Independent Master’s Thesis

Abstract: This thesis attempted a cross-species replication of Bland, et. al., 2018. Human participants went through a computerized, automated shaping procedure that trained them to click on and discriminate between a blue square (SD) and red square (S-delta) on a VR 12 schedule of reinforcement. Three conditions were then presented to the participants consisting of a baseline, punishment, and control condition. In the punishment and control conditions, the SD was replaced by the S-delta or a novel stimulus respectively for 1-second on a VR 5 schedule. With each click, the reaction time and specific object clicked on were recorded. While the present study partially replicated the effect seen in Bland, et. al., 2018, our results suggest that, depending on the lens of analysis used, either a punishment or an extinction effect may be causing the results seen.

Plain-Language Summary: The purpose of this study was to stop a behavior from happening solely through environmental design and experimental learning history. A python-based programming language was learned to develop a full-custom virtual experiment and questionnaire in three months. Data collection systems were structured to capture what participants clicked on and their subsequent reaction time for in-participant and cross-participant analysis. A comprehensive research paper was written detailing previous relevant literature, methodologies used, data collected, interpretations and insights found, and future directions for research.

Posters

Association for Applied Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) Annual Conference - 2019

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 Abstract:

Research by Bland, Cowie, Ellfie, and Podlesnik (2018) demonstrated that a negative discriminative stimulus (i.e., stimulus correlated with the absence of reinforcers, S-) could be used to punish behavior maintained by positive reinforcers with pigeons. We replicated Bland et al. using the Portable Operant Research and Teaching Lab (PORTL). In the first phase, college students card touching was reinforced in the presence of one card (S+) and extinguished in the presence of an S-. In subsequent phases, we evaluated whether the S- functioned as a punisher when the S- was placed atop the S+ for 1-s intervals when presented (a) after an average of four responses to the S+ and (b) after each response to the S+. In both phases, participants’ behavior changed following the presentation of the S- when compared to a phase with the S+ only and a control stimulus. Most participants responding decreased in at least one of the punishment conditions. These results replicated Bland et al. because the presentation of the S- decreased the rate of responses maintained by positive reinforcement.

 

The Art and Science of Animal Training (ASAT) Annual Conference - 2020

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Abstract:

In this experiment, we taught a cat how to match-to-sample from a field of three objects. The training procedure was informed with unpublished videos by Kay Lawrence and Jésus Rosales-Ruiz. A training apparatus was constructed out of a cardboard box and positive reinforcement clicker training was utilized as the reinforcement system. The final behavior of matching objects was broken up into prerequisite skills and trained accordingly as shown in the poster.

Papers & Presentations