out with a blog idea.

Shaping

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Have you ever had a pet and wanted to teach them to perform a trick or do a certain behavior?  Shaping is an excellent method that’s used for these tasks.  Shaping, as defined by Professor Wede from class, is a technique used to guide a certain behavior closer towards the desired behavior.  Many people associate this type of teaching with pets, usually dogs.  For example, if one wanted to teach their dog to roll over, they first need to get the dog to sit, then lay down and then ultimately roll over.  A type of reward should be used in order for the dog to understand that they are doing something that is pleasing to their owner.

Last summer, my parents and I got a new puppy, Sophie.  Since Sophie was still so young when we first brought her home, we did not really focus on teaching her tricks, rather we focused on simple commands like coming when she is called and to sit.  After the housebreaking process, Sophie was able to let us know when she needed to go outside.  Since our yard does not have a fence, we still take her out on the leash so she does not get too far from the house.  The sight of the leash is really exciting for Sophie, so she tends to jump up and bite the leash while we try to hook it to her collar.  In order to try to stop the jumping, we tell Sophie to sit by the door.  When she would eventually sit, we give her some sort of reward, usually a treat or a small piece of cheese, and then praise her for sitting.  Now, after Sophie has told us she needs to go outside, she immediately goes to the door to sit down and wait for us to the put the leash on her collar.  I will admit, she still gets pretty wild when she sees the leash, but she calms down enough for us to be able to easily put on the leash.

Shaping is a very helpful and easy method to use when it comes to training animals.  Positive reinforcement is also used in shaping because the trainer is using positive stimuli to increase a specific behavior.  When Sophie would successfully sit when we asked, we would reward her with food.  This presentation of a positive stimuli teaches Sophie that sitting is a good thing, and she will increase performing that specific behavior in the future.

Conservation – Younger Siblings

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The other day, I found myself in a heated discussion with my 4 year old sister and my 5 year old cousin. My sister, Sydney, is a huge fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My cousin, Will, is not as big a fan, but that is all I felt like making him while I babysat the two. Sydney requested that I cut her sandwich into two halves. William, being the clever and competitive older cousin, wanted four quarters, because four is more than two.

I knew nothing of this little competition and thought nothing of it until I left them with their lunches. Not a moment after placing the plates on the table in front of them, I overhear Will chuckle and whisper to Sydney, “I got more than you.” Sydney, who doesn’t take anything from anyone, immediately hurls Will’s four sandwich pieces across the room. “Now you have none.”, she scoffed. Will burst into tears and hit Sydney, which caused her to begin crying. Still unaware that any of this happened, I continued to make my own lunch. From the kitchen I hurried back to the dining room to see what was amiss. Sydney remarked that I caused all of this by giving Will more than her. I insisted that they were both given the same amount, just cut differently. A spark must have went off in their heads because the crying ceased.

I sat down and explained the situation to the both of them. Without directly using the word “conservation”, I explained that even though Will had more pieces, both came from the same whole slices of bread. Will insisted that he still had more and Sydney agreed. After 20 minutes of explaining and using examples with new slices of bread, they came to an understanding… They would both like their sandwiches cut into four pieces…

Memory & Encoding

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I thought the lecture on memory storage/retrieval and encoding was very interesting as we were discussing it in class. Everyone aims to gain knowledge in order to function in life and to make everyday tasks possible and easy to achieve. As a Penn State student, I am constantly learning new information that I have to store in my memory. When we learn something and gain knowledge, we store it in our memory by the process of encoding. Memory is defined as the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information. From that definition it is easy to see that our memory is very complex and the way we encode the information is very important. People use different techniques of encoding in order to store the information in their short-term (working) memory or their long-term memory.
While I was in high school, I often used encoding techniques such as maintenance rehearsal and chunking in order to encode the information which I was learning. I often just looked at my notes over and over until I had it in my memory. Little did I know, the information I was learning by maintenance rehearsal was being stored in my short-term memory. I would study the information up to the date of a test but then right after the test I would stop looking at the notes for that certain section that we learned. I noticed that if I were asked to recall that information at a later date, I couldn’t remember some information and certain details. That was because the process I was using to encode the information was not storing it in my long-term memory. I found that this type of encoding is very useful when I needed to store the memory for one specific event such as a test, but when I needed to retain the information I learned for the whole school year or a long period of time I needed to find a different way to encode to information into my long-term memory. In class we learned about the concept of elaborate rehearsal encoding, which is making meaningful connections to the information being stored within our memory. I used elaborate rehearsal although I was not aware of what it was at the time and I learned that it is a much better way to study and encode memory, especially in college.

Implanting Memories

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In class one day we discussed implanting memories.  We discussed the study that was conducted where two members of the family were talking about memories that happened around their younger sibling and then made one story up and asked them if they remembered it. Then a few days later when asked about the memory that never actually happened, the younger sibling insisted it did and had very descriptive details about it.

After hearing about this study/experiment, I realized I have the perfect scenario to try it for myself.  I told my older brother of one year what I had learned and we planned out the experiment just like the one told us in class in order to manipulate and implant a false memory in my younger sisters mind.  My brother and I are college students (obviously) and my sister is still a freshman in high school.  I wasn’t sure if this was too old of an age or if it would work but she has a reputation of being gullible so we figured we’d give it a shot.

On our first day back from spring break, my family went out to eat and at one point during the meal my brother and I started talking about all our previous vacations and where we went.  Then we completely made up and she intervened saying she doesnt remember that.  We made up some details and told her that it was whe she was only about 8.  This way she should be old enough to remmeber but far enough in the past so that we can make her think we actually went on that vacation.  My brother and I made up details about the trip and she just sat and listened.

Ten a couple days later I had a friend over and my Brother and I were telling him about the fake vacation while we knew my sister was around.  When she entered the room we asked her again if she remembered that vacation and to our surprise she said yes and had several details about the hotel and what not, although she did say the vacation was very vague to her.  I couldn’t believe it actually worked though.  We then told her we made it up and she didn’t believe us.  It took us 30 minutes to convince her we tricked her.  I even had to show her my psychology notes and call our parents to tell her it wasn’t real.

I thought it was very interesting that this actually worked.  Just like the boy in the study that was shown to us in class, my sister made up facts and details about the hotel and vacation that never actually occurred.  It also shows how easily someone can be manipulated into believing just about anything if done properly.

Study Suggestions

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I’ve never taken any sort of Psychology class before, like many students in this class have. So, before signing up, I did not really know what to expect. I enjoyed the material we were studying, I thought it was very interesting. However, the results of my first exam begged to differ. The class lecture about study suggestions was definitely different, and I think it really helped me a lot. I always said to myself that I’d never change my study habits. It has gotten me this far in life, so clearly I’ve been doing something right. Little did I know, there was so much science behind the concept of studying, and I was able to point out after this lecture, the flaws in my study habits. The most serious problem is what I’m thinking about when I’m studying. I remember this question appearing on the first day of class, and almost no one knew that the key to studying is what is on your mind when you do study. Another major part of studying is multi-tasking. This lecture interested me the most, out of everything we’ve learned in preparation for exam 2, because it has had the most effect on me as a student. For our upcoming exam, I’ve tried looking over the material weeks in advance, setting goals for myself with which material I’m going to read and look over and when. I remember to review the material I just read, by taking notes on them and looking over it each time I go back to learn more. I tried this with my Roman Civilization test as well, which was shortly after this lecture. I knew immediately after coming out of the class, I knew at least 80% of the answers, without a doubt. After all of these years of studying, I never truly took a step back and wondered if I necessarily was LEARNING the information. No teacher has ever really taken a step back from the material and gave advice on how to do well, and how to really understand the material. Lecture 10 has tied into my own life, because I have changed my study habits for the better, and am starting to truly understand the concepts.

Psychology and the Impact Test

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I’m sure everyone now knows what a concussion is and why they are so dangerous to athletes that play sports with high risks of getting a concussion. Due to the recent concern about concussions and their true dangers, most high school athletes are required to take a test called the ImPACT test. This is a computerized test that is able to determine if an athlete is concussion symptom free and able to return to his or her sport. The baseline ImPACT test is given before the athletes season when the athlete is not concussed. Then during the season, if an athlete suffers a concussion, the ImPACT test is administered to determine if the athlete reached their baseline threshold. Once their baseline is obtained, they are able to return to their sport. The ImPACT test relies on many of the same memory concepts we learned about to determine whether or not an athlete is healthy.

I played ice hockey in high school and suffered three concussions as a result of playing. They are not fun. However, in order for me to return to play, I had to take and pass the ImPACT test. Many of the activities Dr. Wede demonstrated for us in class, such as memorizing words in a sequence or saying the color of the ink of the word and not the word itself, appear on the ImPACT test. Every time he would set up one of the demonstrations, I’d be brought back to taking the damn ImPACT test (I hated the thing, it was not something you’d want to take if you had a serious concussion). The ImPACT test uses the demonstrations, as well as other tests, to help determine the ability of your short term memory after a concussion. Some of these tests were memorizing three letters, then performing a set of tasks, then being asked to remember what the three original letters were. Other tests tested for your reaction times and there were still others that tested for memory.

Psychology and the principles of psychology are even used in sports and the treatment of athletes who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. I never realized the reach that psychology had. I always thought psychology was the man in the chair sitting next to you as you laid in a sofa and he asked you about your feelings. This class has shown me how much of an effect it has on everything in the world around us, not just in the stereotypical viewpoint of it.

Proper ways to study

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Being a student in college is a hard task, especially when it comes to tests and exams. Every few weeks there is usually a new cycle of exams or if you’re like me, you have at least one or two exams a week, which can get be difficult to keep up with. Learning a large abundance of new information in five maybe six different classes at once makes it very hard to store this information into your memory. This is where knowing proper ways to study really pays off. As stated in lecture, students who are looking to improve their grades and decrease their stress levels should understand distributed practice and maintenance rehearsal; that is “Studying 1 hour each night for 5 nights is better than studying 5 hours in 1 night” (Wede). Maintenance rehearsal can be defined as the practice of saying some information to be remembered over and over in one’s head in order to maintain it in short-term memory. With new exams coming week after week, being able to recall this information from your short-term memory due to maintenance rehearsal is much easier than trying to memorize all the test information in one sitting. Also, if this information is rehearsed long enough it can in fact end up being stored in your long-term memory, which really pays off on those comprehensive exams at the end of the semester.

When learning about these studying methods and how it affects your grades I immediately thought of my roommate. My roommate likes to do a million things at once, so when it comes to exams she usually loses focus on preparing ahead and tends to work on other class material until the night before her exam and then realizes she has to get all her studying done in one night. Not only does this push her stress level through the roof but she ends up being more focused on the time constraint than her test material. This lack of focus and time affects how the information is being processed in her memory and also doesn’t allow much rehearsal like the distributed practice method of studying does. Without rehearsal the information doesn’t stay in the memory as long and therefore is harder to recall on the test. Her most recent exam ended up being on a week where she didn’t have that much other class work and she was able to start studying earlier in the week for her exam. She found that when she started studying earlier and got to review the material a little bit each day before the exam, her grade improved dramatically. Personally I think every student will see just how much knowing these proper study methods would help.