Instinctive drift

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Instinctive drift, alternately known as instinctual drift, is the tendency of an animal to revert to unconscious and automatic behaviour that interferes with learned behaviour from operant conditioning. [1] [2] Instinctive drift was coined by Keller and Marian Breland, former students of B.F. Skinner at the University of Minnesota, describing the phenomenon as "a clear and utter failure of conditioning theory." [3] B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist and father of operant conditioning (or instrumental conditioning), which is a learning strategy that teaches the performance of an action either through reinforcement or punishment. [2] It is through the association of the behaviour and the reward or consequence that follows that depicts whether an animal will maintain a behaviour, or if it will become extinct. [4] Instinctive drift is a phenomenon where such conditioning erodes and an animal reverts to its natural behaviour.

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B.F. Skinner

B.F. Skinner, American psychologist credited for understanding of operant conditioning associated with instinctive drift B.F. Skinner.jpg
B.F. Skinner, American psychologist credited for understanding of operant conditioning associated with instinctive drift

B.F. Skinner was an American behaviourist inspired by John Watson's philosophy of behaviorism. [5] Skinner was captivated with systematically controlling behaviour to result in desirable or beneficial outcomes. This passion led Skinner to become the father of operant conditioning. [4] Skinner made significant contributions to the research concepts of reinforcement, punishment, schedules of reinforcement, behaviour modification and behaviour shaping. [6] The mere existence of the instinctive drift phenomenon challenged Skinner's initial beliefs on operant conditioning and reinforcement. [4]

Operant conditioning

Skinner described operant conditioning as strengthening behaviour through reinforcement. Reinforcement can consist of positive reinforcement, in which a desirable stimulus is added; negative reinforcement, in which an undesirable stimulus is taken away; positive punishment, in which an undesirable stimulus is added; and negative punishment, in which a desirable stimulus is taken away. [7] Through these practices, animals shape their behaviour and are motivated to perform said learned behaviour to optimally benefit from rewards or to avoid punishment. Through operant conditioning, the presence of instinctive drift was discovered. [3]

The Brelands

The term instinctive drift was coined by married couple Keller and Marian Breland Bailey, former psychology graduate students of B.F. Skinner at the University of Minnesota.  Keller and Marian were recruited to work with B.F. Skinner on a project to train pigeons to pilot bombs towards targets to aid with World War II efforts. [3] This project was terminated when the development of the atom bomb took precedence. [3] The Brelands, however, still enthralled with the application of animal behaviour, adopted Skinner's principles and began a life of training animals. They profited from these animals performing complex and amusing behaviours for the public's entertainment. They coined their successful business, "Animal Behaviour Enterprises" in 1943. [4] [3] Their business soon gained nationwide attention and even had a partnership with General Mills to train chickens, via operant conditioning, for business promotion. [4] [3]

Discovery

Keller and Marian Breland were the discoverers of instinctive drift. [4] [3] They first noted this behavioural pattern when animals they had been training for years interrupted their learned behaviours to satisfy innate patterns of feeding behaviours. [3] This discovery debunked the once assumed ideas that animals are a "tabula rasa" prior to purposeful training and that all responses are equally conditionable. [3] The Breland's described their first exposure to this phenomenon when working with their chickens that had been trained to appear as if they were turning on a jukebox and subsequently dancing. The breakdown in operant conditioning appeared when over half the chickens they had trained to stand on a platform developed an unplanned scratching or pecking pattern. [3] The scratching pattern was subsequently used to create the "dancing chicken" performance. [3]

In raccoons

The Breland's had their second, and more perplexing, encounter with instinctive drift when working with raccoons. They were training racoons to perform a captivating sequence of events to aid with the advertisement of a bank. This project involved teaching raccoons to deposit money into a bank slot. The Breland's were successful at yet another animal training project as raccoons were initially very successful at the task of depositing coins into the bank. The Brelands then noticed that over time and as the reinforcement schedule was spaced out, the raccoons began to dip the coins in and out of the bank and rub them with their paws rather than depositing them. They concluded that this was an instinct that was interfering with the raccoons’ performance on the task. [4] In nature, raccoons dip their food in water several times in order to wash it. This is an instinct which was seemingly triggered by the similar action sequence involved in retrieving and depositing coins into a bank. Instinctive behaviour is usually automatic and unplanned and is a natural reaction which often is preferred by the animal over learned and unnatural actions. [2] This instinctual drift was successfully avoided when they instead taught the raccoons to place a basketball into a basket. Because of the size of the ball and the different body position involved in this action, the raccoons did not experience instinctual drift (they did not dip the balls in and out of the basket).

In pigs

A similar training regimen was applied on pigs, animals who are known to condition rapidly. [4] These pigs were trained to insert wooden coins into a piggy bank. [8] Over time, the pigs stopped depositing the coins and instead began to drop it in the dirt, push it down with their noses, drag it back out, and fling it into the air. [8] This is a series of actions which are part of a behaviour known as rooting. It is an instinctual pattern of behaviour which pigs use to dig for food and to communicate. [8] The pigs chose to engage in rooting rather than performing their trained action (depositing the coin) and therefore, this is yet another clear example of instinctive drift interfering with operant conditioning. [8]

Nature vs. nurture

The nature vs. nurture controversy is a major topic discussed in psychology and pertains to animal training as well. Both sides of the nature vs. nurture debate have valid points and this controversy is one of the most debated in psychology. [9] A common question asked today by many experts in various fields is if behaviour is due to life experiences or if it is predisposed in DNA. [9] Today, partial credit is given to both sides and in many cases nature and nurture are given equal weight. With animal training it is often questioned if the training and shaping is the cause of a behaviour exhibited by an animal (nurture), or if the behaviour is actually innate to the species (nature). [9] [10] Instinctive drift centers around the nature of behaviour more so than learning being the sole cause of a behaviour. Species are obviously capable of learning behaviours, this is not denied in instinctive drift. [9] Instinctive drift says that animals often revert to innate (nature) behaviours that can interfere with conditioned responses (nurture). [9]

Relationship with evolution

Instinctive drift can be discussed in association with evolution. [11] Evolution is commonly classified as change occurring over a period of time. [11] Instinctive drift says that animals will behave in accordance with evolutionary contingencies, as opposed to operant contingencies of their specific training. [11] Evolutionary roots of instinct exist. [12] Evolution of traits and behaviours occur over time and it is by means of evolution and natural selection that adaptive traits and behaviours are passed on to the next generation and maladaptive traits are weaned out. It is the adaptive traits of species over time that is exhibited in instinctive drift and that species revert to that interferes with operant conditioning. [12] [11] Much knowledge on the topic of evolution and natural selection can be credited to Charles Darwin. [11] Darwin developed and proposed the theory of evolution and it was through this knowledge that other subjects could be better understood, such as instinctive drift. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. F. Skinner</span> American psychologist and social philosopher (1904–1990)

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. Considered the father of Behaviorism, he was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.

Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where behaviors are modified through the association of stimuli with reinforcement or punishment. In it, operants—behaviors that affect one's environment—are conditioned to occur or not occur depending on the environmental consequences of the behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operant conditioning chamber</span> Laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior

An operant conditioning chamber is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. The chamber can be used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

In reinforcement theory, it is argued that human behavior is a result of "contingent consequences" to human actions. The publication pushes forward the idea that "you get what you reinforce". This means that behavior, when given the right types of reinforcers, can be changed for the better and negative behavior can be reinforced away.

Radical behaviorism is a "philosophy of the science of behavior" developed by B. F. Skinner. It refers to the philosophy behind behavior analysis, and is to be distinguished from methodological behaviorism—which has an intense emphasis on observable behaviors—by its inclusion of thinking, feeling, and other private events in the analysis of human and animal psychology. The research in behavior analysis is called the experimental analysis of behavior and the application of the field is called applied behavior analysis (ABA), which was originally termed "behavior modification."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instinct</span> Behaviour due to innate biological factors

Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.

The experimental analysis of behavior is a science that studies the behavior of individuals across a variety of species. A key early scientist was B. F. Skinner who discovered operant behavior, reinforcers, secondary reinforcers, contingencies of reinforcement, stimulus control, shaping, intermittent schedules, discrimination, and generalization. A central method was the examination of functional relations between environment and behavior, as opposed to hypothetico-deductive learning theory that had grown up in the comparative psychology of the 1920–1950 period. Skinner's approach was characterized by observation of measurable behavior which could be predicted and controlled. It owed its early success to the effectiveness of Skinner's procedures of operant conditioning, both in the laboratory and in behavior therapy.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clicker training</span>

Clicker training is a positive reinforcement animal training method based on a bridging stimulus in operant conditioning. The system uses conditioned reinforcers, which a trainer can deliver more quickly and more precisely than primary reinforcers such as food. The term "clicker" comes from a small metal cricket noisemaker adapted from a child's toy that the trainer uses to precisely mark the desired behavior. When training a new behavior, the clicker helps the animal to quickly identify the precise behavior that results in the treat. The technique is popular with dog trainers, but can be used for all kinds of domestic and wild animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dog training</span> Practice of teaching behaviors to dogs

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal training</span> Teaching animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli

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Behaviour therapy or behavioural psychotherapy is a broad term referring to clinical psychotherapy that uses techniques derived from behaviourism and/or cognitive psychology. It looks at specific, learned behaviours and how the environment, or other people's mental states, influences those behaviours, and consists of techniques based on behaviorism's theory of learning: respondent or operant conditioning. Behaviourists who practice these techniques are either behaviour analysts or cognitive-behavioural therapists. They tend to look for treatment outcomes that are objectively measurable. Behaviour therapy does not involve one specific method, but it has a wide range of techniques that can be used to treat a person's psychological problems.

Shaping is a conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior. The method used is differential reinforcement of successive approximations. It was introduced by B. F. Skinner with pigeons and extended to dogs, dolphins, humans and other species. In shaping, the form of an existing response is gradually changed across successive trials towards a desired target behavior by reinforcing exact segments of behavior. Skinner's explanation of shaping was this:

We first give the bird food when it turns slightly in the direction of the spot from any part of the cage. This increases the frequency of such behavior. We then withhold reinforcement until a slight movement is made toward the spot. This again alters the general distribution of behavior without producing a new unit. We continue by reinforcing positions successively closer to the spot, then by reinforcing only when the head is moved slightly forward, and finally only when the beak actually makes contact with the spot. ... The original probability of the response in its final form is very low; in some cases it may even be zero. In this way we can build complicated operants which would never appear in the repertoire of the organism otherwise. By reinforcing a series of successive approximations, we bring a rare response to a very high probability in a short time. ... The total act of turning toward the spot from any point in the box, walking toward it, raising the head, and striking the spot may seem to be a functionally coherent unit of behavior; but it is constructed by a continual process of differential reinforcement from undifferentiated behavior, just as the sculptor shapes his figure from a lump of clay.

Marian "Mouse" Breland Bailey was an American psychologist, an applied behavior analyst who played a major role in developing empirically validated and humane animal training methods and in promoting their widespread implementation. She and her first husband, Keller Breland (1915–1965), studied at the University of Minnesota under behaviorist B. F. Skinner and became "the first applied animal psychologists." Together they wrote the book Animal Behavior which was first published in 1966, after Keller's death.

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In behavioral psychology, stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning that occurs when an organism behaves in one way in the presence of a given stimulus and another way in its absence. A stimulus that modifies behavior in this manner is either a discriminative stimulus (Sd) or stimulus delta (S-delta). Stimulus-based control of behavior occurs when the presence or absence of an Sd or S-delta controls the performance of a particular behavior. For example, the presence of a stop sign (S-delta) at a traffic intersection alerts the driver to stop driving and increases the probability that "braking" behavior will occur. Such behavior is said to be emitted because it does not force the behavior to occur since stimulus control is a direct result of historical reinforcement contingencies, as opposed to reflexive behavior that is said to be elicited through respondent conditioning.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine mammal training</span>

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Theoretical behaviorism is a framework for psychology proposed by J. E. R. Staddon as an extension of experimental psychologist B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism. It originated at Harvard in the early 1960s.

References

  1. ↑ Powell, Robert W.; Curley, Michael (2013-11-08). "Instinctive drift in nondomesticated rodents". Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society. 8 (3): 175–178. doi: 10.3758/BF03335117 .
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  5. ↑ "B. F. Skinner".
  6. ↑ McLeod, Saul (2007). "Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner) - Simply Psychology".
  7. ↑ McLeod, Saul (2018). "B.F. Skinner - Operant Conditioning". Simply Psychology.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Green, C.D. "Classics in The History of Psychology" – via York University.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Bergeman, C.S; Plomin, R. (1991). "Nature and nurture". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 14: 373–427. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  10. ↑ Lehrman, D.S. (1953). "A critique of Konrad Lorenz's theory of instinctive behaviour". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 28 (4): 337–63. doi:10.1086/399858. PMID   13121237. S2CID   15045246.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Darwin, Charles; Wallace, Alfred Russel (1958). Evolution By Natural Selection: A Centenary Commemorative Volume. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
  12. 1 2 3 Cudmore, B. (2017). "The evolutionary roots of instinct". The Scientist. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
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