Applied Behaviour Analysis: Midterm Notes

• BBP 182 - Applied Behaviour Analysis Midterm Notes

Behaviour

• Refers to anything that an organism does that can be observed and measured.
• Overt behaviour is observable by anyone.
• Covert behaviour can only be observed by the individual engaging in it.
• Two types of behaviours: overt and covert.

Behavioural Science

• Is the study of human behaviour/action.
• Often seeks to generalize human behaviour in society.

Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)

• A science devoted to understanding and improving human behaviour.

Mentalism

• An approach stating that an inner dimension causes behaviour.
• The mind is responsible for behaviour.

Science

• A systematic approach for seeking and organizing information about the world.
• The purpose of science is to develop a thorough understanding of phenomena under study and to discover natural truths.
• Attitudes of science include description, prediction and control.

Branches of Behaviour Analysis

• Four branches of behaviour analysis: conceptual analysis, applied behaviour analysis, service delivery, and experimental analysis.
• Conceptual analysis of behaviour focuses on philosophical, theoretical, historical, and methodological issues.
• Applied behaviour analysis involves research analysts that assess, monitor, analyze, revise, and communicate the effects of their work.
• Applied behaviour analysts create behaviour tactics that increase, teach, and maintain behaviour, make behaviour sensitive to the environment, generalize behaviour, and reduce problem behaviour, utilizing technology for improving behaviour.
• Service delivery refers to people in various fields implementing ABA into their profession.
• Experimental analysis of behaviour researches basic principles and processes and is conducted mainly in laboratories.

Dimensions of Behaviour

• Frequency refers to how many times the behaviour occurs.
• Intensity refers to how intense the behaviour is.
• Duration refers to how long the behaviour lasts.
• Latency refers to how long it takes the person to respond to stimuli.

Functionalism

• Refers to the experimental methodology for determining environmental variables and contingencies for maintaining problem behaviour.
• Behaviour is NOT interpretations, explanations, reactions, diagnostic/summary labels.

Attitudes of Science

• Involves description, prediction, and control.
• Description involves the collection of data from an observable event that can be classified, quantified, and examined for relations with other known facts, and often suggests hypotheses or additional questions for research.
• Prediction is the relative probability that if one event occurs, another event will or will not occur, based on repeated observation revealing the relationship between various events, and it demonstrates correlation between events, but no casual relationships can be interpreted, thus enabling preparations.
• Control is the highest level of scientific understanding where functional relations can be derived.
• Change in one event (independent variable) can reliably be produced as a result of manipulations from another (dependent variable) and results are unlikely to be caused by extraneous factors (confounding variable).
• Events can only be co-related and it's nearly impossible to factor out all possible variables.

Logic

• Circular reasoning/logic is when evidence used to support a claim is just a repetition of the claim
• Example: Sonia is so good at making pasta because she is so good at baking.

Constructs

• Hypothetical constructs are things we assume exist that impact behaviour but are unobservable.
• Explanatory fiction attempts to explain behaviour by reclassifying behaviour through naming mechanisms or labels.
• Example: Lazy, generous, sad, happy, wants, feels, thinks, angry.

Stimulus

• Refers to an aspect of our environment that can be differentiated from another–one thing that triggers a response.
• Stimuli refers to environmental events that can be manipulated to see its effects on the bx (more than one thing triggers response)

Respondent Conditioning

• Refers to how neutral stimuli can learn to trigger responses through pairing with an unconditioned stimulus and experience.
• A neutral stimulus (NS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) multiple times, which causes the NS to turn into a conditioned stimulus (CS) that elicits a conditioned response (CR).
• Pioneer is Pavlov.
• Neutral stimuli (NS) refers to stimuli that produces no response.
• Unconditioned stimulus (US) refers to a stimulus that produces a response with no prior learning.
• Conditioned stimulus (CS) refers to a stimulus that learns to trigger a response through multiple sessions of pairing.
• Conditioned response refers to a learned response.

Attitudes of Science (Further detail)

• Six attitudes of science: determinism, empiricism, experimentation, replication, parsimony, philosophic doubt.
• Determinism means behaviour is lawful and orderly.
• Empiricism means the objective observation and accurate measurement of the behaviour of interest, free from bias, prejudices, and opinion.
• Experimentation investigates possible relationships by systematically changing one event and observing for changes in another.
• Replication involves repeating an experiment to see if you get similar results.
• Philosophical doubt questions the truthfulness of facts and experiment results, healthy skepticism.

Other behaviours

• Respondent behaviour refers to behaviour brought out by a stimuli/antecedent.
• Operant behaviour refers to behaviour determined based on its consequence.
• Operant conditioning refers to the process and selective effect of consequences on behaviour and was pioneered by Skinner.

Laws

• Thorndike's Law says behaviour followed by a pleasant consequence is more likely to occur and behaviour followed by an unpleasant consequence is less likely to occur.
• Relational Frame Theory (RFT) explains how we learn things are connected arbitrarily even without seeing or experiencing them
• ex. When told that plane rides can produce anxiety which can produce a heart attack you avoid going on the plane because you've made that connection that plane ride = heart attack

Persons of note

• John B. Watson focused on observable behaviours.
• Watson said the environment is linked to behaviour.
• Watson studied behaviour as a natural science.
• Watson showed that fear can be conditioned through the Little Albert experiment.
• Watson is known as the father of behaviourism.

Reinforcement

• Positive reinforcement requires presenting a preferred stimulus to increase future frequency of behavior.
• Negative reinforcement requires removing aversive stimulus to decrease future frequency of behavior.
• Positive punishment requires presenting an aversive stimulus to decrease future frequency of behaviour.
• Presents aversive stimulus immediately after behaviour, increases intensity, and results in decreased behaviour.
• Negative punishment requires the removal of a preferred stimulus to decrease future frequency of behaviour.

Functions of Behaviour

• The four functions of behaviour are: sensory, escape, attention, and tangible.
• Sensory - Individual may engage in behaviour because its internal sensation is pleasing or it removes aversive stimuli.
• Escape - Individual may engage in behaviour to escape a situation, activity, or person; escape behaviour may not occur to get out of doing a task, rather to get out of an environment.
• Attention - Individual may engage in behavior to get attention from others; attention can be positive or negative.
• Tangible - Individual may engage in behaviour to get an item; consequence may involve a break or attention but consistently requires an item.

Other Items

• Punisher refers to a consequence that follows the target behaviour and decreases the chance that the behaviour will occur again.
• The principle of punishment states that behaviour followed by a punishment is less likely to occur.
• Aversive stimulus is when a response is strengthened by its contingent removal.
• Radical behaviourism seeks to understand all human behaviour including private events.
• Discriminative Stimulus (SD) is a stimulus that signals when a behaviour will be rewarded and when it won't and it evokes behaviour and signals availability of reinforcers.
• Stimulus Delta (SA) refers to a stimulus that has previously been present when a certain behaviour did not receive/produce reinforcement.
• Stimulus control is behaviour that occurs more frequently when an SD is present than when it isn't.
• Occurs when the rate, latency, duration, or amplitude is altered in the presence of an antecedent stimulus.
• Behaviour occurs in order to get something or to avoid/escape something.
• Establishing operations makes a reward/consequence more motivating and effective and increases the current frequency of behaviour to access consequence.
• Abolishing operations makes reward/consequence less motivating and effective and decreases current frequency of the bx to access the consequence.
• Discrimination refers to responding in the presence of certain stimulus or a set of stimuli but not others. Mentalistic approaches describes behaviour by using character traits and attributes or summary labels
• What Skinner would call "explanatory fictions".
• Rule governed behaviour is when you follow a rule or instruction to guide your actions, instead of learning through direct experience. This may occur because it has been followed by the relevant consequence in the present circumstance or prompted by SD whose control was established in other circumstances.
• The types of rules are pilance, tracking, and augmenting.
• The problem with rule governed behaviour is that it is insensitive to changing environmental conditions.
• Augmenting is where the rule changes the importance of a consequence, making an outcome feel more motivating
• Example: An athlete pushes harder in training because they believe "hard work leads to success."
• Tracking is where the behavior is controlled by real-world consequences (cause-and-effect relationships).
• Example: A person wears a coat because they were told it's cold outside and they don't want to freeze.
• Pliance is where somebody might follow a rule even though the rule might not have any meaning to the situation and the behavior is controlled by social consequences (praise, punishment, acceptance)
• Example: A child says "thank you" because their parents taught them it's polite, and they want to be praised.

Dimensions of ABA

• Seven Dimensions of ABA: behaviour, applied, technological, conceptually systematic, analytic, effective, and generality.
• Behaviour focuses on observable events and behaviour must be in need of improvement.
• Applied helps improve everyday life by improving socially significant behaviour and helps peers so that they behave more positively towards client.
• Technological describes procedures clearly and in detail so they can be replicable.
• Conceptually Systematic ensures all behaviours are tied to the basic principles of behaviour analysis from which they were derived. Analytic describes how experiments demonstrated functional relation manipulated events and reliable change in some measurable dimension of the targeted behaviour, ultimate issue is believability.
• Effective improves behaviour in a practical manner, and Generality extends behaviour change across time, setting, or other behaviours.