Talk:Shaping (psychology)

message: Someone who knows more about learning theory needs to fix this article. I was trying to find a good definition of shaping, and although I don't know what exactly it is, I DO know that this article is written with an editorial slant towards positive reinforcement.  Also, the author appears to use negative reinforcement and punishment interchangeably, which is incorrect, as I certainly hope an article on operant conditioning would clear up. 
Although lots of people advocate positive reinforcement only training methods, it does not necessarily produce the best results, and positive does not mean good. Punishing a dog for digging into the trash (say, with a can full of pennies poised to fall and make a scary noise) will generally stop the trash-digging behavior much faster than say, providing a treat every time the dog ignores the trash. Beating a dog to make it more likely to fight can be considered positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement = providing something which increases behavior. Negative reinforcement = taking something away, which increases behavior. Positive punishment = providing something which decreases behavior. Negative punishment = taking something away, which decreases behavior.
If anyone out there can explain shaping better and rewrite this article, it would be much appreciated!
Agreed.  Positive and negative reinforcement have been updated to read as reinforcement and punishment as that seems to be the terminology in the Operant conditioning article.  Also, I tagged it for an expert.--Serf 16:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for expert 

message: While I know being a psychology student doesn't necessarily qualify me as an expert, I felt I knew enough about the topic of shaping to give a better view for the Wikipedia Community. I decided to pretty much scrap the whole old article, since it was pretty baised. There's not a whole lot of research into which type of reinforcement or punishment is most effective in shaping. Also, I think the first author means to say "positive punishment" when he says "negative reinforcement". It's a common mistake to do that.
I feel like this is a good summary of shaping, with the exception of one topic, Autoshaping. This is a very small detail in psychology, involving ONLY pigeons, so I left it out for the timebeing. I will go back later and add it when I know a little bit more about the topic, but feel it will be better as a "see also" at the bottom, instead of inclusion in the actual article.
:My M. A. in psychology is 35 years old, but what I was taught is that a game like Hot and Cold is an example of feedback rather than shaping. For one thing, the use of the words hot and cold does not increase the response strength of writing your name on the board. That is, the person who has supposedly been reinforced for writing his name on the board is no more likely after the game is over to write his name on a chalkboard. The words hot and cold are information, not reinforcers. The section about applications is far too sketchy. Maybe I'll go look something up and see what can be done. John FitzGerald 15:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for expert 

message: I added the disputed factual accuracy tag for the reason given in the previous post – I don't believe the example provided is an example of successive approximation, because it does not describe a process which affects response strength. Some day I'll have the time to work on this article, not only providing a better example but fleshing out the applications section, but until then this tag will have to suffice. John FitzGerald 13:46, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put in an actual example of shaping and a discussion of how it differs from feedback. It's been a long time since I trained rats, though, so improvements may be necessary. At any rate, the example i now an actual example of shaping. John FitzGerald 14:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed factual accuracy 

message: Shouldn't this be called shaping?  It's shorter and pretty much as precise.  WLU 19:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And more common. John FitzGerald 14:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I also agree that the name of the article should be "Shaping." The phrase "reinforcing successive approximations" is the definition of shaping and has no business being the title of an article. As for moving the article, there is no other article about shaping, so the only other place to put it would be in the Operant Conditioning article ("shaping" in search results in a disambiguation page). I would personally like to see this article have a better chance at being fleshed out before moving it, though. I would like to think that it merits its own article, just like Reinforcement currently does. But in the end it might have to be moved anyway. Lunar Spectrum | Talk 01:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move? 

message: Could somebody enlighten me on -- Does shaping occur outside the context of reinforcement to have the merit of an article on its own. Looking at the current title, i think that these two articles could be merged. Kpmiyapuram 14:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Reinforcement is a prety long article already.  I think the move to Shaping (psychology) would be a better plan, as shaping encompasses RSA along with other things (breaking down tasks into steps, and that's about all I can think of).  Shaping could probably be its own article, and we might be able to move Chaining into that article too.  WLU 16:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have renamed the article. As there have been suggestions earlier on this talk page, the article probably needs to be refined. Thanks. Kpmiyapuram 17:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge with reinforcement 

message: Here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldeamiento
For some reason I get error messages when I try to add it to the list of languages on the side, even though it appears in the drop-down list and everything.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.83.249.76 (talk) 16:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish article on same topic