[MUD-Dev] [Off-list] Killology (Was: Retention without Addiction?)

[Steven J. Owens]

> [Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

>> Specifically, "operant conditioning" in military-speak means
>> "pretending to do it over and over so you don't even think about
>> it when you have to really do it".

Operant conditioning is a phrase coined by the "father of
behaviorism", B.F. Skinner.

Classical conditioning is the stereotypical pavlov's dog approach.
Specifically, the dog salivates when you give it food.  Over a
period of time, you ring a bell at the same time as you give the dog
food.  Eventually you can get the salivation just by ringing the
bell.  They call the food - or any stimulus that the dog reacts to
instinctually, i.e "hardwired" into the dog's nervous system - an
"unconditioned stimulus", because it's a normal thing for the dog to
salivate when presented with food.  The bell is a "conditioned
stimulus", because the salivating response is a result of the
process of ringing the bell every time you use food to cause the dog
to salivate.  Classical conditioning substitutes one stimuli (a
bell) for another (food).

Operant conditioning is not the opposite of classical conditioning,
just a different kind of conditioning.  Because most texts describe
the two in compare/contrast terms, they create this false
expectation that the two are opposites, which leads to confusion.
In animal training, classical and operant conditioning are sometimes
used together (see below).

Operant conditioning is more like what you typically think of in
animal training - reward the animal for the behavior you want,
positive reinforcement (the basic idea of reinforcement is
fundamental to operant conditioning), or discourage it with negative
reinforcement.  The animal exhibits the desired behavior, you
reinforce the behavior with a positive stimulus (or by removing a
negative stimulus).  The animal exhibits the wrong behavior, you
discourage the behavior with a negative stimulus (or by removing a
positive stimulus).

One of the gotchas about operant conditioning is that the
reinforcement has to be immediate, which isn't always feasible.  To
work around this, animal trainers use classical conditioning to
develop a substitute reinforcement that can be applied immediately.
For example, they'll blow a whistle every time they give the dolphin
a fish.  Eventually the whistle alone influences the dolphin as
positive reinforcement.  Then they use the whistle to reinforce
during operant conditioning.

Steven J. Owens
puff at darksleep.com

"I'm going to make broad, sweeping generalizations and strong,
 declarative statements, because otherwise I'll be here all night and
 this document will be four times longer and much less fun to read.
 Take it all with a grain of salt." - Me at http://darksleep.com


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