If I remember his article about the crib, there were no levers or discs. It was lined with paper (?) that could be pulled out and disposed of easil (a la hospital bed lining), and temperature and humidity controls that you could play with to maximize the comfort of the child, and it did not have bars to get a head stuck in. It gave parents a break, hence they were in a better mood and more social when they played with the kids. I'm not much of a Skinnerian, but it was one heck of a crib, and if anyone crings at the oddity of it, one only has to compare it to millions of kids that are plopped in front of a TV, ignored, neglected, etc. Anyone interested should read Skinners original article describing it.
------Original Message------ From: Mike Palij To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij ReplyTo: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Franklin's kite and other scientific myths Sent: Jun 8, 2011 10:47 AM On Wed, 08 Jun 2011 06:34:14 -0700, Rick Stevens >I'm not sure what problem there would be with a bar to press or a button to >push in a crib. If you can teach pigeons to read that way > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA it should work on kids, too. It's not a real problem but a problem of appearance. Some people might be really put off by seeing a child in an air crib pressing a bar or pushing a button to get a treat or something else. They might see this as treating infants as animals instead of human beings. It's a matter of perspective and interpretation. Humanistic psychologists of 1960-1970 vintage would probably howl about it. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Mike Palij <m...@nyu.edu> wrote: > [snip] > Part of the problem might be with the colloquial use of the term > "Skinner box". Traditionally, an operant chamber was informally > referred to as a Skinner box but when people started to refer to > the air crib as a Skinner box it is quite possible that people might > have though Deborah Skinner was being forced to bar press or > peck at a lit disk in order to get food, water, and/or attention. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: ku...@mail.plymouth.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454&n=T&l=tips&o=10902 or send a blank email to leave-10902-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from U.S. Cellular --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=10904 or send a blank email to leave-10904-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
