Expanding our view of Associations

1. Expanding our view of Associations Edwin Guthrie

2. Edwin Ray Guthrie • Seattlite from 1886-1959 • Most important work: The Psychology of Learning (1935) • Remember Skinner’s book is 1938 • Great writer and teacher • Wrote for average student, not mathematician or theorist • Embodied parsimony • Embraced applications of psychology

3. Major theoretical concepts • The One Law of Learning: :Law of contiguity • a combination of stimuli which has accompanied a movement will, on its recurrence, tend to be followed by that movement. • (was wrong, though- so don’t get too excited) • Revised: “What is being noticed becomes a signal for what is being done”

4. One trial learning and The Recency principle • One Trial learning: • Completely rejects law of frequency as learning principle • A stimulus pattern gains its full associative strength on the occasion of its first pairing with a response • Do you agree? • Recency Principle: • Response performed last in presence of set of stimuli will be that which will be done when that stimulus next recurs. • Why might this be better supported?

5. Movement-produced stimuli • Movement-produced stimuli: stimuli which are caused by movements of the body • E.g., muscle, bone movements • Movements of even visceral muscles • Responses can be conditioned to them • Notice contiguity is between movement produced stimuli and behavior rather than between stimuli and behavior • Allows for some ‘covert’ events • One of first to recognize that internal events may be conditioned

6. Practice improve performance? • Differentiates between acts and movements: • Movement: simple muscle contractions • Acts: large number of movements • Associations formed between movements • One trial • All or none • Acts take longer: • Stringing together movements • Learning an act is more complex: must chain together movements • Skills: • Combinations of many acts • Take even longer • More complex • So what is reinforcement? • Mechanical arrangement: changes the stimulating conditions and thereby prevents unlearning • Ties last response to an event • Was contiguity not a contingency or predictability that was important

7. Guthrie-Horton Experiment • Modified puzzle box: • Large number of cats • Each cat learned to escape in own unique way • But: last response before escape = unique one • Then repeated this the next time: • stereotyped behavior • Often ignored food reinforcer • (but was escape or food the reinforcer?)

9. Guthrie-Horton Experiment • Forgetting: • Forgetting = alternative behavior occurred in presence of stimulus pattern • Once alternative behavior occurs, is repeated, thus forget old one • All old learning must have once involve new learning • Retroactive inhibition: knocks out old learning • Notice that forgetting is an ACTIVE process

10. How to Break Habits! • Habit = response that has become associated with large number of stimuli • Must break relationship with those stimuli • Find the cues that initiate bad habits and practice another response in presence of those stimuli • Threshold method: • introduce stimulus at weak strengths that not cause response, then gradually increase • “horse gentling or horse whispering” • Fatigue Method: • Wear the response out • “breaking the horse” • Satiation methods • If your dog gets into the garbage- tie the garbage around its neck- it will grow tired of the smell and avoid the garbage • Incompatible response method • Engage in the opposite or incompatible behavior in presence of the stimulus • You can’t both stand up and sit down • Remember- this was suggested in 1930s and 1940s…..no ABA yet!

11. Sidetracking vs. breaking habits • Breaking: get rid of stimulus-response association • Sidetracking: avoiding cues that elicit undesirable behavior • E.g., with individuals in recovery: • Avoid stimuli which elicit feelings of craving • Avoid eliciting conditions (stress, family, etc.) • Make new friends and MOVE!

12. Guthries’ views on punishment: • Effectiveness of a punishment is determined by what it causes the punished organism to do • Punishment changes way the individual responds to certain stimuli • Changes behavior because elicits incompatible response • Slap dog on nose vs. rear when car-chasing • Rear: makes it run more • Nose: makes it stop • Critical that punishment applied in presence of stimuli that elicited punished behavior • If punishment does not elicit incompatible response and not applied in presence of eliciting stimuli, it may even strengthen the undesired response

13. Drive, intention and transfer of training • Drives: Physiological drives = maintaining stimuli that keep organism active until goal is reached • Hunger elicits internal stimulation that continues until hunger is sated. • (Unfortunately, data not support this: we stop eating before we feel sated!) • Problem with addiction: not getting satiety signals • But: eat because you are anxious: • Feel anxious = cue to eat • Eating reduces anxiety • Thus eating is reinforced: last thing you did before anxiety went away • Intentions: Responses that conditioned to maintaining stimuli • Maintaining stimulation from a drive lasts until drive reduced • Sequence of behavior preceding drive-reducing response is repeated next time drive stimuli occur, thus interrelated • Thus learn behavior that associated with drive reduction • Transfer of training • Did not believe that there was much transfer of training • Did emphasis situational and contextual cues: study where you will take your test • We learn what we do in presence of specific stimuli!

14. Voek: Formalized Guthrie’s theory • Guthrie did not test his theories: why? • Bolles: Guthrie minimized roles of motivation and reinforcement • Carlson: no grad students available for research • Guthrie: stated principles were too general to test • Virginia Voeks: 1921-1989 • Guthrie’s student • 1947 dissertation from Yale • Restated Guthrie’s theory into principles and postulations

15. Voek’s model • Postulate I: Principle of Association: • Any stimulus pattern that once accompanies a response or immediately precedes it by >1/2 sec becomes full-strength direct cue for that response • only way in which stimulus patterns not now cues for a particular response can become direct cue for that response • Postulate II: Principle of Postremity • A S+ that has accompanied or immediately preceded 2 or more incompatible responses is a conditioned S+ only for last response made (in which S+ was present) • Only way for stimulus that is currently a cue for a particular response to be extinguished (move it so it’s not last!)

16. Voek’s model • Postulate III: Principle of Response Probability • Probability of any particular response occurring at some specified time is a function of proportion of the stimuli present which are at the time cues for that response. • More stimulus cues present = greater chance of behavior • Postulate IV: Principle of Dynamic Situations: • stimulus-pattern of situation is not static • Is modified from time to time • Modified due to changes as result from subject making a response: • Accumulation of fatigue products • Visceral changes or other internal processes • Introduction of controlled or uncontrolled variations in stimuli present

17. Critique • Positives: • Unique in emphasis on contiguity (and mostly wrong) • Could explain learning, extinction, generalization with simple analysis • Important alternative • Many clinical applications (was right for wrong reasons) • Important for education: emphasized importance of training generalization and discrimination • Negatives: • Too parsimonious • No data • Untestable • Contiguity idea shown later to be wrong