  Dr. Sophia Yin |
ANSWERS TO SAMPLE PRACTICE PROBLEMS FOR CHAPTERS 5, 6, 7, 8 11 Chapter 5: Classical Conditioning Practice Questions The classical conditioning that’s occurring in the situations. |
| A1) | Lambs nurse from their mothers throughout the day. This nursing strengthens the mother-offspring bond because during
nursing, the lamb learns to associate the mother with food. The presence of the mother elicits internal changes associated with
food. |
| A2) | He's come to associate the car ride with playing at the park. All of the internal changes, such as increase in adrenaline, that
occur when he's playing fetch or waiting for his owners to toss the ball, are elicited when he gets into the car. |
| A3) | He associates the farrier truck with the farrier and having his feet worked on. Because he's fearful of or dislikes these things he's
fearful when he just sees the truck. The truck elicits the same internal emotional and physiologic changes that seeing the farrier
and having his feet worked on elicits. |
Chapter 6: Operant Conditioning Practice Questions Technique descriptions for each Category of Operant Conditioning |
| A1) | Decrease: barking and growling (punish this behavior). Increase: Sit quietly or come when called (reinforce this behavior). Positive reinforcement: Give her a treat for coming when called or sitting quietly in order to increase these behaviors. Negative reinforcement: In order to increase her behavior or coming when called, yank her choke chain until she comes to you and as soon as she starts coming, stop yanking. (in order to increase the behavior of coming). Positive punishment: Yank her choke chain really hard when she growls and barks at guests in order to decrease her behavior or growling and lunging. Negative punishment: In order to decrease this bad behavior, when Fifi barks and growls, the owner can remove her attention by being quiet and even leaving the room. |
| A2) | Decrease: Grabbing the leash in his mouth when you've stopped to talk to someone. Increase: Standing or sitting quietly while you talk to someone. Positive reinforcement: Give him a treat (add a treat) periodically for standing or sitting quietly. Negative reinforcement: Yank on his choke chain or pinch collar or keep pressing the button on the electronic collar until he lets go of the leash and stands quietly and then immediately stop yanking on his collar or zapping him with the collar in order to increase his behavior of standing quietly. (note: I'm not advocating any of these techniques, just using them as an example of negative reinforcement). Positive punishment: Yank his choke chain really hard when starts tugging on the leash in order to stop the behavior of tugging. Negative punishment: In order to decrease this bad behavior, when Bowser starts tugging, ignore him and refrain from tugging back (hold perfectly still as though the leash is tied to a pole). |
| A3) | Decrease: Charging the door.
Increase: Standing or sitting in a specified location (stationing or placing on a rock 5 feet from the
door) when you open the door or on cue. Positive reinforcement: Give him a treats (add a treat) for staying on this rock while you exit and enter his enclosure in order to increase his behavior of staying on his rock during this time. Negative reinforcement: Squirt him with a water until he gets onto (or back onto) his rock and as soon as he steps onto the rock remove the aversive in order to increase his behavior of staying on the rock as you exit. Positive punishment: Squirt him with your water gun when he makes a rush towards the door in order to stop his door-rushing behavior. Negative punishment: Every time he makes a rush for the open door, close the door in order to decrease his behavior of trying to rush out. He'll learn that rushing for the door makes it close and removes his opportunity to go out. |
| A1) | Aspen is mouthy because her owner gives her the carrots and other treats when Aspen sniffs or mouths. To fix the problem the
owner should train Aspen to stand still with her head away (outside her owner's personal space) in order to receive treats.
Note: she can do this by just standing near Aspen and waiting until Aspen moves her head away before she gives the treat.
She'll have to practice this in discrete sessions (several 5-10 minutes sessions a day) over several days. |
| A2) | She jumps up only when people are on the couch because these people give her attention and pet her when she jumps up. To fix
the problem, they should ignore her when she jumps up (and even stand up and walk away from the couch) and instead pet
her when she has all four feet on the floor. They should make a special effort to pet her when she comes up to them and sits or
stand near them on the floor instead of jumping up onto the couch. |
| A3) | He nuzzles you because he wants to be petted and you eventually pet him when he performs these behaviors. To fix the problem
you will have to ignore these behaviors and instead pet him (and give attention or treats) for an alternate behavior such as
lying down quietly somewhere else in the room. |
| A1) | Start by rewarding Aspen as soon as she moves her head away from you. She may only move it away from you for a second
and only by several inches. When she's consistently moves her head away (5 times in a row or 8-9 times out of 10 in a row),
then expect her to move her head away several inches more before rewarding her. Then in the next steps start building the
amount of time that she'll hold her head away in order to receive the treat. In this manner you can teach her to stand still for
long periods of time and with her head outside your personal space while you or your friend are grooming Aspen. |
| A2) | At first when the cat comes up to them they should immediately pet the cat for sitting or standing on the floor. When they stop
petting he will probably want to jump up to get petted so they should hurry up and pet him again before he jumps up again.
At first they will have to pet at frequent intervals but after a few sessions they will be able to space the intervals out (e.g. to
be able to pet only during commercials when they're watching TV). |
| A3) | Shape the behavior by first giving him attention when he sits or lies down but before he gets up to nuzzle you again. Since he
gets up approximately every 5 minutes, you can just give him attention every 4 minutes and then gradually increase the
interval that he has to lie down or sit quietly before you pet him again. |
Chapter 11: Four Methods of Behavior Modification Listed for each question, are the general behavior modification techniques you could use and describe specifically how someone might use them. Remember that this is an exercise on defining categories not on determining which method works best. |
| A1) | Flooding: Wave a bunch of plastic bags around when he's in his stall and can't escape, or when you're
riding him and you can keep him from running away. Desensitize: Wave a plastic bag around first far away and then when he's calm with the bag far away, gradually move the bag closer. Alternatively, if he's fearful of a bag that's stationary or attached to something so that you can control your distance from it, you can gradually move him closer to the bag making sure that he's first relaxed at one distance before you move him closer. Classical counter-conditioning: Give him treats when he's around plastic bags (but not so close that he's too fearful to eat). Or exercise him in an arena with a stationary plastic bag at one end. Work him vigorously away from the plastic bag and let him rest in the area close to the plastic bag. (Horses like rest). Operant Counter-conditioning: Train a behavior that's incompatible with being afraid of and running away from the plastic bag. You can target train him to touch his nose to a target to receive a treat. Then when he's near a plastic bag, practice targeting. Have him walk several steps to reach the target. First start farther away from the plastic bag and gradually work closer. Alternatively you can have him perform other exercises near the bag so he doesn't focus on the bag and does not run away from the bag, but these exercises should be fun for him so that he is also learning to associate good things with the bag (this part is classical conditioning). |
