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Fall Capstone 2009

Project Prime Intellect

“Neurons that fire together, wire together”

-Donald O. Hebb (1940), Physiologist, Cell Assembly Theory

By Redgie Mercado

Professor Monica Evans

12-02-09

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1.0 Justification

1.1 Flow Theory

1.2 Incubation

1.3 Hippocampus Spatial-Memory Association

1.4 Counter Arguments

2.0 The Program

2.1 Menu Items

2.1.1 File

2.1.2 Edit

2.1.3 Options

2.2 Navigation

2.2.1 Mouse

2.2.2 Zoom

2.2.3 Number Keys

2.3 Indexing

2.3.1 Search

2.3.2 Listing

2.4 Building the Node Map Tree

2.5 Review GUI and Information Entry

2.6 View Levels

3.0 Mechanics

3.1 Relationships of Nodes: Cognitive Mapping Principles

3.2 Node’s Design

3.3 The review GUI: Spaced Repetition

3.4 Node Statistics

3.5 Online Features

4.0 Aesthetic Style

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5.0 Learning Progression

5.1 Adding a New Node

5.2 Consolidating Nodes

5.3 Navigating the Node Tree and Reviewing

5.4 Changing the Pacing of Review

5.5 Progress

6.0 Program Elements

6.1 Node Tree

6.2 Parent Node

6.3 Child Node

7.0 Appendix A

8.0 Citations

JUSTIFICATION

The purpose of this paper is to describe the functions of a system that

aims to create a database for users to use as a tool of learning,

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memorization, and review. The database will be visual and allow the user to

custom tailor their learning experience by altering the pacing, changing the

priorities of individual items, and by automatically tracking user progress.

In the past few months, as a student of Japanese, I found a method to

internalize massive amounts of information through a method known as

spaced repetition. In simple terms, this systematic method allows the user to

review items in a manner that prioritizes exposure to failed items in favor to

well known items. The more the user knows an item, the longer the review

times are calculated in between. The less the user knows the items; a

smaller amount of time is given before the review of that item is shown

again. As simple and surprisingly efficient as that may sound, the reviews

are calculated based on an optimized time where the user is about to forget

the item. This is commonly known as the Forgetting Curve.

R: memory retention. S: relative strength of memory. t: time. X-axis: Days, Y-axis: Memory Strength

(“The Forgetting Curve”)

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Utilizing this curve (which will be further explained in the actions and

mechanics), the user can maximize their efforts towards mastery of different

subjects by the ability of memory recall. (Ebbinghaus)

Another method I found helpful in organizing notes and information,

utilizes the concept of cognitive maps, more colloquially known as “mind

mapping”. This involves taking a concept, dividing this concept down into

simpler, associated parts, and repeating as necessary in order to

dichotomize items into digestible items. The power of this comes from the

map itself, as it visually explains memory as it is organized the most

efficiently inside a user’s brain. The simple explanation to why this works

comes from the study of memory processing. The more neurons that fire for

a single event or item, the more embedded the event is inside the user’s

brain. The advantage of this system allows the user to associate items into

meaningful sections, and enforces mastery of information through

“association recall”. (Farrand, Hussain, and Hennessey)

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Example of two mind maps and various ways to dichotomize information (“Mindmap”)

The proposal for this new system, involves integrating both association

and memory recall as a way to create a tool for the user. This tool will

attempt to solve the problems of both systems, and bolster each other’s

strengths based on the mechanics and theories of each system in order to

create a cohesive, natural, and visceral system for learning.

Flow Theory

This program follows the learning patterns association with flow theory.

Developed by Csíkszentmihályi, the essence of flow theory lies in the nine

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tenets that make up flow, or the merging of both action and concentration

that leads to a positive experience. (Csíkszentmihályi)

The first tenet here is clear goals. The goal is to keep items in the

nodes fresh, and prevent them from expiring from memory. Since the

program is visual in nature, items will be color coded in order to clearly

present which items are in need of attention. This way, the user is able to

gauge their progress as they go on through the review process.

Concentration makes the second tenet, and is concerned with the

limited field of attention given to certain amount of information. Due to the

nature of cognitive mapping and the user’s ability to focus and tailor their

experience, concentration will be increased due to the associations that are

plain and simple to make. The third and fourth tenet can be a by-product of

concentration. The merging of action and awareness and the distorted sense

of time can add up to the user’s overall experience as they navigate the

program and go through learning progression.

As the fifth tenet, direct and immediate feedback is inherent in a

review system. The review GUI presents questions, and then the answer is

given after the user chooses to reveal the answer. If the user answers

correctly, the user can choose to schedule a review later. If the user answers

incorrectly, the user can schedule the review earlier.

Since the user can choose to schedule earlier or later to his presets,

the user controls the balance between ability level and the challenge. This is
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the sixth tenet. Easier items get pushed back, and harder items are

presented until their memory ability is able to recall the correct answer in a

single session. Over time this accumulates and presents the person with the

optimum challenge in subsequent sessions which hits the seventh tenet,

which also gives the person a sense of control over the activity.

As the user progresses in subsequent review sessions and sees that

reviews are becoming more and more spaced apart, the intrinsic award lies

in the expanded review sessions. More time passes between certain review

items and finds that when the user encounters them, they are able to

remember most of the older items.

The third and ninth tenet is about losing the feeling of self

consciousness and action awareness merging. The third and ninth are

grouped together because they are related in terms of the program. The

experience itself can become so engrossing that the activity becomes the

user’s awareness.

Incubation

According to Bloom’s taxonomy, when the person is able to

“understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and interpretation of

instructions and problems”; the person is undergoing the second category of

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comprehension. There are able to understand the item and organize information

and state it in their words. (Clark)

This ties into Incubation, as it relies on the brain’s ability to organize

information subconsciously or passively. While there is not much information

about the actual mechanics of incubation, the basic theory states that when

information is actively thought of for a duration of time, then approached

again after a period of rest, the person is much more likely to solve the

problem. There have been studies that show that new problems involving

creative thinking is increased by REM Sleep, but time is enough to solve

other problems. Sara Mednick, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San

Diego showed that REM sleep creates associations between unrelated ideas.

This works directly into the program’s function to dichotomize information

which helps the brain associate it later at night and the function that helps

expand reviews and allow duration of time to pass in order to incubate the

information. (Paddock; Krashen)

Hippocampus Spatial-Memory Associations

One of the oldest methods of memorization involved the Method of

Loci. This method involves the user to imagine a space, a street and imagine

the objects that the user is trying to remember situated in the space. In

neurological studies, the use of the hippocampus is dedicated to making new

memories and guiding the spatial recognition of a certain environment. The

hippocampus is thought to act as a gateway; a place where memories are

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first analyzed in their context, then stored in the permanent memory. In

experiments, lesions were made to the hippocampus and resulted in

significant impairment in spatial memory. It is clear there is a correlation to

spatial memory forming and is most likely utilized during progression

through this program. (Mohs; "Psycheducation.org")

Counter Arguments

User motivation is the only problem that may be encountered with

using the system. While there is science backing the theories and

implementation, user motivation is below average compared to typical

methods of note taking. The test here is to see whether the visual interface

can give the appeal in order to solve motivational issues. (Farrand, Hussain,

and Hennessey)

THE PROGRAM

This section involves everything that will be featured in the program

and the mechanics of each component as the user uses the program. Upon

execution, the program will display the splash page, and load up the

program. A percentage and a bar will fill as it loads to completion. Default

dimensions will be full screen. The minimum recommended resolution will be

1024x768, but due to the nature of the program the bigger the resolution

the better.

Menu Items
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These items will be located at the top left of the screen, in a slim bar

that have drop down menus. It will remain in sight, but fade out to low

opacity when the cursor is not hovering above it.

An example of the menu items and search bar for indexed items

File

This menu item will bring down a menu that includes New, Open, Save,

Save As, Synchronize and Exit. New will bring up a new instance of a node

map with a single center node. Open will open a file through Windows

Explorer. Save and Save as will allow you to save your node map. Exit will

shut down the program, just like the red X button at the top right. And

synchronize will allow the user to synchronize with and online database and

send the node file. The file extension will be .node

Edit

This item will show a drop down menu with Undo, Redo, Add Node, Edit

Node, Search Node, and Delete Node. Undo will undo the last action the user

has taken. Redo will redo the last action that was undone. There will be no

limits to Undo and Redo for as long as the program is open. Add node will

add a node to a selected node. Edit node will bring up a GUI that allows the

user to put information for questions and answers. Search Node will bring up
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an index of nodes and their tags and delete node will delete the selected

node.

Options

Show statistics will show the statistical meta-data on the node map on

a right side window. Hide statistics will hide the meta-data. Here the user can

set priorities for node colors in its own Priority menu. The program can be set

to filter out a range o f node colors from green to red, yellow to red and red

only, or have no filter at all.

Preferences will bring up its GUI. The GUI will be divided into Fonts,

Sounds, Display, Sync and Language. Fonts will have the options to change

colors and fonts. Sounds will give the user the choice to have different

sounds for different actions. Display will show brightness, saturation,

contrast and optimize for resolution. Sync will give the user the ability to

register with an only server much like Anki. Language will have the ability to

change the languages. (Anki, 2009)

Navigation

This section will involve how the user will move in the space presented

by the program and navigate through the various mechanics the user will

encounter.
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Mouse

Left click will select items and nodes. Holding down space bar will turn

the cursor into a hand and allow the user to drag the interface around as if

the hand is actually holding the screen and moving the different parts. Right

click will bring up an option to either add node, delete node, edit node, view

metadata or start review on the node. Metadata will provide statistical

information on the nodes. The user is also able to drag and drop nodes from

the parent node in order to branch out. If a node is selected and “Enter” Is

pressed or a node is right clicked and has its start review item picked, a GUI

pops up and asks “Do you want to review all the facts stored in these sub

levels?” User can choose to continue or cancel.

Zoom

The zoom will allow the user to zoom into a different spot and see the

area at a finer detail. The user is able to zoom using the scroll wheel.

Scrolling forward will zoom in and scrolling backwards will scroll out. Double

clicking on a node will zoom in and reframe the view and reposition the

double clicked node near the center and/or capture all of the sublevels

underneath in the frame. The preference will be towards display all the

sublevels in the frame.

Number Keys
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The number keys will fade the level node as the user gets more

acquainted with the program. Toggling “1” will switch off the top most node

and reveal level 2 dichotomies and sublevels. Toggling “2” will switch off

both top level nodes and second level nodes to fade out of view. Toggling

“6” will switch off all but the sixth level and all subsequent levels. If the user

has made more than 9 levels in nodes, the user can use the plus and minus

keys to move up and down super levels and sub levels respectively.

Indexing

Search

On the right top side of the menu item bar is a basic search box. This

box can search tags or words inside the facts, and highlight them on the

memory map by fading away the nodes that do not have the information.

Listing

Each node will have a small phrase or name that is displayed to

identify the node. Hovering over each node allows the user to get a preview

of the wording inside the node.

Building the Node Map Tree

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The user can click on a parent node, drag away from the node a thin

line then drop a new node in the area the mouse is clicked off. The user can

press ctrl+left click to move the node around. Each node can be branched

out over and over again ad infinitum until memory runs out. However advice

will pop up to think about how they are organizing their information to better

suit their application.

If the node has information already stored within the node, clicking and

dragging a new line for a new node will produce two nodes from the parent

node. The parent node will lose its information data and be replaced only by

the heading. The heading can be renamed in order to summarize the child

nodes. The information originating from the parent node will be passed on to

a child node that takes on the parents exact characteristics. The new node

will be able to editable just like any other lowest level node.

If there are nodes from super levels to be placed into lower levels, the

user has to pick up the node and hover it over the parent node. Once the

parent node is highlighted, then dropping the node makes it a child of the

parent node

Review GUI and Information Entry

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Clicking and editing each node allows a GUI to pop up that shows a

blank space and four priority scheduling buttons at the bottom for the

information. If there is no information currently in the node, another GUI will

overlay the first GUI and ask for a question and answer field. Questions will

be displayed first, at top half of the GUI; answers will be shown on the

bottom half of the GUI after the “show answer” key is presented. The card

can be tagged by keywords that will take preference over the content. If no

tags are used, content is used as general search terms. At the top of the

entry GUI, a heading will be required.

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At the top of the GUI, the Nav-List will show how deeply nested the

node is relative to its super levels. Each Nav-list item will have, in

parentheses the amount of nodes still awaiting review out of the total.

Until the answer is revealed, the bottom part of the GUI will have a

very wide horizontal bar with the words “Show Answer”. Once the answer is

revealed, the bar will disappear, and in its stead will show two types of

priority scheduling. The first will involve the user to simply click one of four

buttons that asks “How well did you remember the answer?” Their priority

scheduling will depend on the user’s honesty and feeling towards how well

they actually did. If the user failed to completely answer the question, the

card can be reviewed in the next few minutes by pressing “Failed”. If the

reviewer took a long time to produce an answer but the answer was correct,

or if the answer was partially correct, the user can click “Hard” and the

review will be scheduled within a few hours. If the reviewer reproduced the

answer within a reasonable amount of time, they can click “Good” and the

review will be scheduled according to a conservative function of the memory

curve formula. If the reviewer felt the answer come almost instantaneously,

they can choose “Easy” and will be scheduled to a more delayed function of

the memory curve formula.

The second type of priority scheduling can present the player with four

areas in a long bar ranging from colors red to blue. Above, the areas are

divided into four areas with ranges of their review time in each area. For
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example, a review time will for the “Hard” section will say “5 -9 hrs” instead

of just “9 hrs”. The areas will act relative like a progress bar. Click far left on

a section will choose the shorter duration and clicking far right on a section

will choose the longer duration. Clicking anywhere in between will choose a

duration in between of the time. The user will be allows to choose this in

options whether they want a finer degree of control on their priority

progression or just the simple four colored button.

View Levels

Priorities exists in the options menu. However for convenience, it will

be a selectable option out in the main GUI. The translucent drop down menu

will make the same selectable menu items as mentioned before. Priorities

view is here to show nodes that fit in the filtered range in order to take away

clutter from a heavily branched out node tree. If the user wants to review a

certain range only, they can do so, and find the nodes that need to be

reviewed.

Zoom will show the current zoom level relative to the complete node

tree. Clicking on Zoom will drop a menu that shows common zoom levels of

25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%. Using this function zooms only from
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pixel center and is not as versatile as the double click zoom that also re

centers the screen on that particular node cluster and its sublevel nodes.

Node Level will also be placed out there in the main GUI for

convenience. Clicking on node level will drop down a menu and present all

the available node levels. The node levels will default to a top to down

exclusion principle. Meaning clicking on “Level 3” will show anything

dichotomized from level 3 and below but fade everything above in order to

clear clutter. However if the user chooses so, the option is there to toggle on

or off “top to down exclusion”. Toggling it off will allow the user to exclude

everything below the level they have chosen.

“Verbose Mode” can be toggled on and off. It can be used when the

user wants to see ratios of how many cards are due, the total cards

underneath the node. If the node is a lowest level node, then it will reveal

the first few words in the question.

MECHANICS

Relationships of Nodes: Cognitive Mapping principles

Color coding will reveal the nature of the node. As the node expires

based off the memory curve, the node will actively degrade from its original

priority schedule, for example, a well known item blue, and degrade towards

red. Red will indicate that review for that item is very close or actually due. If

the node is the lowest level node, the color will indicate the health of the
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node. If the node has child nodes, it will indicate the health of the nodes

below it.

Node Size will reveal the relative amount of information inside the

node if it is a lowest level node. If it has child nodes, it will reveal the amount

of nodes it has relative to other nodes in its own dichotomy level. This allows

the user to know which nodes have the most information.

Opacity will function as a way to take away clutter from the main GUI

to take away unnecessary information while revealing information the user

wants to see. Opacity is there to help guide the user into tailoring the review

to their needs.

Dynamic Organization will trigger as the user zooms and centers the

node through selective zoom, that nodes will animate and reorganize itself in

a way that each node can be seen to the best possible view. This provides

the user the ability to see every node and give the user the best way to

navigate the interface. As an aesthetic touch, the nodes will slightly move

from side to side to give an organic feel to the node.

Node’s Design
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Each node has two smaller rings shadowing the inner circle of each

node. The innermost circle will reveal text information overlaying it. The

heading will display, and if verbose mode is turned on, other data will

present itself.

The inner most circle will be color coded based on the priority

scheduled and will degrade over time. The outer most rings will show the

total life of the particular node. The opaque and darker it is, the older it is

compared to the nodes that are visible on the screen, the lighter and

transparent it is, the younger it is. Only the lowest level nodes or child nodes

where information is actually stored will have a third ring in between the two

rings that will be clear, and thus highlighting the node as a child node.

The Review GUI: Spaced Repetition

Once the reviewer has chosen to review a certain branch of nodes, the

user enters a GUI that presents all the information that the user has stored in

the nodes. Nodes that are due to be reviewed will be reviewed in the order
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that they have expired. As the review GUI goes from node to node the

current node will be highlighted.

Upon first answer, the GUI will be tinted red. However upon answering

the priority scheduling, the GUI itself will turn the color of the priority

scheduling and pass on to the next node. The reviewer can interrupt the

pacing at any time, and click on nodes the user fit to answer. This way, the

user can go to nodes they think are easy, adding flexibility.

Node Statistics

Node statistics can be highlighted in a list as an option. Statistics can

be gathered from individual nodes by right clicking and choosing the option

or by the whole node tree. Mature nodes will be measured by the amount of

times they have been classified as “Easy” or “Good” labeled nodes. Young

labeled nodes will be measured by the times they have been entered as

“Hard” or “Failed” nodes. When the collective duration of times between

Easy and Good are longer then hard and failed durations, then the node will

be considered mature. Unseen nodes will be counted if they have never been

scheduled a priority.

Online Features

Synchronization will allow the user to synchronize to an online

database and save and upload and down their node tree file. It is also

shareable among others if the user chooses to make it public. Mobile review
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allows the user to take a condensed version of the program and can find it

on their phones as pop ups sent from the synchronized server.

AESTHETIC STYLE

Since the program is a metaphor for the user’s brain, and individual

nodes are representations of memory or cells, the user must feel as they are

looking into a high tech medical scan of their brain. As the program

operates, the user must feel curious to explore what they have built to be

their digital brain. As mentioned before, the program will go on its operations

in an organic way. This will mostly come out from the animations when the

user is dragging new nodes, splitting nodes from parent nodes, moving

nodes around, or organizing nodes by double clicking and zooming. The

environment design will take upon cues from outer space while the nodes

will take on visual characteristics of cells and molecules, giving them a living
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feeling. Here are examples of possible visual styles from the game Osmos:

Example of a similar visual style for the interface (“Osmos”)

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LEARNING PROGRESION
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Example of the interface asking the user if they want to review all the items under the

yellow node.

Adding a new Node

If the user hasn’t built a node tree yet, they can start out by selecting

“New” under “File”. Using Abraham Lincoln as a top Level Node topic the

user enters in the Top Level Node. Now the node says “Abraham Lincoln”.

The user can now drag a line from the top level node and create a child

node. The child node can be edited and information can be entered

concerning his birthday. “When is his Birthday?” and the answer “February

12, 1809”.

Consolidating Nodes

However, the user enters another piece of information about the day

he died. “When did he die?” Answer: “April 15, 1865” However what if the

user wants to consolidate the nodes together into a node that represents

“Abraham Lincoln’s Biblio Dates”, for example. The user can do it in two

ways. The user could simply drag and click an empty node from the top level

node then take the two nodes one at a time and drop them on the new node

to make them children of that node. Or the user could take one of the child

nodes of the Top level and drag and click a line from the child node to make
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a new child node. The lowest child node will adapt take the information of

the new found parent node and pop an empty new node. The super level

node can be placed on the new parent node, and be made a child node in

order to consolidate the two in information.

Navigating the Node Tree and reviewing

If the node builds a successfully big enough node tree, or if they have

downloaded someone else’s node tree, the user can navigate around by

using the entire interface in the mechanics. For example, if Abraham Lincoln

has grown several child nodes directly under the top node, the user can

choose to review everything one of the nodes by simply selecting a node and

pressing “Enter” to start reviewing everything underneath that top level

node that is due. If the user does not want to review that many cards, or

wants to focus on something more specific, the user can double click on a

node level to re center the screen and represent the nodes underneath.

Changing the Pacing of Review

When the user finds the node cluster they want to review, the user can

simply review that node and everything due there. If the user wants to

review early on other nodes, the user can review in order the nodes that

either interest them, or the nodes that are next to be reviewed through the

GUI.

Progress
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As the user becomes well versed in all the information, the user will

experience the overall change of colors from red to blue. Every day the user

opens up the program they will be shown their progress. Screenshots of the

whole node tree will be saved every time the user ends a session so the

program can show the user and compare their progress from going from

anywhere to 3 days ago to weeks, months and years ago.

PROGRAM ELEMENTS

Node Tree- The dichotomy of information that the user is able to grow from

the single topic that represents everything underneath it

Parent Node – nodes that represent everything underneath the node. It

provides areas for the user to concentrate their efforts in

Child Node – though every node underneath a super level parent node can

be considered a child node, it is only the lowest level nodes that are truly the

child nodes because they have the information that the users actually review
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APPENDIX A:
Extra Notes on Spaced Repetition and Association in Classical Psychology

Spaced Repetition demographic:

Proves to be effective in all kinds of memory competence. Memory Competence

changes in method from young children to older adults.

Interesting phenomenon with spaced rep: responses that were extinguished

(forgotten or hard to recall) will become easier to recall on and off in intervals.
Young adults have a faster rate of on and off intervals then older adults.

Expanded retrieval solves the problem of long term lag.

It seems to work in AlzhD patients using expanded retrieval in the form of seconds,
instead of hours, days, months. Perhaps this comments on interference between
key input point?

Expanded retrieval offers up to 16% more items than equal interval retrieval

Long term memory can be divided into two components:

Retrieval strength: how likely you are to recall something in an instance

Storage strength: how deep memory is rooted

Inverse relationship. Harder time to recall, deeper roots

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Easier time to recall, shallow roots

The sense of achievement is actually counterintuitive to what you're learning

Results in a 700 test by the Bjorks: best time to study something is right when
you're about to forget it.

Problem with current education: Teachers are results-oriented, students are cram-
oriented

In a system where 10% is forgotten over time 5% of the time spent is used in
memorizing new items compared to repetition. Learning size has almost no
impact/correlation to this value.

Edward Lee Thorndike

1. The law of exercise, which is basically the same as Aristotle’s law of frequency.
The more often an association (or neural connection) is used, the stronger the
connection. Naturally, the less it is used, the weaker the connection. These two
were referred to as the law of use and disuse respectively.

2. The law of effect. When an association is followed by a “satisfying state of

affairs,” the connection is strengthened. And, likewise, when an association is
followed by an unsatisfying state of affairs, it is weakened. Except for the
mentalistic language (“satisfying” is not behavioral!), it is the same thing as
Skinner’s operant conditioning.

John Broadus Watson

Most importantly, he denied the existence of any human instincts, inherited

capacities or talents, and temperaments. This radical environmentalism is reflected
in what is perhaps his best known quote:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to

bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select -- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief
and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. (In Behaviorism, 1930)

William McDougall:

McDougall saw Instincts as having three components:

* perception -- we pay attention to stimuli relevant to our instinctual purposes

* behavior -- we perform actions that satisfy our instinctual purposes

* emotion -- instincts have associated negative and positive emotions

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Notice that instincts are purposive, i.e. goal-directed! This is not stimulus-response
behaviorism!

Here is a list of instincts and accompanying emotions:

* escape -- fear

* combat -- anger

* repulsion -- disgust

* parental (protective) -- love, tenderness

* appeal for help -- distress

* mating -- lust

* curiosity -- feeling of mystery

* submission -- inferiority

* assertion -- superiority

* gregariousness -- loneliness

* food-seeking -- appetite

* hoarding -- greed

* construction -- productivity

* laughter -- amusement

Clark Hull:

All of which are measures of R, the response, which is a function of sera

The essence of the theory can be summarized by saying that the response is a
function of the strength of the habit times the strength of the drive. It is for this
reason that Hull’s theory is often referred to as drive theory.

Although he appreciated the behaviorist agenda for making psychology into a true
objective science, he felt Watson and others had gone too far.

E. C. Tolman

1. Watson’s behaviorism was the study of “twitches” -- stimulus-response is too

molecular a level. We should study whole, meaningful behaviors: the molar level.

2. Watson saw only simple cause and effect in his animals. Tolman saw purposeful,
goal-directed behavior.
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3. Watson saw his animals as “dumb” mechanisms. Tolman saw them as forming
and testing hypotheses based on prior experience.

4. Watson had no use for internal, “mentalistic” processes. Tolman demonstrated

that his rats were capable of a variety of cognitive processes.

An animal, in the process of exploring its environment, develops a cognitive map of

the environment. The process is called latent learning, which is learning in the
absence of rewards or punishments. The animals develops expectancies
(hypotheses) which are confirmed or not by further experience. Rewards (and
punishments) come into play only motivators for performance of a learned
behavior, not as the causes of learning itself.

B.F. Skinner:

A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of

that behavior occurring in the future.

What if you don’t give the rat any more pellets? Apparently, he’s no fool, and after
a few futile attempts, he stops his bar-pressing behavior. This is called extinction of
the operant behavior.

A behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased

probability of that behavior occurring in the future.

Schedules of reinforcement

Continuous reinforcement is the original scenario: Every time that the rat does the
behavior (such as pedal-pushing), he gets a rat goodie.

The fixed ratio schedule was the first one Skinner discovered: If the rat presses the
pedal three times, say, he gets a goodie. Or five times. Or twenty times. Or “x”
times. There is a fixed ratio between behaviors and reinforcers: 3 to 1, 5 to 1, 20 to
1, etc. This is a little like “piece rate” in the clothing manufacturing industry: You
get paid so much for so many shirts.

The fixed interval schedule uses a timing device of some sort. If the rat presses the
bar at least once during a particular stretch of time (say 20 seconds), then he gets a
goodie. If he fails to do so, he doesn’t get a goodie. But even if he hits that bar a
hundred times during that 20 seconds, he still only gets one goodie! One strange
thing that happens is that the rats tend to “pace” themselves: They slow down the
rate of their behavior right after the reinforcer, and speed up when the time for it
gets close.
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Skinner also looked at variable schedules. Variable ratio means you change the “x”
each time -- first it takes 3 presses to get a goodie, then 10, then 1, then 7 and so
on. Variable interval means you keep changing the time period -- first 20 seconds,
then 5, then 35, then 10 and so on.

In both cases, it keeps the rats on their rat toes. With the variable interval
schedule, they no longer “pace” themselves, because they can no longer establish
a “rhythm” between behavior and reward. Most importantly, these schedules are
very resistant to extinction. It makes sense, if you think about it. If you haven’t
gotten a reinforcer for a while, well, it could just be that you are at a particularly
“bad” ratio or interval! Just one more bar press, maybe this’ll be the one!

This, according to Skinner, is the mechanism of gambling. You may not win very
often, but you never know whether and when you’ll win again. It could be the very
next time, and if you don’t roll the dice, or play that hand, or bet on that number
this once, you’ll miss on the score of the century!

Shaping

Beyond these fairly simple examples, shaping also accounts for the most complex
of behaviors. You don’t, for example, become a brain surgeon by stumbling into an
operating theater, cutting open someone's head, successfully removing a tumor,
and being rewarded with prestige and a hefty paycheck, along the lines of the rat in
the Skinner box. Instead, you are gently shaped by your environment to enjoy
certain things, do well in school, take a certain bio class, see a doctor movie
perhaps, have a good hospital visit, enter med school, be encouraged to drift
towards brain surgery as a specialty, and so on. This could be something your
parents were carefully doing to you, ala a rat in a cage. But much more likely, this
is something that was more or less unintentional.

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