Serdikoff, Sherry L. writes on 17 Nov 99,:
> And so, let's look back at the original story. > A MIT student went to
> the Harvard football stadium and blew a whistle then< > threw birdseed on
> the stadium floor. Birds came flocking.< Seems that the birdseed was
> available whether the birds came flocking or not (actually seems it was
> available before the birds came flocking). Birdseed availability
> contingent on whistle - not the birds' arrival. Procedurally, this seems
> to be classical conditioning.
In the operant chamber, pellets are always available, but the animal has
to make a response before they are delivered. In the field, the food is
always available, but the birds have to fly down to eat it. Premack
would remind us that it is not the food that is the reinforcer but the
behavior of eating the food. The food could sit on the field all day and it
wouldn't reinforce the behavior of flying onto the field unless the birds
ate it. They can't do that without flying onto the field. So the eating of
the food is contingent on their landing in that field after the discriminative
stimulus of a whistle has sounded.
I am as compliant and willing to tolerate diverse views and accept the
yin and the yang and the Hegelian thesis and antithesis and synthesis
of everything as the next guy but I think, in this case, this is operant
conditioning.
Rick
Dr. Rick Froman
Psychology Department
Box 3055
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR 72761
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