Yes. Behavioral shaping is relatively easy. Once you've defined the behavior, then you selectively reinforce it. The operational definition is probably the most difficult part.
In the example I gave initially each time the person moves towards the target area, students ask questions, lean forward etc. Each time he moves away less attention is paid to the prof. Later the target area and behavioral requirements are progressively tightened up. Within a half hour the subject is lecturing in the corner. I'll have to dig up my lab notes from the original lab for more details. In the lab we used verbal behavior, targeting a specific pronoun. The subject was engaged in a conversation, initially to get the baseline. Then the person is selectively reinforced for the target words, by the experimenter leaning forward slightly, maintaining eye contact longer etc. In each and every case the subjects, who were not in the course, showed a significant increase in the frequency of the target behavior. After the behavior frequency was established, the subject was put on a maintenance schedule - by just being reinforced on a variable reinforcement ratio, for a few minutes. Then the behavior was put on an extinction schedule by first using negative reinforcement (breaking eye contact, leaning back when the person talked etc) and then simply by not reinforcing the behavior at all. Its very effective and almost always works. As an aside when he found out about it, the professor did raise a complain about it to the department, but it went nowhere - what happened was not a part of any class - the students simply applied what they learned outside of the class setting in an "unsanctioned" manner. I'm just glad that this prof never found out about the social learning sections of the lab course. I suspect he would have gone ballistic. On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Dana <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think it's a good question that harkens back to subliminal ads like > they had in The Hidden Persuaders. I don't like the idea of being > manipulated below the surface of my awareness but since even music > will do this I am not sure you can or should regulate it either. For > sure though, it's better to know it happens than not to know. Would > your professor have been as affected if he knew what the class was > doing? -- Larry C. Lyons web: http://www.lyonsmorris.com/lyons LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/larryclyons -- The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. - B. F. Skinner - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:312774 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
