PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Then how could tantrum behaviour develop?
TINNY: I'll give you a one word hint. Shaping.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: The answer became immediately obvious to me as soon as I heard the word 'shaping'. The behaviour which the parents first reinforced was probably not actually tantrum behaviour, but was the first step in the shaping process which led to tantrum behaviour. The first behaviour may not have looked at all like a tantrum. It may have been a request that was almost unnoticeably more assertive or demanding than the ordinary calm and reasonable request. That might have led to many hundreds of slightly more demanding requests before anything resembling a true tantrum appeared. There may have never been an individual response in this shaping process which could be called the first true tantrum. The parents may have been kind, well meaning people, only interested in the well-being of their child. They may have never realised they were teaching their child to throw tantrums. They may not have seen the development of tantrum behaviour as being under the influence of any schedules of reinforcement. By the time the tantrum behaviour was fully developed its origins would likely have been a complete mystery to the parents.
TINNY: Although I didn't examine you on all that we have discussed about the laws of learning, the answers you have given indicate an understanding in depth. I think it would be safe to assume you have understood what we have spoken of well enough to continue. Always feel free to ask questions, both about the subject we are discussing at the time and anything we have already discussed.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Could I also ask questions about things we haven't discussed?
TINNY: I guess all questions are welcome.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What will we learn about next?
TINNY: I want to explain the meaning of a few more terms, and then we can talk about the application of these learning principles.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I expect that to be interesting.
TINNY: It always is for me. I hope it will be interesting for you, too.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What's the next term you are going to explain?
TINNY: There aren't many left. I think next I'll explain what 'fading' means. Fading refers to the decreasing role of the discriminative stimulus as an influence on the response. It is often important that learned behaviour takes place on its own, without prompting.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I'm afraid that explanation didn't make clear to me what fading means.
TINNY: I have a really good example of fading.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Where do you get all your examples?
TINNY: Some I make up, some are from personal experience, some I have read about, and others I have been told about. I've seen many of them take place in documentary films. Even without the ones I make up, I must know thousands of examples.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is the example you're going to give about fading from real life?
TINNY: This example is a way to increase attention span and has been done many times. Attention span refers to the amount of time a particular task is attended to. Some children have a very difficult time learning because they only attend to any specific task for a few seconds.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is attention span a learned behaviour?
TINNY: It seems to be. It certainly can be influenced by the conditioning process. The attention span of people of all ages tends to vary a lot. For children who can only attend to a learning task for a few seconds this can be a major problem. In this example we have a five year old girl whose attention span is virtually non-existent, perhaps two or three seconds. The means used in this example to teach attending behaviour is a variation of a very old form of gambling called the shell game. In its original form the game consisted of three half shells from walnuts and a dried bean. The three shells would be placed on a table in a line and the bean placed under one of the shells. The shells would then be moved quickly from one position to another, finally coming to rest. The person watching would then be asked to pick the shell that the bean was under. When this procedure is used to teach children to pay attention, three white paper cups are often used instead of the shells.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What do you put under the cup? A dried bean doesn't seem like it would be much good as a reinforcer?
TINNY: If the right cup was picked, finding the bean underneath would indicate success. We humans tend to find success generally rewarding. But if the child did not consider successful choices to be rewarding, some sort of small treat could be placed under one of the cups instead of the bean. Actually, I've always thought it best if rewards can be some form of inner satisfaction rather than some kind of external material reward. For the purposes of this example we'll say the little girl considers successfully picking the cup with the bean under it rewarding. When testing to determine how well the child could do this task without any training, it turned out that if the cups were lined up, the bean placed under one of them and the position of each cup was changed slowly just once, the little girl was often no more likely to choose the right cup than she would have been by chance. She would choose correctly only about one time in three, on the average.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Was she trying her best?
TINNY: Since she seemed quite delighted when she chose correctly, it would appear she was making her best effort to attend to which cup the bean was under. That initial low level of success would be considered the baseline, or starting, condition. Now that the baseline behaviour has been established it is time to begin the conditioning process. The goal will be to shape attending behaviour to the point where she can pick the cup with the bean under it every time after a fairly large number of changes in the position of each cup while those moves are being made as fast as the teacher is able.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That's a rather optimistic goal, isn't it?
TINNY: It happens to be an easily attainable goal.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Well, it wouldn't seem to be.
TINNY: When I trained the chicken, Aphrodite, to perform a complicated sequence of behaviours, it seemed impossible until the laws of learning were known. With the laws of learning, teaching a chicken to do that complex task was simple. The same is true when teaching this little girl a seemingly very difficult attending task. With a good understanding of learning principles it becomes a simple task.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Where would you begin the shaping process? If she is only making the correct choice by chance, there seems to be no presently occurring attending behaviour, however minimal, to reinforce.
TINNY: You're right, there is no baseline level of the desired goal response to begin rewarding.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: With the chicken, the baseline response you first rewarded was turning the head in the direction of the goal response. I think I assumed there would always be some equivalent place to begin any shaping process. The situation as you have presented it seems to be a dead end; but, it must not truly be since you say the attending behaviour can be easily developed.
TINNY: In this situation, and as will sometimes be the case, no part of the behaviour you want to reinforce is present in the baseline condition. What must be done then is to alter the situation in such a way that will bring about some approximation of the behaviour you want to reward.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That sounds quite simple; but, how do you know which conditions to change?
TINNY: I can't give you a specific answer which will cover all possibilities. The solution requires a good general understanding of the sequence of events which make up any learning process. Once you see learning and behaviour as a series of separate links in a chain, you will always be able to find a solution to each different situation that arises. In teaching this young girl to focus her attention for longer periods it was decided to provide a discriminative stimulus which would serve as a powerful cue that she would be able to attend to or notice the correct cup as its position was changed. One of the three white cups was painted red. The bean was always placed under the red cup as their positions were changed. Each time, after the cups were moved around, the little girl was asked to pick the one with the bean under it. Each time she chose correctly.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That's not surprising. It would be obvious which cup to pick.
TINNY: It is supposed to be obvious. During the shaping process it is best to have each response successful so that it will be rewarded. If the gap between any two steps in the shaping process is too large the behaviour being learned could break down. Painting one cup red was only the first step.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What is the second step?
TINNY: After the little girl had been reinforced a few times for picking the cup with the bean under it, the completely red cup was replaced with one that was just painted red on the top half. The bean is always placed under the cup with red on top, so once again she successfully chose the cup with the bean under it. The half red cup was replaced with one that had a broad red stripe; the next step being a thin red stripe. Then a large red dot. Then a small red dot. During each of those steps her attending behaviour was allowed to stabilise over a number of successful choices. All the while during each these steps the teacher was changing the position of the cups more times and moving them faster. During all those steps in the shaping process, which may have numbered up to fifty now, the child never made an incorrect choice. She seemed very pleased with her success. The red dot was made smaller several more times until the last red dot on the cup was almost unnoticeable. The child was still able to pick the cup with the bean under it every time. The next step is to place the bean under a cup that was completely white, identical to the other two cups. By now the little girl was so involved in the game, and paying such good attention to which cup the bean was under, she was still able to pick the correct cup each time. Slowly getting faster and faster the teacher changed the position of the three cups many times. When the teacher could move the cups no faster, and it didn't seem to matter how many changes of position the cups underwent, the child could still choose the cup covering the bean every time. At the end of this learning experience the little girl said she thought the game was fun, but too easy. She could concentrate easily and well for periods up to five minutes and more.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Would it really be as easy to teach someone to attend as that example makes it sound?
TINNY: I know it's hard to believe, but it is not too hard to do at all.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is there anything which affects the ease and success of the shaping procedure that you didn't include in the example?
TINNY: The only aspect of the process I left out was the communication that took place between the teacher and the child.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is that communication important?
TINNY: The communication which takes place during any learning situation is extremely important.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is the communication more important than the procedure you just outlined?
TINNY: The two aspects of the learning experience can't really be separated.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I suppose you'll tell me about the important qualities of communication in learning when you think the time is right.
TINNY: It won't be long. Did the example of teaching a child to attend to a task give you a clear idea of what fading means?
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: The steps by which the discriminative stimulus, in this case red paint, decreased step by step until it was no longer present gave me a very graphic understanding of the fading procedure. Would it be true to say that fading is to the discriminative process, what thinning is to the reinforcing stimuli?
TINNY: An excellent analogy. As the conditioning process progresses it is often the case that the discriminative stimulus fades to nothing while the amount of reinforcement provided is thinned significantly. Fading refers to progressive decreases in the magnitude of the discriminative stimulus, and thinning refers to the progressive decreases in the overall quantity of the reinforcing stimulus received. To condition any behaviour it is often necessary to first introduce discriminative stimuli and reinforcers at an artificially high magnitude and rate. It is important to reduce these inflated magnitudes and rates so that the behaviour being conditioned can come under natural control.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Who is responsible for this natural control?
TINNY: It must always be the subject of the conditioning process. Each of us must receive the opportunity and accept the responsibility to control the varied influences on our development.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is it wrong to condition others?
TINNY: In every human interaction we condition others, just as we are conditioned by others. Most of the outcomes of that ongoing conditioning are negligible, but some are of lasting and perhaps major impact. Conditioning is the name for the various influences which are described by the laws of learning. They are a natural and integral part of our existence. We cannot put a stop to our influence on others and we cannot put a stop to the influence others have on us. It is not wrong to condition others, the harm comes when we condition others wrongly.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What determines right conditioning from wrong conditioning?
TINNY: If in every thought, word, and deed we are fair, honest, and positive all our influences will be right influences.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Why must our thoughts also be fair, honest, and positive? We don't influence anyone with our thoughts do we?
TINNY: Theoretically every thought influences every other person on the planet to some degree. I think I understand the process by which this happens, but it is very difficult to know the degree of influence. Still I think your questions deserve a more practical answer. Not only do we condition others, but we also condition ourselves. Our thoughts are the most powerful means we have to condition ourselves.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Do our own thoughts have a greater influence on our overall development than the conditioning influence of others?
TINNY: There is no doubt our thoughts, or more correctly, our inner speech has a much greater potential influence on our overall development than all external influences.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Does our inner speech condition us in the same way as the external influences?
TINNY: The internal influences work by the same means and are governed by the same laws of learning as external influences. All the different types of reinforcement and punishment also take place within our mental processes. Every term and concept I have defined and explained is also part of the internal conditioning processes.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: You explained how the influences of conditioning took place unnoticed in most cases. The example you gave was a child being conditioned to throw tantrums. The parents, not knowing or understanding the laws of learning, were oblivious to the conditioning taking place. Although, in that example the relationship between behaviour and reinforcing stimuli was quite obvious, or would be to anyone aware of learning principles. If those obvious external factors could be overlooked, the subtle internal factors must be almost impossible to perceive.
TINNY: For someone unaware of the principles of learning most aspects of the internal conditioning process remain invisible. Even for a person who has a good knowledge and understanding of the laws of learning it remains difficult to be aware of the subtleties of the internal conditioning process.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: It sounds as if the laws of learning must become part of our life, part of our being.
TINNY: We are already one with the laws of learning. We need only become aware of our true nature, and we will come to the full realisation of principles of learning.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: You say every thought, word, and deed should be fair, honest, and positive. To be all that would be perfection. Although we are clearly on a path to perfection, we are obviously not yet close to being perfect. How can we be fair, honest, and positive?
TINNY: Neither can we yet be perfectly good. In all that we do there will be some combination of good and evil. What we can do, though, is maximise the good and minimise the evil in our every thought, word, and deed. Similarly, we cannot yet be perfectly fair, honest, and positive. In all that we do, even when we attempt to be fair, honest, and positive, there will be some aspect of unfairness, dishonesty, and negativeness. What we must do is maximise the fair, the honest, and the positive, while minimising the unfair, the dishonest, and the negative in our every thought, deed, and word.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: To do all that would require a very full understanding of what fair, honest, and positive means.
TINNY: The meaning of fair, honest, and positive is both very simple and very complex. Simply put; that which is fair is right, that which is honest is true, and that which is positive is other than negative.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How do we know what is fair?
TINNY: As we have defined right, it is all action in harmony with the natural order. That which is right aids the progressive development toward perfection.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: So no thought, word, or deed that stands in the way of the quest for perfection could ever be considered fair.
TINNY: It could not.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How do we know what is honest?
TINNY: Truth is that which is. Truth is a statement of the way things are. Absolute truth is identical with perfect existence. Relative truth is consistent with material existence. Both relative and absolute truth can be perfectly known only from a perspective beyond the material plane. Neither relative nor absolute truth can be perfectly known from a perspective on the material plane. Truth to a being existing on the material plane can only be known as probability. The higher the probability, the closer to absolute truth. Truth at our level of existence is consistent with the highest probability statements of the nature of existence.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How do we know what is positive?
TINNY: This meaning of positive comes from the laws of learning. All forms of negative control are harmful. We saw that negative reinforcement, presentation punishment, and withdrawal punishment are forms of negative control. Positive reinforcement remains the most legitimate form of influence.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Could anything which is fair, honest, and positive be harmful?
TINNY: No.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is there anything which is fair, honest, and positive which we should refrain from doing?
TINNY: No, we should be free to think, speak, and act in any way which is fair, honest, and positive.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: If we restrict ourselves to those things which are fair, honest, and positive, wouldn't we be missing out on much that is presently part of human life?
TINNY: It is true that we would be missing out on much that is presently part of human life. We would have to forego all that stands between us and the attainment of our ultimate destiny, the survival of the human race and a utopian future.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Put that way it doesn't appear we would be missing much.
TINNY: When the true nature of our existence and purpose is known in its fullness it will be easy to give up the temptations of the material world and live in harmony with natural law. But when that truth has not been experienced I can understand how what is asked may seem an insurmountable burden.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is the shaping process involved in the path each of us must take to become fair, honest, and positive?
TINNY: We can become fair, honest, and positive by no other means than through the shaping process. Each human being is at a different point on the continuum of fairness, honesty, and positiveness. The point each of us is presently at represents our baseline condition. To increase our fairness, honesty, and positiveness we must be reinforced for the expression of those characteristics. We can speed up the rate at which we become more fair, honest, and positive by organising our lives so that we often have the opportunity to be rewarded for fairness, honesty, and positiveness.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Do you mean we should be conditioned to be more fair, honest and positive?
TINNY: That's what I mean.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Somehow that sounds artificial.
TINNY: Our every thought, word, and deed is already conditioned. Why would it be any more artificial if we were to make conscious decisions as to the circumstances which exist in our environment to help make sure the direction of the conditioning we undergo helps us be more fair, more honest, and more positive?
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: It just seems that natural influences would be more desirable than planned influences.
TINNY: I think I know what might be bothering you. Are you assuming when I say we should take an active role in creating the circumstances which will reinforce fairness, honesty, and positiveness that these planned influences would be something like the conditioning which took place in the experimental learning chamber with the chicken or the rat?
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I was probably thinking along those lines.
TINNY: Those were simple examples of basic learning from the laboratory. If such practices were attempted in human life they would indeed be artificial. In a right world that which is fair, honest, and positive would be naturally rewarded. It is actually those influences which lead us from that which is fair, honest, and positive which are unnatural.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: So society wouldn't have to set up any contrived schedules of reinforcement to increase the amount of fairness, honesty, and positiveness in the world?
TINNY: None at all. As the knowledge of the true nature of our existence spreads through human society we will begin to live more in accord with natural law. As we begin to live more in harmony with our environment there will naturally occur more opportunities to be reinforced for doing that which is fair, honest, and positive.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Will we consciously alter our environment to ensure that which is fair, honest, and positive will be rewarded?
TINNY: That will be done.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: And you say that is natural.
TINNY: To consciously alter our relationship with the environment is the most natural thing we could do. It is our freewill that allows us the opportunity to choose the environmental conditions which will most aid us in our quest for perfection. That is a right accorded by our human nature.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: When we alter our own environment don't we also alter the environment of others?
TINNY: That's true.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Don't we then, as we alter our environment, have a responsibility to consider the effect those changes will have on others?
TINNY: We do have that responsibility. We have always had that responsibility, but it had previously either gone unnoticed or been ignored. Knowledge of the laws of learning allows us to realise and fulfill that responsibility.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: As you came to understand those the laws of learning did you immediately see their application to human life?
TINNY: I, very early, realised that the laws of learning could have a great influence in human life and a great effect on human society; but, it took me a lot longer to truly understand the all pervasive, powerful, and direct nature of those influences.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Your first real understanding came from the studies of animal learning. What came after that?
TINNY: The next step in the shaping of my understanding of learning principles involved the simple applications of those laws of learning to children with educational difficulties. I studied many examples of children considered mentally retarded or learning disabled. It was with children in those categories that operant learning principles were first widely put into practice. In those early efforts the conditions of reinforcement, and sometimes punishment, which were set up were of the type you would have called artificial. Those organising the environment, so that specific conditioning could take place, had learned their theory and developed their practical skills with animals in the laboratory. It is not surprising that when those same learning principles were put into practice with human beings they were very similar to the methods used in animal research.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Did those early pioneers in the application of learning principles realise the power of the new tool they were working with?
TINNY: They thought they did. For a while they were like modern examples of the knights on white horses, come to right the wrongs of the world. They believed they could cure any problem, improve any deficiency, and transform human society by the application of the laws of learning.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Weren't they right in believing that?
TINNY: The laws of learning offer a potential beyond even those grand claims.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: They didn't achieve those grand goals did they?
TINNY: They didn't even come close. Many of the early believers in the potential of learning principles lost their faith.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How did those early theorists and practitioners resolve their failures?
TINNY: Most came to consider the early enthusiasm to be misguided and accepted the apparent limitations on the application of the laws of learning. Some gave up completely and entered other fields.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That all sounds quite disheartening. How is it that you still have such great faith in the potential of the laws of learning to achieve those early grand goals and more?
TINNY: Although all that happened only a relatively few years ago, I consider it to be the ancient history of behavioural science. As in the early knowledge of most areas of science, there were many flaws. Some of those flaws came from a misunderstanding of available facts, some of the flaws occurred because of knowledge that was not yet available.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What were these early attempts to apply the laws of learning with human beings called?
TINNY: They were called behaviour modification.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I don't like the sound of that name.
TINNY: I don't either. I think some of the resistance to the application of learning principles occurred because of that unappealing and misleading label.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Behaviour modification somehow sounds like something that might be done to people against their will.
TINNY: Unfortunately there were instances of the laws of learning being applied to alter people's behaviour against their will. One of the worst abuses of operant conditioning occurred when prisoners of war were brainwashed by the use of these learning principles.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How would you define brainwashing?
TINNY: I would consider it to be a systematic process of conditioning designed to alter someone's convictions and beliefs against their will.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Can the laws of learning be successfully used to do that?
TINNY: The laws of learning are very powerful. Brainwashing could be effectively done with ease.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: You said earlier that these learning principles could be misused and dangerous.
TINNY: Any tool can be misused. This is why it is imperative that the laws of learning be combined with a positive philosophy of life.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What were the major objections to behaviour modification?
TINNY: As is the case when anything is strongly opposed, a lot of the opposition was emotionally based without objective reason. I can understand the emotion behind such opposition, but I can't credit it with logical significance. There were, though, two major points for objective criticism. First was the use of negative forms of control, and second was the fact that those whose behaviour was being conditioned often had no say as to whether or not they wanted their behaviour modified.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I agree those are both legitimate points of criticism; but, could those criticisms be lodged against all forms of behaviour modification?
TINNY: Most programs of behaviour modification, even from the earliest times, involved the use of positive reinforcement, so all those were free from the arguments against using negative control. Even so, very little of the behaviour modification done would have been done at the request of or even the consent of those whose behaviour was being modified, so the second major criticism was almost universally valid.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Even though much behaviour modification was done without first getting the subject's consent it was done with the best of intentions wasn't it?
TINNY: I would say virtually all, certainly most, behaviour modification was done with the best interests of the subject in mind.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: And the people doing this behaviour modification weren't evil people were they?
TINNY: I doubt many of them at all could be considered to have evil intent. A few might have been misguided and a few might have been more interested in adding to their scientific knowledge than any other consideration, but most used behaviour modification in an attempt to better the life of those being conditioned.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Do you think some of the criticism, both emotional and objective, directed toward behaviour modification came about because people perceived the potential danger that could come from those techniques when misused?
TINNY: I'm sure that had a lot to do with the criticism behaviour modification attracted.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Do you think the proposals you make for the widespread knowledge of, and use of, the laws of learning might draw the same criticism as behaviour modification did?
TINNY: I guess it's possible, although there would be no logical basis. Somehow learning principles themselves have become associated with the various wrongs involved in behaviour modification in the minds of a few critics. I read once of a person who said they didn't like the laws of learning. That's very much the same as someone saying they don't like the laws of physics. It means as little if you dislike reinforcement as it does if you dislike gravity. There is nowhere you can go to be beyond the influence of either. The natural laws of physical existence are not to be liked or disliked. They are as they are, they all serve the purpose that the physical universe was created to fulfill. If those natural laws did not exist, we would not exist.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How do you feel toward the natural laws such as those of physics and learning?
TINNY: I welcome them all, I appreciate them all, I love them all. And, I attempt to live my life in harmony with those laws.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Tell me about some of the early attempts to use the laws of learning, which took the form of behaviour modification.
TINNY: I'll try and pick a number of examples which will portray a wide range of the early efforts to apply the laws of learning to human behaviour. As I said much of this conditioning was done by positive reinforcement. The first example is of the simplest type and could be applied to thousands of different learning tasks. The teacher sits with a child and shows cards with different letters of the alphabet on them. After showing each card the teacher asks the child to name the letter of the alphabet. If the child gives the correct answer the teacher may acknowledge the correctness of the answer, praise the child, or give the child a small piece of candy. In this example the card with the letter of the alphabet is the discriminative stimulus; correctly naming the letter is the response; and, the acknowledgement, praise, or candy, is the reinforcing stimulus.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Why is the alphabet card a discriminative stimulus?
TINNY: A discriminative stimulus gives information about what response is likely to be reinforced. If a card with the letter 'x' is shown, this provides information that the response of saying "x" might be rewarded.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That sounds like a complicated explanation of why someone would say the correct letter when shown an alphabet card.
TINNY: The explanation is a general one and applies in all situations. It is less useful in simple common situations like this than it is in other cases where what is occurring may not be so obvious.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Serving as a discriminative stimulus was truly the function of the card in the example though, wasn't it?
TINNY: If the child had not learned that saying the correct letter when shown an alphabet card could bring reinforcement, then the child would be unlikely to respond by saying the letter upon seeing the card. Once the child learns that relationship, the card does function as a discriminative stimulus.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: In this example the reinforcer was acknowledgement of the correct answer, praise, or a small piece of candy. Why are there different rewards?
TINNY: Those were different possible reinforcing stimuli. Which of those rewards was actually used would depend on the child's past experiences. Some children have learned to consider success at any educational task to be rewarding. In this case acknowledgement would be a sufficient reward. Some children have no interest in the particular educational task but desire praise. And, in some cases children, may have never learned to consider praise rewarding, but greatly appreciate a piece of candy.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Aren't there problems in giving a child candy as a reinforcer?
TINNY: There are both health and social reasons why it is not desirable to use candy as a reward, particularly for performing learning tasks. In every instance I would say the minimal reward which brings about the desired results should be given; and, the reward should be based on internalised positive feelings as much as is possible. Candy is very seldom used in normal educational settings. It is much more widely used with children experiencing a degree of retardation or severe learning handicap which has not allowed them to become receptive to less primary rewards. Even then candy is less than ideal as a reward.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Would you explain what you mean by primary rewards in this example?
TINNY: Of the three different reinforcers in this example, acknowledgement of a correct answer and praise are both secondary rewards. We are not born seeking acknowledgement of academic achievement or praise. We learn to find them to be reinforcing. Candy is a sweet food, and we are born with a body and brain that considers sweets reinforcing. For this reason candy is a primary reward. Children, whose handicaps have not allowed them to learn the reinforcing appeal of acknowledged correct answers or praise, may only respond on educational tasks if rewarded with some primary stimulus, such as candy.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: If the child wasn't hungry, candy wouldn't be reinforcing.
TINNY: That's another problem with using candy to reward learning behaviour. What should be done in any situation where a primary reinforcer, like candy, is necessary to ensure that the child completes some learning task, is to fade the primary reinforcer as quickly as possible and replace it with a secondary reinforcer.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How would you do that?
TINNY: The secondary reinforcer, perhaps praise, could be paired with the primary reinforcer, candy. The candy would be given less often, while praise would still be given for every correct response. Soon no candy would need to be given as the child learned to consider praise rewarding in itself.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Could praise then be faded out as a reward when acknowledgement of success was introduced?
TINNY: That might be appropriate also. The goal should always be to have as little external reward as possible. Only the minimum reinforcement required to maintain the behaviour should be given.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Why not be generous with reward?
TINNY: This question provides a good example of the necessity to consider the unified theory of existence in a holistic manner when considering any question. Since our goal is to attain perfect freewill, we must always seek to reduce external control. We are not yet perfect so there is still some external influence necessary for our continued development. When external influence is used, it should always be the minimum which will achieve the necessary effect. Whenever we reward another person we are exercising an external influence. It is for this reason reward should not be given generously.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Without that understanding it might have seemed giving generous reward would be doing a good thing.
TINNY: The world as it seems to be is often different from the world as it truly is. In fact, instead of giving generous rewards being a good thing to do, it would be an evil thing.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That's a bit strongly worded, isn't it?
TINNY: Good and evil as I use the words are not subjective and emotional terms. They have definite objective meaning. Good aids progress toward our ultimate goal of perfection; and, evil hinders our progress toward that goal. If generous reward hinders our progress toward perfect freewill then it is by definition evil.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How do you feel toward evil?
TINNY: I view evil objectively. The greater the harm it causes the more sad I would feel about it.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Doesn't evil make you angry? Don't you hate evil?
TINNY: I don't hate anything; and, I almost never feel angry. Just as I attempt to live in harmony with the world around me, I attempt to attain harmony within myself. Hate and anger cause harmony to be lost.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Aren't hate and anger natural emotions?
TINNY: We are born with the potential to feel hate and anger. Whether or not we express that potential is determined by our conditioning through the interactions we experience with our environment. No, the expression of hate and anger are not natural.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How do you feel toward good then?
TINNY: I also view good objectively. The greater the benefit it brings the better I feel about it.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: If evil doesn't make you feel hate or anger, then good wouldn't make you feel love or happiness.
TINNY: You are mistaken. I do love goodness, and goodness does make me happy.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Can't too much love and happiness cause disharmony within?
TINNY: The more love and happiness within, the greater the experience of inner harmony.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: If hate and anger aren't natural emotions, can love and happiness be natural?
TINNY: To experience love and feel happy is the natural human condition.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How can you know hate is unnatural and love is natural?
TINNY: We are progressing toward the perfect and absolute expression of all positive characteristics. Hate and anger cannot be perfectly and absolutely manifested without being infinitely destructive. Love and happiness can be perfectly and absolutely manifested bringing infinite benefit. That which cannot be perfectly manifested is unnatural; and, that which can be perfectly manifested is natural.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That was an excellent answer. I agree with you, although I must admit your answers sometimes seem unusual.
TINNY: Anyway, I'm certainly glad there are no limits to love and happiness. When in harmony, the physical universe is a beautiful place.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: In the example of a child being taught to identify the letters of the alphabet, what would be the best schedule of reinforcement to use?
TINNY: It is almost always best to start with continuous reinforcement so that the behaviour to be conditioned will be influenced as quickly as possible. After the behaviour is stabilised on continuous reinforcement the next appropriate schedule is determined by many factors. For instance, if simply being told the letter on the card had been correctly named was an effective reinforcing stimulus, the schedule could remain on continuous reinforcement.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is that because all learning, to be successful must be followed by feedback as to the result of the response?
TINNY: That's right. There can never be too much feedback during the process of gaining knowledge. If the feedback as to the result of the response can also serve as the reinforcing stimulus then it can remain on a continuous schedule forever.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Is feedback usually provided on a continuous basis in educational settings?
TINNY: No. The amount of feedback is usually very limited in schools. Most educational institutions are not organised in a way which allows continuous feedback of learning behaviour.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What is the effect of not having continuous feedback available during school learning situations?
TINNY: The result is that much less learning takes place than should occur given the large amount of time spent in school. Schools, since they don't provide continuous and immediate feedback as to the progress of learning, are extremely inefficient.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How much more could be learned in the same amount of time in school if learning behaviour was reinforced more efficiently?
TINNY: Ten times as much could easily be learned in a more efficient school environment. Perhaps a hundred times as much could be learned in an ideally efficient school, maybe even more.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: So schools must be terribly inefficient at present.
TINNY: Even that is an understatement.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Will schools be very different in the future?
TINNY: Schools in the future will be so different that today's schools would not even be recognised as schools.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Will that change happen soon?
TINNY: There will be major changes soon within the present school setting; but, the most significant changes will be a longer time coming.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Will the major changes coming soon involve the application of the laws of learning?
TINNY: The broad application of the laws of learning is one of the major changes coming soon. Other major changes will be in what the schools teach and in the role of children. The subjects presently dominating school curricula will become less prominent and children will take a much more active role in every aspect of their schooling.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Will the students like school and learning more after these changes take place?
TINNY: Children will be very attracted by school and highly motivated to learn.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Will there be resistance to these changes by traditional educators?
TINNY: They will find the potential benefits of this new educational model both threatening and hard to believe. They will soon relent, and become enthusiastic themselves, as they see there is no threat. The results will prove the benefits, and the children will surpass the ideals of the traditionalists in every area, social, behavioural, and academic.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: It sounds like everyone will be happy with the changes about to happen in education.
TINNY: It will take a while until everyone is satisfied, but that time will come. Even then there will be further changes. Education must progress toward perfection also.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I wonder what a perfect school would look like.
TINNY: It may look like the physical universe.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: You once said the physical universe was like a womb, now you're saying it is a school.
TINNY: The universe is many things.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: You have a very broad view of reality.
TINNY: That is because I have been allowed a glimpse of the material plane of existence from the perspective of the absolute.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: How am I to take it when you say things like that?
TINNY: I'm not sure.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Someday it will be obvious what you mean. You are the child of humanity's future.
TINNY: Sometimes you find me hard to understand, and sometimes I find you hard to understand.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: We have diverged enough. Is there anything more you want to tell me about the example of the child being taught with the alphabet cards?
TINNY: Before the training began on alphabet recognition the child would have been tested to find out what the baseline knowledge was. It is common and often helpful to chart the progress of learning on a graph. We might assume, in this example, that before the training began the child could recognise and name none of the letters of the alphabet. The baseline performance in such a case would then be zero. After one training session the child could perhaps name five letters of the alphabet; after two sessions nine letters; after three sessions sixteen letters; after four session twenty-one letters; and after five sessions the child might name all twenty-six letters correctly. To make sure the learning had stabilised and been retained the child might be tested during sessions six, seven, and eight. The performance being perfect during those sessions, it might be considered appropriate to move on to the next step in the shaping process leading to the overall educational goal of being able to read.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What benefit is there in finding out the baseline performance and graphing the progress of each training session?
TINNY: Remember that one of the goals of learning is to be as efficient as possible. Unless it is known where the child's skill level was at when training began it cannot be known for sure that any progress is being made. Unless the progress from session to session is noted, it cannot be known for sure that any progress is being made. Unless some record of progress was kept it wouldn't even be possible to know for sure when the task had been successfully learned. Without ongoing knowledge as to the progress which is being made, the steps in the shaping process might be made too soon or made too large, and the conditioning could break down; or, the steps might be made much later than they should have been, so time would have been wasted. The training might even continue after the task had been already learned. Of course in this example the learning task was a simple type that might be successfully and efficiently done without actually graphing the progress; but, all the steps in the record keeping should at least take place in the mind of the teacher.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: When conditioning any behaviour, or teaching any skill or knowledge, should the beginning or baseline level first be assessed and progress regularly charted?
TINNY: It is probably true to say that any learning process would be more efficient and more effective if it began at the baseline level, and included that objective knowledge of the progress being made. In many instances just keeping a continuous record of behaviour will affect the occurrence of that behaviour.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Why would that happen?
TINNY: When behaviour is not observed systematically it is often not obvious when we are responding too many times in a way we wouldn't like to, or when we are responding too seldom in a way we would like to. The act of noting each response introduces a new factor into the already established relationships between the ongoing discriminative stimuli, responses, and reinforcing stimuli. This new factor may break the established chain of behaviour. It might do that by serving as a reinforcing or punishing stimulus after the response being monitored, or it might act as a discriminative stimulus and initiate some response other than the one being monitored.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I think this is another situation where a complex answer needs to be clarified by an example.
TINNY: For example a person might be a smoker and decide to chart their smoking behaviour. They could begin to carry a notebook with them at all times, and each time after they lit a cigarette they would take out the notebook and record the lighting of that cigarette. The act of taking out the notebook introduces a new factor in the smoking cycle. Since the person is recording their smoking behaviour because they want to cut down on the number of cigarettes they smoke, the act of taking out the notebook and recording the fact that they had just lit a cigarette can easily become a punishing stimulus. Each time the notebook is taken out brings to their attention that they have just done something they wanted to quit doing.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Couldn't just lighting the cigarette perform the same function? Couldn't that act also as a punishing stimulus which signifies the person had just done something they wanted to quit doing?
TINNY: The act of lighting the cigarette would already have been established in the smoking cycle. It probably already functions as a discriminative stimulus, as a response that has been reinforced, and as a reinforcing stimulus. All those past associations would make lighting the cigarette a less effective punishing stimulus. Taking out the notebook and recording the cigarette being lit, since it is new to the smoking cycle, would likely serve more effectively as a punishing stimulus.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Before you go on, please tell me how lighting the cigarette already serves as a discriminative stimulus, as a response which is reinforced, and as a reinforcing stimulus.
TINNY: To understand those different functions smoking behaviour must be viewed as a chain. Lighting the cigarette is a discriminative stimulus in that chain when it serves as a cue that smoking the cigarette will be reinforced. If the cigarette had not been lit, smoking the cigarette would not be rewarding. Lighting the cigarette is a reinforced response when it is followed by a reward such as satisfaction that the cigarette was ready to smoke. And, lighting the cigarette is a reinforcing stimulus when it follows the response of holding a match near the end of the cigarette.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: That's clear now; you can go on with the explanation. How does recording a cigarette lighting response function as a punishing stimulus in the smoking behaviour chain?
TINNY: It takes some period of time to take out a notebook and record a response. The focus of attention during that period of time is directed toward reducing smoking behaviour. In that way, recording the cigarette lighting response may introduce thoughts about the harm of smoking, about the desire to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked, may bring regrets about lighting another cigarette, or may reaffirm that the recording is being done to reduce smoking behaviour.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: I can see how all that might reduce the number of cigarettes smoked a bit, but not a lot.
TINNY: I particularly used an example where recording the response to be reduced would not be very effective. I did this to point out that it is even possible to plan recording procedures so they will influence behaviour more effectively. If you wanted to increase the probability that the recording process would decrease the rate of cigarette smoking you would not choose to record the cigarette lighting response.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: Why not?
TINNY: The recording procedure then breaks into the chain of smoking behaviour after the cigarette is already lit. After the cigarette is lit there is a very high probability the chain would continue unbroken and the cigarette would be smoked.
PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTIST: What aspect of smoking behaviour would you choose to record if you wanted to make it more likely the number of cigarettes smoked would decrease?
TINNY: You would have to break the chain before the cigarette was lit. I would probably record the response of picking up the packet of cigarettes. If the plan is to stop and record the response after the cigarettes have been picked up, but before lighting a cigarette, the recording provides the cue at the ideal time to think about reasons not to smoke. The thoughts brought about by recording the response of picking up the cigarettes may result in a decision at that point to put the cigarettes down and not smoke at that moment. In this example, recording could be considered a discriminative stimulus rather than punishment.
