Psychology 5150
More possible Learning questions
1. Describe Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment and his interpretation of his results.
Describe John Watson’s interpretation of the result. Describe Guthrie’s puzzle box
experiment and his interpretation of his results. Is there a critical experiment that would
differentiate among the three explanations? Explain why or why not.
2. Describe Skinner’s approach to the Law of Effect. Describe Meehl’s approach to the
Law of Effect. In your area of interest, describe a situation where it makes more sense to
approach issues like Skinner and a situation where it makes more sense to approach a
situation like Meehl. Include in your explanations why it would be less sensical to use the
other approach.
3. Describe Premack’s approach to the Law of Effect. Compare and contrast Premack’s
approach to the Law of Effect to Skinner and Meehl. In your area of interest, describe a
situation where it makes more sense to approach issues like Premack than Skinner or
Meehl.
4. A common problem in most organizations is people taking office pens. Explain why
people do this according to Guthrie, Skinner, and Premack. One technique that you see
used is attaching the pen to another object, like a clipboard. Explain why (or why not) this
technique should work according to Guthrie, Skinner, and Premack.
5. There is a punishment procedure called overcorrection. For example, assume a child
throws food at other people at the dinner table. The child may be required to clean up the
mess immediately (restitution) and then engage in positive practice, which might consist of
having the child place food on his or her plate and then remove it several times in a row as
instances of correct food-handling behavior at the dinner table. Why does this technique
work according to Guthrie, Skinner, Premack, and Timberlake & Farmer-Dougan?
6. A parent comes to you for help to get her 14 year-old son “Fred” to read more often.
Everybody (from advice columns in the newspaper to her church pastor) tells her that she
needs to reward him for reading; but she is unsure about how to pick a reward. What
would Thorndike, Guthrie, Meehl, Skinner, Premack, and Timberlake & Allison suggest to
do to pick a good reward for Fred?
7. Use the Konarski et al. experiments as a model to apply to the following hypothetical
case. We follow a graduate student around for some time period and record his/her
activities. Among other things, we notice that he/she spends more time web-surfing than
reading material for class. Describe a set of conditions and predicted results that would
differentiate between the Premack and the Response Deprivation analysis of possible
reinforcement effects using these two activities.
8. There is an apocryphal story that goes something like this. Beginning in late winter,
about once a week, an MIT student would dress up in a black and white-striped shirt, go
across the river to the Harvard football stadium (which is cunningly named Harvard
Stadium and is located on N. Harvard St.). There he would wave his arm, blow a whistle,
and then throw lots of bird seed on the ground. He continued doing this through Spring
and Summer, whenever he could sneak, unobserved, into the stadium. Fall came and
football season began. The opening game was Harvard vs. Brown. The teams had
assembled on the field and lined up for the kickoff. The referee signaled the start of the
game by waving his arm and blowing his whistle. At that moment 10,000 hungry pigeons
and starlings descended on the field and began scratching about for seeds. We can see how
easy it would be to pull a prank like this one. My question to you is whether this prank is
best described as a case of classical conditioning or operant conditioning. Analyze the case
from both perspectives and explain which type of conditioning best describes this case.
9. Immediately after Thanksgiving, Walmart (and other commercial establishments) have
Christmas tunes playing in the background. If you ask the managers why they play this
music, you will get replies like "it is supposed to put shoppers in the Christmas mood."
This type of reply leads to the following questions. What makes a song a "Christmas song"
according to Pavlov, Hull, Guthrie, and Skinner? A song can be described as either a CS
or a SD. Explain why. Which description would you choose? Explain why.
10. Here is what I am talking about when I sit on Santa's lap. One of the hottest pieces of
technology in experimental psychology is eye-tracking, the monitoring of the where-to and
what-at durations of your gazing. A well-known supplier of such equipment can be found
at http://www.smi.de/ . This site provides many examples of applications. Now consider
the activity of looking-at-something. Is it a response which we can reinforce? Or can
looking-at-something be a reinforcer? David Premack would suggest, both, of course.
Assume that you were given access to an eye-tracking system and have been measuring
gaze-durations at various objects. Pick a couple of examples of looking-at-something from
your area of specialization, explain how to produce a reinforcement effect and a
punishment effect according to Premack when both activities are gazing at something.
Strive for face validity.
11. Answer Question 10 from the perspective of Response Deprivation theory. Compare
and contrast the answers given by Probability Differential theory and Response Deprivation
theory.
12. Let’s go “e” in the last question! Your organization has created an information web
site for your clients (mental health, school, organizational -- you pick). You have a
month’s worth of data on the number of hits and amount of stickiness (time spent per hit)
for each page on your web site. Now your supervisor wants you to use those results to
revamp the site. Some pages get more hits than others? What does this mean according to
Guthrie, Premack, Timberlake & Allison? Some pages have higher stickiness values,
indicating that the pages were displayed for longer durations. What does this mean
according to Guthrie, Premack, Timberlake & Allison? Your organization wants to defray
your salary by selling ads on their web site. Clearly, you want to make sure that that
surfers look at your ads but you don't want to drive them away to some other site. Taking
into account both factors in the preceding sentence, what would be an effective
contingency according to Skinner, Meehl, Premack, and Timberlake & Allison.