I am also inclined to talk about this in terms of autoshaping, which is a
good example of an experimental paradigm in which we can identify elements
of both classical and instrumental conditioning.
Another twist is the possiblity that observational learning (or social
communication among birds) is also involved. Of course, this would be
difficult to demonstrate without tagging birds and recapturing them at the
game. I am thinking of the behavior of birds like gulls, who observe other
gulls being fed & (I suspect) hear the calls of early-arrivals and come in.
I have been on the beach in Pensacola when few birds were in sight, but my
daughter would feed one or two gulls, who would begin to vocalize. Within
minutes we would have dozens wheeling in. Anyone know whether gulls signal
each other with calls about the appearance of good food sources?
Which reminds me of a real-life analogy for the ball game example - the
flocks of gulls that trail shrimp boats.
Claudia Stanny
>> Of course, autoshaping theory is itself complicated - and there is some
>> reason to believe that there operant components to autoshaping.
>
>Pecking at food is reflexive but pecking at other things like lighted disks
>is not. What appears to be the same behavior can be mediated by
>different systems. I can jerk my knee because you struck my patellar
>tendon or because I am trying to kick a soccer ball. They will look
>similar but one is voluntary and the other is reflexive.
>
>So, Skinner's operant key peck may look like a classically conditioned
>key peck but they can be distinguished by the training paradigm used.
>Just because pecking (UR) is an unlearned reflexive response to food
>(US) does not mean that pecking at a disk is a reflexive response. In
>fact, the idea in autoshaping is that, as you say, the key peck is
>classically conditioned. The key (CS) becomes associated with food
>(US) and then the bird pecks (CR) at the key as they do (UR) at the food
>(US).
>
>Once again, the crucial element here is contingency, or the lack thereof.
> In the autoshaping procedure, the light predicts food delivery and food
>delivery is not contingent on pecking at the light. The food will be
>delivered whether the bird pecks or not. Therefore, it is classical, not
>operant. If the delivery of food is contingent on pecking, it is operant
>and it is not autoshaping.
>
>Rick
>
>
>Dr. Rick Froman
>Psychology Department
>Box 3055
>John Brown University
>Siloam Springs, AR 72761
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://www.jbu.edu/sbs/psych
>Office: (501)524-7295
>Fax: (501)524-9548
>
>"Happiness is not found by searching, but by researching."
>
________________________________________________________
Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology Phone: (850) 474 - 3163
University of West Florida FAX: (850) 857 - 6060
Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751
