Abstract
Behavior analysis has often simultaneously depended upon and denied an implicit, hypothetical process of reinforcement as response strengthening. I discuss what I see as problematic about the use of such an implicit, possibly inaccurate, and likely unfalsifiable theory and describe issues to consider with respect to an alternative view without response strengthening. In my take on such an approach, important events (i.e., “reinforcers”) provide a means to measure learning about predictive relations in the environment by modulating (i.e., inducing) performance dependent upon what is predicted and the relevant motivational mode or behavioral system active at that time (i.e., organismic state). Important events might be phylogenetically important, or they might acquire importance by being useful as signals for guiding an organism to where, when, or how currently relevant events might be obtained (or avoided). Given the role of learning predictive relations in such an approach, it is suggested that a potentially useful first step is to work toward formal descriptions of the structure of the predictive relations embodied in common facets of operant behavior (e.g., response-reinforcer contingencies, conditioned reinforcement, and stimulus control). Ultimately, the success of such an approach will depend upon how well it integrates formal characterizations of predictive relations (and how they are learned without response strengthening) and the relevant concomitant changes in organismic state across time. I also consider how thinking about the relevant processes in such a way might improve both our basic science and our technology of behavior.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
It is worth noting that such an approach would still also have to account for the difference between the response-preconditioning group and the control group that received the same number of response-stimulus pairings in phase 1 (and thus, the same number of assumed sensory reinforcers) but a different stimulus paired with food in phase 2. That is, for the response-preconditioning group, the approach somehow would be required to provide a principled explanation of the transfer of the effects of the stimulus-food pairings in phase 2 to the previously established response-stimulus relation (presumably acquired via sensory reinforcement in phase 1) without the stimulus having ever served as a consequence for the response (in phases 2 and 3) after it had been paired with food in phase 2.
To help get over these potential uneasy feelings, I also strongly recommend Gleick (2011). The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. Pantheon Books: New York, as a non-technical review of the history of information theory and its importance and impact on modern science and society.
References
Balsam, P. D., & Gallistel, C. R. (2009). Temporal maps and informativeness in associative learning. Trends in Neurosciences, 32, 73–80.
Balsam, P. D., Drew, M. R., & Gallistel, C. R. (2010). Time and associative learning. Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews, 5, 1–22.
Baum, W. M. (1973). The correlation-based law of effect. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 20, 137–153.
Baum, W. M. (2010). Dynamics of choice: a tutorial. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 94, 161–174.
Baum, W. M. (2012). Rethinking reinforcement: allocation, induction, and contingency. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 97, 101–124.
Catania, A. C. (2005). The operant reserve: a computer simulation in (accelerated) real time. Behavioural Processes, 69, 257–278.
Catania, A. C. (2013). Learning. In Cornwall-on-Hudson (5th ed.). NY: Sloan.
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2007). Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.
Craig, A. R., & Shahan, T. A. (2016). Behavioral momentum theory fails to account for the effects of reinforcement rate on resurgence. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 105, 375–392.
Craig, A. R., Nevin, J. A., & Odum, A. L. (2014). Behavioral momentum and resistance to change. In F. K. McSweeney & E. S. Murphy (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell handbook of operant and classical conditioning (pp. 249–274). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Craig, A. R., Cunningham, P. J., & Shahan, T. A. (2015). Behavioral momentum and the accumulation of mass: effects of duration of exposure to stimulus-reinforcer relations on relative resistance to extinction. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 103, 437–449.
Davison, M., & Baum, W. M. (2006). Do conditional reinforcers count? Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 86, 269–283.
Devenport, L. D., Hill, T., Wilson, M., & Ogden, E. (1997). Tracking and averaging in variable environments: a transition rule. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 23, 450–460.
Falk, J. L. (1994). The discriminative stimulus and its reputation: role in the instigation of drug abuse. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2, 43–52.
Fantino, E. (1977). Conditioned reinforcement: choice and information. In W. K. Honig & J. E. R. Staddon (Eds.), Handbook of operant behavior (pp. 313–339). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Gallistel, C. R. (2005). Deconstructing the law of effect. Games and Economic Behavior, 52, 410–423.
Gallistel, C. R., & Gibbon, J. (2002). The symbolic foundations of conditioned behavior. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gallistel, C. R., & Matzel, L. D. (2013). The neuroscience of learning: beyond the Hebbian synapse. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 169–200.
Gallistel, C. R., & Balsam, P. D. (2014). Time to rethink the neural mechanisms of learning and memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 108, 136--144.
Gallistel, C. R., Mark, T. A., King, A. P., & Latham, P. E. (2001). The rat approximates an ideal detector of changes in rates of reward: implications for the law of effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavioral Processes, 27, 354–372.
Gallistel, C. R., King, A. P., Gottlieb, D., Balci, F., Papachristos, E. B., Szalecki, M., & Carbone, K. S. (2007). Is matching innate? Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 87, 167–199.
Gallistel, C. R., Craig, A. R., & Shahan, T. A. (2014). Temporal contingency. Behavioural Processes, 101C, 89–96.
Gibbon, J., Berryman, R., & Thompson, R. L. (1974). Contingency spaces and measures in classical and instrumental conditioning. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 21, 585–605.
Herrnstein, R. J. (1970). On the law of effect. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 13, 243–266.
Heyman, G. M. (1982). Is time allocation unconditioned behavior? In M. Commons, R. Herrnstein, & H. Rachlin (Eds.), Quantitative analyses of behavior, Matching and maximizing accounts (Vol. 2, pp. 459–490). Cambridge: Ballinger Press.
Jensen, R. (2006). Behaviorism, latent learning, and cognitive maps: needed revisions in introductory psychology textbooks. The Behavior Analyst, 29, 187–209.
Jensen, G., Ward, R. D., & Balsam, P. D. (2013). Information: theory, brain, and behavior. J Exp Anal Behav, 100, 408–431.
Killeen, P. R. (1988). The reflex reserve. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 50, 319–331.
Killeen, P. R., & Jacobs, K. W. (2016). Coal is not black, snow is not white, food is not a reinforcer: the roles of affordances and dispositions in the analysis of behavior. The Behavior Analyst Advance online prepublication doi. doi:10.1007/s40614-016-0080-7.
Lit, K., & Mace, F. C. (2015). Where would ABA be without EAB? An example of translational research on recurrence of operant behavior and treatment relapse. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 41, 269–288.
McDowell, J. J. (2004). A computational model of selection by consequences. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 81, 297–317.
Nevin, J. A., & Grace, R. C. (2000). Behavioral momentum and the law of effect. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 73–90.
Nevin, J. A., Tota, M. E., Torquato, R. D., & Shull, R. L. (1990). Alternative reinforcement increases resistance to change: Pavlovian or operant contingencies? Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 53, 359–379.
Nevin, J.A., Craig, A.R., Cunningham, P.J., Podlesnik, C.A., Shahan, T.A., & Sweeney, M.M. (in press). Quantitative models of persistence and relapse from the perspective of behavioral momentum theory: fits and misfits. Behavioural Processes.
Oxford English Dictionary Online. (December 2016). Oxford University Press http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/161609?redirectedFrom=reinforcement (accessed February 21, 2017.
Rachlin, H. (1971). On the tautology of the matching law. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 15, 249–251.
Rescorla, R. A. (1988). Pavlovian conditioning: it’s not what you think it is. American Psychologist, 43, 151–160.
Shahan, T. A. (2010). Conditioned reinforcement and response strength. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 93, 269–289.
Shahan, T. A. (2013). Attention and conditioned reinforcement. In G. J. Madden (Ed.), APA handbook of behavior analysis, Vol. 1: Methods and principles (pp. 387–410). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Shahan, T. A., & Craig, A. R. (in press). Resurgence as choice . doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2016.10.006.Behavioural Processes
Shahan, T. A., & Cunningham, P. (2015). Conditioned reinforcement and information theory reconsidered. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 103, 405–418.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Skinner, B. F. (1948). Superstition in the pigeon. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 168–172.
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York: Macmillan.
Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science, 213, 501–504.
St. Claire-Smith, R., & MacLaren, D. (1983). Response preconditioning effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 9, 41–48.
Staddon, J. E. R. (1973). On the notion of cause, with applications to behaviorism. Behaviorism, 1, 25–63.
Staddon, J. E. R. (1993). The conventional wisdom of behavior analysis. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 60, 439–447.
Staddon, J. E. R., & Simmelhag, V. L. (1971). The “superstition” experiment: a reexamination of its implications for the principles of adaptive behavior. Psychological Review, 78, 3–43.
Thompson, R. F. (1972). Sensory preconditioning. In R. F. Thompson & J. F. Voss (Eds.), Topics in learning and performance (pp. 105–129). New York: Academic.
Thrailkill, E. A., & Shahan, T. A. (2014). Temporal integration and instrumental conditioned reinforcement. Learning & Behavior, 42, 201–208.
Timberlake, W. (1988). The behavior of organisms: purposive behavior as a type of reflex. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 50, 305–317.
Timberlake, W. (1993). Behavior systems and reinforcement. An integrative approach. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 60, 105–128.
Ward, R. D., Gallistel, C. R., Jensen, G., Richards, V. L., Fairhurst, S., & Balsam, P. D. (2012). Conditioned stimulus informativeness governs conditioned stimulus unconditioned stimulus associability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 38, 217–232.
Ward, R. D., Gallistel, C. R., & Balsam, P. D. (2013). It’s the information! Behavioural Processes, 95, 3–7.
Wasserman, E. A., & Miller, R. R. (1997). What’s elementary about associative learning? Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 573–607.
Weiss, S. J. (1978). Discriminated response and incentive processes in operant conditioning: a two-factor model of stimulus control. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 30, 361–381.
Williams, B. A. (1983). Revising the principle of reinforcement. Behaviorism, 11, 63–88.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the behavior analysis seminar group at Utah State University for many conversations on this topic, especially Andy Craig, Paul Cunningham, Greg Madden, and Jay Hinnenkamp. Thanks also to Stéphanie Cousin for her comments on a previous version of the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shahan, T.A. Moving Beyond Reinforcement and Response Strength. BEHAV ANALYST 40, 107–121 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-017-0092-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-017-0092-y