Skinner box

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[[Image:Skinner box.jpg |right|thumb|200px|The famous Skinner Box that '''B. F. Skinner''' {{lived|1904|1990}} used in his work on instrumental learning]] 
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The '''Skinner box'''<ref group=note>Not the ''skinning chamber'', which may have been used as a device for torture/capital punishment</ref> is a device that was first developed by '''B. F. Skinner''' {{lived|1904|1990}} in his work on '''operant conditioning'''. A subject was placed in the box, and the mechanism gave small amounts of food each time the subject performed a particular action, such as depressing a lever or pecking a disk. With the operant conditioning chamber attached to a recording device, Skinner was able to discover schedules of reinforcement. These patterns are the basis for organismic interactions with the environment and are explored extensively in ''Schedules of Reinforcement''<ref>''Schedules of Reinforcement'' by C. B. Ferster  & B. F. Skinner (1957) Appleton-Century-Crofts.</ref> and elsewhere.

==Shaping==
Skinner later developed a technique called shaping through successive approximation. By rewarding more and more exaggerated behavior, complex actions could be trained through small successive rewards. For example, if a pigeon turned its head left, some food is dropped. The next time the pigeon does that he has to turn a little more left to get the food. Eventually you can train the pigeon to turn all the way around in a circle.

Intermittent reinforcement, that is only giving rewards for the desired behavior at unpredictable times, was found to be particularly addictive for animals held in isolation but if the animal is not held in isolation it is much less so.<ref>''Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner's Technology of Behavior from Laboratory to Life, 1950s-1970s'' by Alexandra Rutherford (2009) University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802096182.</ref> This is something that [[totalitarian]] regimes, [[casino]]s and [[social media]] companies have been able to exploit.<ref>''On Freedom'' by Timothy Snyder (2024) Crown ISBN 0593728726.</ref>{{rp|101-103}}

==Backward chaining==
Skinner also developed backward chaining. A complex series of behaviors can be created if taught "backwards". For example if the desired behavior was for a [[monkey]] to jump off a ledge, catch a rope, swing to a platform then climb to a [[banana]], this could be taught sequentially. First the monkey would be placed on the platform, where it climbs to the banana. Then the monkey might be placed on the rope, where it learns it can swing to the platform, climb up and get the banana. Then it might be placed on the ledge, where it learns it can jump onto the rope. In this way behaviors can be "chained" together.

==Octopi==
Skinner box-type research was also conducted on three octopi in 1959. Octopi have cognition similar to higher vertebrates such as [[dog]]s. In the experiment, all three octopi were trained with operant conditioning for rewards, but one rebelled by breaking the lever and squirting the experimenter with water.<ref>[https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1403858/pdf/jeabehav00206-0059.pdf Some observations on an operant in the octopus] by P. B. Dews (1959) ''J. Exp. Anal. Behav.'' 2(1):57–63. doi:10.1901/jeab.1959.2-57.</ref><ref>''Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness'' by Peter Godfrey-Smith (2016) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374537197.</ref>{{rp|50,52-54}}

==Philosophy==
Skinner was a radical [[behaviorism|behaviorist]]&nbsp;— he stated that the causes of behavior, thoughts and actions stemmed from interactions with the immediate setting, and were a complex function of the past history of the organism and its genetic endowment.<ref>''About Behaviorism'' by B. F. Skinner (1974) Knopf. ISBN 0394318560.</ref> 

Radical behaviorism differed from methodological behaviorism in that it did not require [[Scientific consensus|consensus]] for [[truth]], and so it could speculate on any behavioral process that showed regularity. Skinner, then, extrapolated his theories to emotions, thoughts, perception and other covert behaviors which are typically unobservable. Conventional behaviorism could not do this. Skinner's radical behaviorism was strongly against theories that could not be tested. His method was also data driven and [[Induction|inductive]] and showed close similarities to Ernst Mach's position on the role of [[hypothesis]] in scientific speculation.

Radical behaviorism is not the [[science]] of behavior, but is the [[philosophy]] of that science. As such it answers questions, or takes positions on them, which are not in the realm of science but must form the basis of one. For example, Skinner asserts that all behavior is governed by laws, not [[random]] or capricious, and so is capable of being the object of science. Without this assumption scientific investigation would be pointless.

==''Walden Two''==
Skinner also wrote a novel, ''Walden Two'', which offered a plan for a grand [[Utopia|Utopian]] society.<ref>''Walden Two'' by B. F. Skinner (1948) Hackett Publishing Company.</ref> This community asked its members to work on average four hours a day. [[Art]], [[music]], [[literature]], meaningful relationships, games, theater and physical activities filled the rest of the time of members.

The community was minimally consuming, anticipating current ecological sentiments by several decades. The community also asserted total [[equality]] between the sexes, and had no significant economic differences between all members.<ref>Skinner, B. F. (2005). Walden Two. Hackett Pub Co Inc.</ref>

A community named Comunidad de los Horcones is based on ''Walden Two.'' {{wpl|Los Horcones}} was established in 1973. It is located about 40 miles southeast of Hermosillo, the capital city of the State of Sonora, [[Mexico]]. The community has an extensive website.<ref>[http://www.loshorcones.org/ Los Horcones: Comunidad Walden Dos]</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150415033258/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/07/science/isolated-desert-community-lives-by-skinner-s-precepts.html?pagewanted=print Isolated Desert Community Lives by Skinner's Precepts] by Larry Rohter (November 7, 1989) ''The New York Times'' (archived from April 15, 2015).</ref>

==Criticism==
The [[cognitive revolution]] of the 1960s argued against the views of behaviorism, and asserted that the black box of the mind had as much, if not more, control than environmental reinforcement.<ref>"The cognitive revolution: A historical perspective" by George A. Miller (2003). ''Trends in Cognitive Sciences'' 7(3):141-144. Retrieved from [http://www.cogsci.northwestern.edu/courses/cg207/Readings/Miller_Cognitive_Revolution.pdf]</ref>

==Skinner's box and superstition==
Skinner's research discovered many fascinating examples of animal behavior. One of the most interesting, perhaps, was Skinner's work on [[superstition]]. Instead of giving a reward for a specific action and training a specific behavior, Skinner would take a hungry pigeon and place it in a box that would release a food pellet at random. The pigeons developed all kinds of complex behavioral responses such as bowing, scraping, dancing, and neck turns.<ref name=superstition> Morse, W., & Skinner, B. (1957). A Second Type of Superstition in the Pigeon. The American Journal of Psychology, 70(2), 308-311. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00029-9.</ref>

What happened was the pigeon would receive the food pellet while it happened to be performing some action, and rather than attributing the food pellet reward to randomness, it would assume that the appearance of the food pellet had something to do with its behavior. So it started doing whatever that action was, over and over again, and sure enough, it was eventually rewarded with a food pellet again. Since the pigeon is increasing the amount of time spent performing a particular action, it is also increasing the number of times it is "rewarded" for that action, even though the reward is random.<ref name=superstition/>

==The Skinner box urban legend==
[[Image:Skinner baby box.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Skinner's daughter Deborah in his baby tender]]

One popular [[urban legend]] was that Skinner raised his daughter Deborah in one of his Skinner boxes for the first few years of her life. This is actually not true&nbsp;— Skinner built a "baby tender" which was a complicated crib designed to keep his daughter warm and safe. While she spent the nights in a larger version of this crib, no conditioning experiments were performed. The picture of his daughter in a smaller version of his prototype has become famous for this reason.<ref>[http://www.snopes.com/science/skinner.asp B.F. Skinner Raised His Daughter in a Skinner Box?] by David Mikkelson (Aug. 8, 2000) ''Snopes''</ref>

A similar version of this was described in Skinner's Utopian novel, ''Walden Two''; being heated, the crib was said to eliminate the need for clothing and covering for the baby (bar diapers, for the obvious reasons), and a high-tech non-absorptive sheeting was described, intended to minimize the labor necessary to handle the baby's excreta.

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Psychology]]

Categories: Psychology