Before or After Pavlov. Who’s training who?

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2010


Before or After Pavlov. Who’s training who?

Today I am investigating why I spent four years learning about this stuff in college. I am not too sure but since I did, I am somehow going to try to justify it.

My undergraduate degree was in Experimental Psychology. The majority of time was dedicated to the improvement of rats and other creatures I thought were lower on the Darwinian Chain than me. I wondered after three quarters teaching termites to turn off lights if the same thing was possible to do with people.

Introduction to Psychology 101 introduced me to two of the great minds of Experimental Psychology: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and B.F. Skinner.

Most people know about Pavlov teaching dogs to drool by ringing a bell. Fewer know that he won The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1904 "in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged".

It was the study of the digestive system that ultimately got Pavlov so interested in dog spit.

Skinner was a different case. Skinner invented the ‘Skinner Box’ or the ‘Operant Conditioning Chamber’ and expounded on his philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism. He spent many hours analyzing human behavior and of course there were the rats. He wanted to be a fiction writer but bailed instead to be a Radical Behaviorist.

Some of the terminology of behaviorism can be skipped but to bore the audience I will skim over a few of the important ones.


here is a big difference between Positive Reinforcement (SR+) Negative Reinforcement (SR-) and Punishment in both of its forms Positive and Negative Punishment. Since I don’t really want to bother to try to explain all the differences and nuances since that was so long ago and I barely got a grasp on it myself; I would recommend those interested get on Wiki and look up Skinner and read a little about his theory to seek a Buddha-like enlightenment. I will briefly touch on it and then mercifully move on.

Skinner and I really got into Reinforcement Theory and how it ‘shapes’ behavior by controlling the consequences of the behavior. SR+ (positive reinforcement) after a behavior tends to increase the probability that the behavior will be repeated when the stimulus is presented. This is like giving the elephant a peanut to get it stand up and raise its trunk when asked. The elephant grows to expect his reinforcement when he performs his trick and is liable to squash the trainer if it is withheld.

SR- (negative reinforcement) results in increased frequency of the desired response when it is withdrawn. Like shocking a rats feet so the rat will press the bar more often and stopping the shocking if the rat presses the bar. If I knew the conditions of that deal I would be pounding the bar to get the shocking to stop. This gives meaning to 'I love it when the pain stops'.


Basically, reinforcement (both positive and negative) tends to increase the tendency of a behavior to be exhibited more frequently.


Punishment is something completely different. Punishment (both positive and negative), on the other hand has the effect of weakening behavior, or decreasing the future probability of a behavior's occurrence. When punishment is successful it causes a behavior to stop. Positive punishment is a confusing term, as it denotes the addition of a stimulus or an increase in the intensity of a stimulus that is aversive. “Positive" and "Negative" in regard to punishment are not used in their popular sense… "Positive" refers to addition, and "Negative" refers to subtraction.

So in a nutshell as far as punishment is concerned: Positive punishment is when a behavior (response) is followed by a stimulus. Such as bad boy, spanking, hopefully resulting in a decrease in that bad boy behavior. Negative punishment means a behavior (response) is followed by the removal of a stimulus, such as taking away a toy following an undesired behavior, hopefully resulting in a decrease in the child’s bad behavior like beating his friend over the head with the toy.

If we are all thoroughly confused it is time to move on to Operant vs. Classical Conditioning. For a definitive recap of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

Classical Conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning is an involuntary, or automatic, response to a stimulus. Classical conditioning is what happens when DakotaDawg learns associations… that things go together. I say the word “walk"… DakotaDawg goes NUTZ because she knows that word means she is going to get to sniff every tree around the edge of the golf course. Although DakotaDawg only understands Hochdeutsch she has learned to spell 'walk' in English. DakotaDawg does other thing to show she understands Ivan Petrovich... like when she hears my car two blocks away she starts singing because she knows I am going to be home soon and I love a singing dog when I walk thru the door.

Operant conditioning relies upon reinforcing close approximations to the desired behavior. It uses consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant behavior is maintained by its consequences. This is the Come… Treat scenario or with DakotaDawg: “Go sit on your rug.” means that if she does sit on her rug, I will give her a treat. It took a while and some shaping to train this but “By Jove I think she’s got it.”

Before Pavlov, dogs sat and drooled because they knew when the master had his food they were going to get some. It did not take any training whatsoever because dogs love to drool when people food is available. This is classical Pavlovian conditioning. We just don’t ring the bell. We could train that but we have enough drool already.

After Pavlov, I thought I could train DakotaDawg through the use of Operant Conditioning because Pavlovian Conditioning was not much use for this type of training. I would radically use SR+ to get her to do what it was that I wanted her to do.

I may not be a Rocket Scientist or much of an Experimental Psychologist but I realize that I am the one being trained.

So after all of these years of college and all the extra research I have just started to wake to the fact that DakotaDawg is an expert in both Classical and Operant Conditioning.


The Not So Cute Little Orange Talking Kitty is also an expert in Operant conditioning. If he starts that screeching aria I am headed for the paper towels.


As far as Punishment; in this house, not so much.


DakotaDawg do you want me to get that ball?

© 06.16.2010 steven d philbrick and DakotaDawg SR+