Week #5 - Breland & Breland (Due Tuesday week #6)

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After making your mind map for the article, briefly discuss the article. Here are some questions that might help you formulate your response. You pretty much have the freedom to respond how you see fit. However please write with some authority over the topic (Let me know if this doesn't make sense).

What did you find interesting? What were some of the main points? Why did the authors write the article? How does the text and your reader handle the related material if any? What do think the impact of this article was / is? How does it relate to the other articles we have read so far?

http://psych.hanover.edu/classes/Learning/papers/Breland%20and%20Breland%201961.pdf

 

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9 Comments

I greatly enjoyed this article because it openly admitted and showed the mistakes that are involved in the idea of conditioning. Im most cases you never hear about these kinds of things happening. You may hear about animals that will be stubborn or refuse to do a certain trick, but not that they eventually abandon it for instincts. The way they chose to exlain the problem, using a series of examples, was also very helpful. Using these examples they were also able to rule out the idea that these effects were the result of superstitious behaviors. The case of the dancing chicken appeared to be a superstitious act for the chicken due to the accidental reinforcement of its scratching behavior, but this was not the case witht the other animals. The writers even point out that each animal resorted in some way to its own method of eating or getting food. The problem is not that they didn't learn or "understand" the behavior desired, they just abandoned it for what they know better. Instinct. An animal's instinct will always surface. As the animals associated food with their behaviors they began to resort to natural behaviors when they knew that food was coming. The chickens with the capsules began to peck at them and this is expected behavior for a chicken when eating food.
This article questions the strenght of conditioning. These may just be a few examples but they make a very strong case. Behaviorism thrives on the fact that within reason it can condition or explain behaviors reliably. The idea of instinctive drift, however, shows that it is not always possible to condition an animal because they will abandon what they have been taught.

The text book even includes a bit of the article in it, but the writers of the text do not really agree with Breland and Breland. They are saying that it isn't the fact that animals are abandoning what they have learned, as so much as they are associating it with what they already know. They have been conditioned to associate food with a certain object. (ie. food, platform) Pierce and Cheney say that the increasing amount of food related behavior was the result of a strengthened conditioned state. There were more pairings and so the behavior happend more often and for longer periods.

I would have to say that I agree more with Breland and Breland. I understand what the text book is getting at, but either way the animals were not doing what the trainers wanted them to. They may have been conditioned to associate food with their task, but in the end they were doing the wrong behavior. If it were truly the result of conditioning the behavior would become extinct after it failed to be paired with a reinforcement, but it didn't. Even after time and time of not getting anything for it, they still maintained those "instinctive" behaviors. This is becasue that is what they are born to do. According to the text, what the article discusses would now be called interrelationship of operant and respondent contingencies. They don't believe a conflict exists between nature and nurture. Personally I believe that they work together, but that doesn't mean they always agree. I believe there are some things that aren't meant to be done. I believe animals, people, and whatever else can be conditioned to do certain things, but there are limits. Limits as to what they can do and limits as to how long/well the "trainer" can predict or maintain that behavior. I wish there was more to the article. This is something I would like to read more about.

I actually really liked this article for a number of reasons. First I have never read an article where all they talked about was thier failures at experiments but then rapped it up into a theory. That is what psychology should be about in my opinion if you are failing at something you should be able to figure out why and tell someone! Secondly I just thought the topic in general was interesting. The examples helped in understanding each experiment and in the end they helped to explain the theory. The racoon rubbing the coins or the pig rooting or the chicken pecking were all things that I can relate to and have seen before. Rather than always using rats in some kind of contraption to explain thier theory they made more realistic for readers.
The article talked about how conditioned behaviors can be over come by instictual behaviors. The animals in the article were conditioned to do a certain behavior but over time they started to fade off into a behavior they had never been conditioned to do but all related back to thier feeding habits. The book has a part of this article in it however does not really agree with it. The books takes more of the behaviorist view that was discussed in the article and it doesn't really agree with insticts. The article says that even though they don't want to believ it and would rather explain it with superstition that animals are born knowing how to do these behaviors in order to survive. It is kind of a nature nurture debate. I really agree more with the article on this particular point however I do believe that nature and nurture work together to create behaviors and motivations.

This article was an easy read. I would say it was somewhat entertaining as well. In my mind I can just picture the researchers getting so frustrated with all of these animals going against everything they have been conditioned to do.

I was unaware that early behaviorists kind of ‘tossed’ out the idea of instinct in animals. This surprised me because I thought most of psychology was founded or revolved around evolution and clearly, instinct and evolution are closely related. The first thought that came to mind when the animal’s behavior would drift from the behaviors they had been conditioned to do was that the behavior was possibly fading and extinction was sort of kicking in? Once I read on, we were introduced to the term “instinctive drift.” The idea of this theory is that animals have strong instinctive behaviors and eventually, the animal would drift towards that instinctive behavior. This would cause the reinforcement to be delayed or often the animal would get no reinforcement at all because they wouldn’t complete the conditioned behavior. It soon became clear to the researchers that there are weaknesses in operant conditioning techniques and they need to start the basis of their research with the idea that the organism will have some strong instinctive behaviors that could have an affect on the conditioned behaviors.

The information in the textbook is very similar to the article. The textbook refers to Breland and Breland’s work with training and instinct. They defined instinctive drift as species-characteristic behavior patterns that became progressively more invasive during the training of organisms. It also suggests that the idea that ‘instinctive drift’ causes conflict between the nature and nurture debate since behavior has a tendency to drift towards its biological roots.

Overall, this article was a lot of fun to read. We haven’t discussed a lot in class about the idea of instinct in animals. I also haven’t come across that idea in Karen Pryor’s book.

The Breland and Breland article was an interesting read about instinctual patterns and how they can have a profound effect on the conditioned behaviors of an animal. Behaviorism often preaches the idea that any animal can be conditioned to perform an act consistently and reliably. However, in this study instinctive drift was found to interrupt the already conditioned behaviors of various species. Raccoons were found to “wash” or rub the coins given to it, rather than dropping them to receive reinforcement; pigs began rooting or shaking the coins, rather than carrying them to receive reinforcement. In each situation, though the animal was trained to do a simple task and receive reinforcement in the end, their behavioral instincts took control and often actually diverted them away from the reinforcement. This diversion strongly battles the behaviorist theory that conditioned behaviors can be performed consistently and that reinforcement is always key in continuing a conditioned behavior. As Breland and Breland state, the patterns of instinctive drift often cause greater physical output from the animal and therefore violate the law of least effort – a common theory among behaviorist.

The book discusses the idea of instinctive drift and even uses examples from the Breland and Breland article. However, in my opinion, the authors of the book tend to put their own behaviorist twist to it. Whereas the article states that the rubbing of the coins is a natural, instinctive response with no prior conditioning or reinforcement, the book states that handing the coins to the raccoon is stimulus in itself and the rubbing of the coins is the conditioned response, though they were never conditioned to perform the behavior. The book acknowledges the instinctual patterns that the animals appear to display but relates them directly to conditioned stimulus’ and does not acknowledge that they have any real affect or disruption in the behavior that was originally conditioned to occur – whereas, the article shows clear examples of how they cause a major disruption, often resulting in the animal not finishing the task and not receiving the reinforcement.

Overall, I feel that the Breland and Breland article had much more support behind their theories and their theories make more sense in the natural world. Instinctive drift shows a clear example of the battle between nature and nurture and gives psychologists another point of view when studying behaviorism and conditioned responses. I thought this article was one of the most interesting that we have read in the class thus far.

I found it interesting how they found instincts within animals. It is true we may tend to ignore these in animals (not intentionally). It was cool to read how the animals behaved with certain objects and tasks.

The article talked about how conditioned behaviors in animals can be impacted by their instinctual behaviors. Breland and Breland tested these conditioned behaviors in over 38 species and over 6,000 animals. They were conditioned to do a certain behavior, but at some point started to do something that wasn't conditioned, which was their instincts. The book discusses the article briefly, however does contradicts with it. The books agrees more of the behaviorist in that really agree with insticts.

Breland and Breland made it easy for me to understand that their theories make more sense in the natural world. There is a battle between nature and nurture, whether there is an instinctive drift. You can understand how the behaviorists didn't believe in instincts. This was because the animals they trained (mostly rats) were confined in cages/small areas where they could not express their instincts and would be forced to do the behavior. Also they were mostly deprived of food and water, anyone who is deprived of this will automatically dive in the food or water when provided. Instinctive drift shows that you cannot always condition an animal to do a certain behavior due to instincts.

I found the way the experiments were set up to be the most interesting part. When we hear about a conditioning experiment we normally think about rats and pigeons in a lab set up in skinner boxes or cages of some sort. This article describes five different experiments where chickens, raccoons, and pigs were conditioned to do a certain behavior in a somewhat normal environment. The animals were all still in some kind of confinement but they were in a normal environment with normal surroundings.
The main points covered in the article were the different studies and their results. The first chicken study was about Sammy the chicken. They had conditioned hum to pull a loop that started music. He then had to stand on a disc for 15 seconds to receive his reinforcement. During this study Sammy began to peck and scratch his feet while he was on the disc. They called it dancing. They concluded that the scratching and pecking was a Skinnerian superstition. Not only Sammy did the pecking and scratching but other chickens in the study as well.
The Second study with the raccoon being conditioned to put coins in a metal box also came out with a different result than they were looking for. The raccoon would put one coin in but had a hard time with letting go and putting in a second or third coin. The raccoons would pick them up and rub them together like they were washing them.
The next study was with a chicken pulling a loop to release a capsule and then the chicken would peck the capsule until it fell off of the slide. The chickens did this but over time began to take the capsules back to their area.
The next study the chicken would pull a loop that released a bat to hit a ball. Depending on how far the ball went they would then be reinforced. This showed an irregular ratio of reinforcement. When the cage was removed from the chicken they then chased the ball and the conditioning was lost.
The last experiment pigs were conditioned to pick up wooden coins and place them in a bank. They did the behavior but over time became worse at it. They would waste their time and perform a rooting behavior instead of the conditioned behavior.
In all of these cases the animals were conditioned like they were supposed to but over time their instincts took over and they didn’t perform the desired behaviors. They called it a combination in a drifting behavior and instincts, instinctive drift. I personally think the behaviors changed because they were in their actual environments and not in a controlled lab environment. They had their normal external stimuli to make their behaviors “drift” back to normal instinctive behaviors.
I looked up instinctive drift in the text and found the Breland & Breland study in the text. The text also described instinctive drifting as being like sign tracking and auto shaping which are all forms of stimulus substitution. Stimulus substitution is when a CS is paired with a US the CS is a substitute for the US.
The impact of the article for me was positive even though they didn’t find what they were exactly looking for. I’ve always been hesitant to believe certain conditioned behaviors for animals would stick in their normal habitats. Being in a cage in a lab has different external stimuli than being in their own habitats. This study proves that they can be conditioned but instincts and external factors play a role in their behaviors. This relates to the other articles in that this could be considered a nature vs. nurture debate, proving that external factors play a bigger role than they anticipated.

The Breland article was solid choice for an in class article. It was a nice change from the last few dry articles we've seen. I believe it was a good pick because the Breland's make us realize we should always be revising our ideas.
As was stated clearly by the two authors, when behaviorism no longer considered instinct valid, they made a large mistake. It was not so much an experiment they set out to do, merely an observation over some 10+ years of training animals. With such a lasting "experiment" it is hard to doubt that instinct is a valid component in the psychological base of some animals. Considering this, we have to begin to reevaluate the ethos of fundamental behaviorism. Naturally this didn't sit well with alot of other psychologists.
I looked up any controversies that might have been associated with the article, and what the Breland's consequentially went through. I couldn't find much, but found an interesting tidbit on http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/bailey2.html
"This article served as a break through for the Brelands. Not only did it reach its intended audience of psychologists, but it also reached biologists and anthropologists as well (Yin, 2000). Controversy appeared when some behavior analysts, including Skinner, interpreted the article to mean the Brelands were leaving behind operant conditioning (Yin, 2000). The Brelands had no intentions of ever leaving the field, but wanted to note in the records of behavior analysts that instinctive behavior exists, where it once was discounted (Breland, K. & Breland, M., 1961)."
Basically, Skinner and other behaviorists were like "wtf mate?" they thought that the publication of this article meant the two Breland's would be leaving the operant school. Even though there was no such coup this would have been a slap in the face seeing how they were some of the first graduate students to work under Skinner's tutelage.
The Breland's article is different from most because it is a published work, readily admitting to flaws made by their school of thought. It is kind of like the Watson article because both call for revision of a current psychological policy. This groundbreaking study lead to a well deserved revision of ideas, which strengthens the morals of psychology.

I found this article difficult to understand. The article wasn’t difficult because of jargon or statistics, but rather because I was unsure of the point of the article until the end of it. I feel that if the article had stated its purpose more clearly at the beginning, I would have enjoyed the article more. I did enjoy reading about the examples of instinctive drift. I found it interesting that one was able to condition an animal to a point but then changing one aspect of the environment would make all the previous learning void.
I found it interesting that there was an excerpt from the article in our own text to help describe instinctive drift. It was cool to see some of the reading that is easier to read and enjoy in the text itself.
This article helped to show that not all behavior can be conditioned or shaped, as many behaviorists believed. It showed that these animals do not start out with tabula rasa and then develop through learning but do have inborn instincts.

Breland’s article was titled the misbehavior of an organism. The article was to see if animal psychology could stand on its own as a credible branch of psychology. Previous work shows all repeated breakdowns of conditioned operant behavior. The experiments dealt with different animals being required to preform different tasks. In the first experiment “what makes sunny dance” a chicken was required to pull a loop which 4 notes would follow. The chicken was required to stand on a platform for 15 seconds in order to be rewarded. Instead of standing still the chicken would scratch and peck at the platform. In the second experiment a raccoon was required to put coins into a box in order to be rewarded. The raccoon was hesitant to place the coins in the box and proceed to “wash” the coins before releasing into the box. There were three other experiments that resulted in odd performances by the animals. These experiments show a failure in conditioning theory. The animals preferred to preform their individual untrained behaviors over the time of the experiments. One explanation given was that animals natural behaviors took over. The racoon’s washing and the chickens scratches and pecks are examples of the natural behaviors learned through nature in order to find food. An instinctive drift explains that learned behavior drifts toward instinctive behavior over time. Another flaw in the experiments was that there was no time requirement established. The overall conclusion of this article might be that behaviors of animals can not be completely understood and or analyzed.

The text had a piece of the article in it and differed in the understanding of the article. The text concludes that the animals are not completely forgetting the learned behaviors but just applying their natural behaviors to the desired ones. The most interesting aspect of the article was the animals natural behaviors arising in the studies. I thought that the experiments could have been adapted to incorporate the behaviors of the animals. Overall I feel that humans and animals can be taught to learn new behaviors but natural instinct will take over as time progresses.

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