Category: Theory, Terms & Abbreviations ¤
  Author: Stacy Braslau-Schneck ¤
   Title: Positively the Last Word on Terms! ¤

There's been a great discussion about the tricky terminology that OC uses.
But I could not stop myself when seeing the most knowledgable and curteous
list holding forth on a topic on which I may claim somewhat less ignorance
than I usually must admit.  If you're tired of this thread, go ahead and 
delete!

It's difficult because we have a tendancy from common language to use
"positive" to mean "good" when in OC it really means "added" or "presented".
Someone who trains only by punishing every unwanted behavior with some
aversive stimulus is "training with all positives" in the OC sense (as
opposed to the common usage example that Helix made up) - it's just all
positive punishment.  Just remember that "positive reinforcement" is not
redundant - not everything that reinforces or strengthens a behavior is
something applied, nor necc. something "nice".  

If we psychologists could make up the terminology all over again, I'd vote
for "plus", "minus", "increaser" and "diminisher".

Last night I was lying awake thinking about what great OC trainers infants
are.  When they want something, they cry.  When you give it to them, you
perform the behavior they want, and they reward that, reinforce it, by
stopping crying.  They take away that horrible noise, and it's a R-.  If you
perform a behavior they want when they're not crying, they might reinforce
it with a smile.  They give you something you want, it's a R+.  If you then
do something they don't want, they will take that smile away, somewhat
reducing or diminishing the chance of your performing that behavior again.
It's a P-.  And if they really don't like that behavior, they'll apply that
horrible noise again: a P+.

The really tricky part is the difference between a R- and a P+.  It's that
escape/avoidance difference.  If you escape an ongoing aversive, it's R-.
If you avoid a potential aversive, it's P+.  If you act to turn something
off, that something was acting as a R-.  Your car isn't punishing you for
not putting on the seatbelt, but it rewards you for doing so by turning off
that buzz.  If you act to avoid something starting, that something was a P+.
My husband isn't actually grumbling about the dirty dishes now but I wash
them to keep him from complaining, which I have experienced him doing in the
past.

It's very dangerous to use the common terms when discussing scietific
issues. When Karen Pryor wrote "Lads Before The Wind" (and the god of
dolphin research, Ken Norris, wrote "The Porpoise Watcher"), most people
called small dolphins "porpoises".  But porpoises and dolphins are in
different scientific families within the Order Cetacea, and a cetologist
reading "The Creative Porpoise" could really wonder at the title since the
subjects were rough-toothed dolphins.  That's a fairly lame, esoteric
example, but I can't think of a commonly-understood yet commonly mis-used
scientific/common phrase, unless it's the mis-use of "lightyear" as a
measure of time, or the confusion between "evolution" and "development"
(*species* evolve, *individuals* develop, no matter what you see on Star
Trek or the X-Files!)....

OK, that's probably enough for now.  I hope I've helped someone, not added
to the confusion!  Blame Kathy, the Supreme Alpha Bitch, for R+'ing me for
babbling (thanks Kathy!)!

Stacy
Stacy Braslau-Schneck
"A correct response, provided it has been reinforced, is merely like one
more grain of sand on a scale: it increases the probability of the same
response occurring in the same context in the future.  A steady history of
reinforcement is necessary to tip the scale in favor of that behavior occurring"
Jean Donaldson, _The Culture Clash_  (1996)
sbraslau@exploratorium.edu
San Francisco, CA