Defining Response Class Strategies: Keys to Effective Experimental Study

1. J&P Chapter 4 Defining Response Class

2. Strategies of Defining Response Classes

3. Unit of Analysis • The constituent part of the whole phenomenon that serves as a basis for experimental study • Unit of analysis vs. unit of measurement • Child sat at desk (unit of analysis) for a duration of x minutes (unit of measurement)

4. Skinner’s contribution • Stimuli defined not just in terms of physical properties but also by the correlation with a particular class of responses • Responses defined NOT by topography but rather as a class of events controlled by particular stimuli

5. Bed making • Unit of analysis that is itself a relation between responses and stimuli • Series of movements • OR • Whatever responses result in a bed that is made to a certain standard

6. Origins of Response Class • Behavior occurs within an environmental context • Antecedent and consequent events have either differential or no effect • Genetic endowment – sweet taste • Stimulus pairing – stimuli paired with sweet taste • NO effect – color of walls in room

7. What do stimuli do? • If a stimulus functions to change behavior: • Organize behavior into response classes • Class of respondents (reflexes) • Creating conditioned reflexes = classical, respondent, or Pavlovian conditioning • Respondent classes (eye blink) & stimulus classes (all stimuli that elicit eye blink) • Classes of operants (individuals responses that share a particular effect on the environment

8. Respondent S – R

9. Free Operant (2 term contingency) R – S

10. Discriminated Operant(3 term contingency) S – R – S Respondent Operant

11. Fundamental Units of Analysis • Respondent classes • Free operant classes • Discriminated operant classes • These units: • Smallest bits of integrated behavior • Not necessary to move to a nonbehavioral level of analysis • Not defined on logical grounds – rather defined based on functional relationship with nature

12. Functional vs. Topographical Units of Analysis

13. Functional Response Classes • Form or topography of response may vary • Class includes those reponses whose occurrence depends upon particular classes of stimuli that either preceded or follow responses

14. Topographical Response Classes • Specify requirements for form or topography • Members of such a response class may include only a subset of a broader functional response class • Example: door opening

15. Define Self Injurious Behavior(pgs. 71 & 72) • Functional definition • Topographical definition

16. Consequences of Definitional Strategies • Determines what aspects of behavior are observed and recorded and are then available for DECISIONS about how the experiment should be conducted and what INTERPRETATIONS are warranted

17. Defined Class Class A Class B Baseline Intervention Effects of including different functional response classes in a defined class

18. Goals of Definitional Strategies • Defined behavior should suit the needs of the experimental questions • Meet needs for experimental control • Definitions consequences for measurement • Craft definition so that it selects a class of responses in the subject’s repertoire that share common functional relations with the environment.

19. Tactics of Defining Response Classes

20. Functional Response Class Definitions • Properly developed = miniature experiment • Consider the proposed response class in colloquial terms • Speculate on events that may preceded or follow response class members • Try out possible definitions and see how they perform • Example STEALING

21. Problems and Solutions • Problem with knowing whether or not permission given in the stealing example • Modify research environment to ease definitional task • Problem: more than one response class • Risk increased variability in data

22. Topographical Response Class Definitions • Press the easy button

23. Variations and Refinements • Temporal dimensions • Response products • Group definitions

24. Selecting a Unit of Analysis • Specificity: size of the unit of analysis • More molar units of analysis may obscure important changes in responding • Sensitivity: potential to be influenced by independent variables • If under control of extraneous variables, may not be at all susceptible to influence of independent variable

25. Labeling Response Classes • Taxonomic language of behavior • How responses classes are defined? • Generality? Accrue to relations studied, not labels • How are researchers to communicate?

26. What can be done? • Use sound functional definitional practices • Be aware of the problem when considering ways to refer to a response class • Choose labels that emphasize the relaiton of the movement to the environment • No ultimate solution

27. Operational Definitions • Not another way of defining behavior • Operationism • Relevant to problem of labeling response classes.