CHARLES HUGHES: OK. Now, we're starting on the last segment of the lesson in which we're going to take a closer look at how consequences reinforce behavior or punish behavior.

This slide summarizes the four basic antecedent consequences and what kind of effect they can have on behaviors. The arrows indicate whether the effect of a consequence is an increase or a decrease in the behavior. The plus sign means that a consequence was added when the behavior occurred, and the minus sign means that a consequence was taken away upon the occurrence of the behavior. So the SR plus stands for positive reinforcement, which means that a consequence was added and the behavior increased.

The SR negative stands for negative reinforcement. That means a consequence was taken away and the behavior increased.

The SP plus and SP minus deal with punishment, whereby the behavior is decreased or increased-- or excuse me, decreased. Punishment will be covered in the next session of this course, so I'm not going to deal with it here. What I'm going to be dealing with is only reinforcement.

So let's define it. Reinforcement is an environmental change, which follows a response, which increases or maintains the future frequency of that response, class, or behavior.

So reinforcement is an environmental change which follows a response, and this increases or maintains the future frequency of that response or behavior.

Reinforcement may follow a response because of natural causal relation, or because someone arranges it, or by accident. So reinforcement may follow a response because of a natural causal relationship, because somebody arranges it, or purely by accident.

Now, based on that definition, reinforcement is a change or stimulus in the environment that occurs after a response. It is contingent upon that response occurring. And it must increase-- or at the very least, maintain-- the behavior in question in the future.

So the principle of reinforcement can be stated thusly-- a response will occur more frequently, or will be maintained, if a reinforcer has immediately followed the response in the past.

Now I'm going to ask some questions that will probe your understanding of reinforcement to this point. This one's a little tricky. First, is praising a student behavior-- praising whatever the student did-- is that reinforcement?

The answer is, not necessarily. While we often give things the label of reinforcement because we think it should be reinforcing, the only way to know if something is a reinforcer is if the target behavior increases or maintains. Some kids don't like praise, and it has no effect on their behavior, or it can possibly result in a decrease in their behavior.

If I asked the same question about physical restraint, what would you say?

Well, the same answer for the same reason. Different kids respond differently to different consequences. And the only way to ascertain if reinforcement has occurred is if the consequence-- be it praise, be it restraint, or whatever-- increases or maintains the behavior.

So here's another question. I tell my students that I will give them some tokens that they can cash in later if they finish all their work during the period. Is telling them that they could earn tokens reinforcement?

Not technically. Remember, reinforcement is an environmental change that follows a response and is contingent upon the response occurring. In this scenario, telling them they could earn tokens occurred before the behavior occurred. So it's not technically reinforcement.

Now, two other points before moving on. First, please remember that you reinforce behavior, not the person. The name of this course is "Applied Behavior Analysis," not "Applied Person Analysis." So we reinforce behaviors, not people. For example, I would not say I reinforced my students for getting their work done, but rather that I reinforced my students work completion.

Now, the second point deals with the popular view of ABA, and specifically the principle of reinforcement. And that is, reinforcement has become associated with the concept of manipulation, and is this artificial tool created to make people do what you want.

Now, as I've mentioned before, it is important to note that the principle of reinforcement was not created or invented. It was discovered. It occurs naturally and is, to a large part, how all living organisms learn and develop behavioral repertoires. It is, in fact, a very efficient way to learn, and is a product of natural evolution-- especially for those animals that are not, to a large degree, reflexive or instinctuals, like humans. Much of human behavior is controlled by naturally-occurring consequences, and societies are based, to a large part, on consensual consequences for behavior.

So here's some examples. A baby makes some cute sounds and smiles when his mother approaches. So she spends time cuddling and playing with him. The mother's response to her baby's cooing increases the frequency of pleasant sounds and smiles by the baby. This, in turn, increases the amount of time the mother spends playing with the baby and so on.

Another one. I read a science fiction book by Isaac Asimov, and I really enjoy it. I've been trying to read more of his works and, in fact, to read science fiction books by other authors. And I continue this behavior probably for about 25 years.

Another example of reinforcement in action that is not artificial or whatever. I work at a job-- well, this one's kind of artificial. I work at a job, and I am paid for doing it. Now, it is certainly possible that I am reinforced by other consequences than being paid, but I really doubt if I would continue working at a job if they stopped paying me-- unless, of course, I was independently wealthy. And you're going to learn about how antecedent conditions, such as being wealthy, can affect the power of a reinforcer later in the ABA course.

Now, unfortunately, there are people for whom naturally-occurring reinforcers fail to maintain appropriate behavior. So as behavior change professionals, we sometimes have to go looking for other, more powerful reinforcers and actually apply them in a purposeful way. Now, let's talk about a specific type of reinforcement, and that is positive reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement is an environmental change in which a stimulus is added or magnified following a response which increases or maintains the future frequency of that behavior. So positive reinforcement is an environmental change in which a stimulus is added-- that's the positive-- or magnified following a response which increases or maintains the future frequency of that behavior.

The key point here is that something is added or magnified following or during a response. Keep in mind that the term positive in positive reinforcement does not mean increasing behavior or refer to something good or nice. The positive in positive reinforcement refers to adding something to the environment following a response.

Remember that positive reinforcement is represented by the capital R with a plus sign next to it. And what do you do when you see a plus sign on a math problem? You add. Thus, positive reinforcement is when a stimulus is added contingent upon a behavior occurring, and the behavior increases or maintains in the future. And that's what you really need for something to be positive reinforcement.

Keep in mind that positive reinforcement is the process whereby a consequent stimulus is added following a response. Sometimes, when we talk about ABA with others, we want to refer to the stimulus rather than the process, and we have a slightly different term for that.

Sometimes, we talk about a positive reinforcer. So a stimulus that, when presented following a response, increases or maintains the future frequency of that response. This may include tangible items, attention from others, and activities. So a positive reinforcer is a thing-- specifically, it's a stimulus that, when presented following a response, increases or maintains the future frequency of that response. These reinforcers may include tangible items, attention from other people, and activities.

However, positive reinforcement may also be automatic, in which the proprioceptive feedback produced by a response itself is reinforcing. And I'll talk about that in just a minute. But however, positive reinforcement may also be automatic, in which the proprioceptive feedback produced by the response itself is reinforcing.

So a reinforcer is a thing. In this case, this thing is a consequent stimulus. And reinforcement is the process or procedure. For example, if I give one of my students some additional free time for working diligently on a task that is especially frustrating for her, and this diligent behavior increases or is maintained, the reinforcer is free time. The process of what I set up is called reinforcement.

So let's look at another animation to illustrate positive reinforcement.

[ELECTRONIC NOISES]

BOY: Man!

WOMAN: Wow. I didn't know you were so good at that.

[ELECTRONIC NOISES]

BOY: Yes! I got first place. Yes!

PROFESSOR: So in this animation, we have a young man playing a video game. And he kind of gets tired of it and so he begins to quit. And then a young lady comes in, notices his score, and pays some attention to him, says, wow, you're really good,, and all that type of thing. And then the boy picks up the controller and begins to play even more.

And the intimation here is that he continues to play, that his behavior of game-playing is increased or maintained in the future. So we have here a possible example of positive reinforcement where the positive attention the girl gave him could be the reinforcer, and so we have a consequence occurring that increases a behavior.

All right. So what I'd like to do now to wrap up this part on positive reinforcement is talk about what we call a few rules for reinforcement. Something to keep in mind as you might begin to apply reinforcement. First of all, you cannot tell if a given event or stimulus will be a reinforcer unless you try it and observe its effect.

Again, it goes back to my question about-- is praise reinforcement? Well, it could be, and maybe it isn't. The only way we're going to know is if it is presented contingent upon a behavior occurring, and that behavior increases or maintains in the future. So there are pieces of information you must know in order to say, yes, this is a reinforcer, or reinforcement occurred.

Conversely, as I mentioned before, keep in mind what may be a reinforcer for one person may not be a reinforcer for another. I think, if you've taught for any length of time, you've learned that some kids like to be touched. Some kids do not like to be touched. So for one kid, doing something, and followed by me putting my hand on his or her shoulder will actually turn out to be a reinforcer, whereas another kid, if I touch them, quite the opposite.

When you use reinforcement, it's always the most effective the more immediately that the reinforcer follows the behavior. If you wait a day or two to present the reinforcer after a behavior, it will not work. So you want-- whenever possible-- to have the reinforcer be presented soon after the behavior occurring.

And reinforcement must be contingent. There are some times where non-contingent reinforcement can work, but in general, you don't deliver or the reinforcement does not occur unless the behavior occurs. So it's very contingent upon the behavior occurring.

We also know, as you're going to see when you start studying schedules of reinforcement, that typically, when it's a new behavior, and you're trying to strengthen it and make it occur more often, you have to reinforce it more frequently. And of course, after a while, you can start to thin that out.

And again-- sorry, I've got say it again-- behavior is reinforced, not the person.

So next up is another type of reinforcement-- and it'll be the last topic we cover-- and that is negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is an environmental change in which a stimulus is subtracted, withdrawn, removed, or attenuated following a response which increases or maintains the future frequency of that behavior. So negative reinforcement is an environmental change in which a stimulus is subtracted. Or you can say withdrawn or removed, or attenuated-- which means lessened-- following a response which increased or maintained the future frequency of that behavior.

All right. So keep in mind that the word negative in negative reinforcement refers to taking away or subtracting a stimulus-- in this case, an unpleasant or aversive stimulus.

The term negative reinforcement is represented by a capital R with a minus sign next to it. And what do you do when you see a minus sign? You take away or subtract.

The key thing to remember is that both positive and negative reinforcement increase behavior. Positive reinforcement occurs when a pleasant-- to that person-- stimulus is added contingent upon a response, and results in the future increase or maintenance of the response. Negative reinforcement occurs when an unpleasant stimulus is subtracted or removed contingent upon a response or behavior, and results in the future increase or maintenance of that response.

And here's an example. Most cars nowadays have an annoying buzzer that goes off when you try to drive without your seat belt. So you start wearing your seat belt more. Thus, the behavior of wearing your seat belt is negatively reinforced by terminating or removing the unpleasant sound.

Another example of negative reinforcement is when a student is given an assignment to do in class, and the student starts cursing and throwing things. The teacher then sends the student to the office. And in the future, the student starts exhibiting that behavior any time he's given something to do.

Now, in terms of the student's behavior, what may be going on is that his behavior of acting out results in the removal of an unpleasant or aversive stimulus, which is working on the assignment. So if his acting out behavior is maintained or increases in the future whenever the teacher gives similar types of assignments, and he continues to act out, we can say that his acting out behavior is being negatively reinforced.

Now, before we leave this scenario, let's take a look at the teacher's behavior of sending students out of class. Is it possible that negative reinforcement may be at work here also? Well, maybe. If the teacher's behavior of removing the student is increased or maintained by removing the unpleasant stimulus of a student's acting out behavior, does that fit our definition of negative reinforcement?

Yeah. Sure. Quite possibly.

We have a stimulus that's being removed-- that would be the student and his behavior-- and the teacher keeps removing students in the future so that he can avoid that particular behavior. So just as an aside, this scenario occurs often when students are given assignments that are too difficult for them. Sometimes, a situation can be taken care of by simply spending a little more time making sure that the tasks that we give our students are appropriate to them, and then we don't need all this reinforcement stuff going on.

Here are a few more terms related to negative reinforcement.

For negative reinforcement to occur, there has to exist an irritant or aversive antecedent condition whose removal would be reinforcing. So for negative reinforcement to occur, there has to exist an irritant or aversive antecedent condition whose removal would be reinforcing.

A stimulus, that when withdrawn following a response, increases or maintains the future of that response. And that's a negative reinforcer. So a negative reinforcer is a stimulus that, when withdrawn following a response, increases or maintains the future frequency of that response.

Here's another term related to negative reinforcement, and that is escape. Escape is a behavior that terminates or stops an aversive stimulus. Thus, it is maintained by negative reinforcement. So escape is a behavior that terminates an aversive stimulus. Thus, that behavior is maintained by negative reinforcement.

Now, the last term is called avoidance. So we had escape behavior. Now, we have avoidance behavior.

Avoidance behavior terminates a warning stimulus. So avoidance behavior terminates a warning stimulus, which is a conditioned aversive stimulus whose presence is correlated with the upcoming onset of an unconditioned aversive stimulus. And I'm going to give you some examples, so don't panic yet. But avoidance behavior terminates a warning stimulus, which is a conditioned aversive stimulus whose presence is correlated with the upcoming onset of an unconditioned aversive stimulus.

Avoidance delays the onset of the aversive stimulus. So sometimes, negative reinforcement involves escaping a behavior that is already occurring. Sometimes it results in avoiding the stimulus occurring altogether by terminating some type of warning stimulus.

So again, we see that a negative reinforcer is the stimulus part of the process of negative reinforcement. It is what is being withdrawn or taken away. Two terms related to negative reinforcement are escape and avoidance. And as we saw in the slides, escape behavior terminates, or eliminates, or stops an aversive stimulus while it is happening. So if I am being rained on, I can escape the aversive stimulus of getting wet by opening my umbrella. My umbrella-opening behavior is thus maintained by negative reinforcement, because opening the umbrella stopped me getting wet.

On the other hand, avoidance terminates some type of warning that lets us know that it is likely that the aversive stimulus is about to occur. And if we do something quickly, we can avoid it.

For example, in a classic animal experiment, a rat learned to press a lever to escape an electric shock. Some of these experiments are kind of iffy. But later on, a light was turned on immediately before the shock. The rat learned to avoid the shock by pressing the lever when the light came on. So the light became a warning system, and the rat would press the lever before the shock occurred, and thus avoid the shock.

OK. Let's do another real quick little quiz here. In the above experiment, what is the negative reinforcer? The negative reinforcer.

Right. It's the shock. Remember, the negative reinforcer is the unpleasant stimulus whose termination immediately following a response reinforces that response.

So what response or behavior was negatively reinforced in the rat scenario? Right. The behavior that was reinforced was pressing the lever, and the lever was the thing that got the rat out of being semi-electrocuted.

So let me wind up the discussion about negative reinforcement with another classic example using some animation.

BOY: I want candy.

WOMAN: No, honey. It's too close to dinner, and you've already had some candy earlier today.

BOY: Aw. Can I please have candy?

WOMAN: No.

BOY: [WHINING] Just give me some candy. I'm starving to death, and I really want candy. That's why I really need some to help me get some more food.

WOMAN: All right. Fine. You can have some candy.

BOY: I want candy.

PROFESSOR: OK. I call this scenario "The Kid, the Candy, and the Checkout Counter." So does that sound familiar? Well, if you're a parent, you've probably gone through this.

So let's analyze that animation about what was going on there. Let's take a look at the mother's behavior. So what happened at the end is the mother gave in and gave the kid the candy. And then in the final scene, we see the mother in another situation. The kid asks for it, and she gives it to him right away.

And also you notice that, in the grocery store, the mother said no several times. The kid escalated. His behavior was extremely aversive. And not only that, we had the little group of disapproving people standing there judging her. So essentially, here we had the mother with a lot of aversive stimuli around her-- her child's whining, the embarrassment of that, the disapproving stares, and so on.

And so if we take a look at her behavior, which is giving the kid candy, we can say that her behavior was negatively reinforced. Giving the kid the candy, that behavior-- then and then in the future-- eliminated, reduced, or avoided the unpleasant stimuli of the kid whining, as well as other people judging her in negative ways. So looking at the mother's behavior, it's pretty clearly that negative reinforcement was going on.

Now, what's interesting about a lot of behavioral scenarios like this is that there are other people behaving. So if we take a look at the child's behavior, think about what's going on. And in that case, the child's behavior of whining could have been easily positively reinforced in that a pleasant stimulus was delivered contingent upon his whining. And if, in the future, he used the whining to get his way-- which happens a lot.

We wonder why our kids keep whining. Well, probably because we're reinforcing that behavior. So hopefully that animation was useful in illustrating negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement.

In the next slide, I have put together a chart on reinforcement that you could use. This information is going to be in your assignments and in your quizzes, so feel free to use it as a study aid also if it helps.

So it's a summary of reinforcement. And so you see again we have an arrow. An arrow means that response is increased or maintained in the future. That's part of the definition of reinforcement. When we have the plus sign, that means we're adding a stimulus. And reinforcement by adding a stimulus is called positive reinforcement or R plus. We have the minus sign which relates to negative reinforcement, and the minus sign means that we are removing or subtracting a particular stimulus.

To summarize, anyway, both positive and negative reinforcements are similar in that they both maintain or increase behavior. They are different in that positive reinforcement deals with the addition of a pleasant stimulus, and negative reinforcement deals with the subtraction or avoidance of an unpleasant aversive stimulus.

Now, I'd like to change gears here a bit before we wrap up, and discuss an issue that often comes up when ABA students are assessed on their knowledge of basic principles, such as the ones that I have covered in this session. Often, the format for this assessment is to present scenarios, such as the ones that I've described, and some of the animations, and ask that you identify the behavioral principle that is in play. So you're given this scenario and then asked to decide if it's, say, an example of positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. This format is going to be used in your quizzes and tests for this course, as well as on the national board exam.

This is sometimes difficult for students at first, so I wanted to take a minute to provide you with some suggestions about how to go about answering these types of test items. First, when you are taking exams, you should focus on the information presented in that scenario. And don't read too much into it or go beyond the facts that are presented in that scenario. Then the first step is to figure out whose behavior is the focus of the scenario or item. If you read it carefully, you should be able to tell, say, if it's asking about the mother's behavior or the child's behavior. So you want to find out whose behavior are we talking about.

Next, you want to decide what principle is in play with regard to that key person's behavior. For example, if a scenario says that a behavior increased, you're automatically going to know we're talking about reinforcement, because reinforcement is when behavior increases. Then you look at whether a stimulus was added or subtracted contingent upon the behavior occurring to figure out whether or not-- is it positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. The key here is just deal with the facts that are presented to you, and not to go beyond the information presented.

So let's wind things up. I'm going to do a quick summary of the session content, and wind up with a final self-evaluation activity for you to do. Please remember that the primary goal of this session was to define terms and principles. Specific application of these principles comes later in this course, as well as in the following courses.

The content I presented has stressed the following points. ABA is a science, and the principles discovered in this branch of natural science have been identified through experimentation and extensive replication. ABA is concerned primarily with environmental stimuli, both antecedent and consequent, which reliably alter a behavior or response. We call this type of relationship between a stimulus or stimuli and behavior a functional relationship.

Now, while primarily concerned with environmental determinants of behavior, applied behavior analysts are aware that behavior can also be determined by organic variables, including biological, genetic, and neurological factors. But applied behavior analysts are concerned with observable and measurable behavior, and focus on functional response classes. That is, topographically different behaviors that are functionally similar, in that they result in the same environmental effect.

We talked about that behavior itself has fundamental properties related to their occurrence in space and time, such as temporal locus, temporal extent, and repeatability. And that based on the property of interest to the analyst, we can quantify dimensions of behavior in several ways. We can quantify it using latency, duration, rate, IRT, and so on.

When we talk about the environment, we're saying the environment can be seen as a constellation of stimuli-- some of which may occur before a response, and some of which may occur after a response-- and that these stimuli or environmental changes can impact or control behavior. Some of these stimuli are innate or unconditioned, and some are learned or conditioned. Applied behavior analysts classify behavior as either respondent or operant.

Some behavior is learned through a respondent conditioning. Whereby a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus. We have that. The neutral stimulus then becomes a conditioned stimulus that can then elicit the response in question. So that's respondent conditioning.

Some behaviors are learned through operant conditioning, and involve the presentation or removal of a consequence contingent on the occurrence of the behavior. The two basic principles related to operant learning are reinforcement, which increases behavior, and punishment, which results in decreasing behavior. And finally, that for both reinforcement and punishment, as you'll see, consequent stimuli are added or subtracted. Remember, in ABA, positive means added-- not that's something's good or nice-- and that negative means taken away, not that something is bad.

Now, if all that made some sense to you, my job and yours is almost done. To complete it, I would like you to go ahead and do the last self-evaluation. And thank you for your time and attention.