Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!udel!udccvax1!arti
From: arti@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Arti Nigam)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: reinforcement
Message-ID: <944@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU>
Date: 5 Apr 88 16:42:29 GMT
References: <84@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM>
Reply-To: arti@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Arti Nigam)
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 58

To: rolandi@gollum.UUCP
Subject: Re: reinforcement
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
In-Reply-To: <84@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM>
Organization: University of Delaware
Cc: 
Bcc: 

In article <84@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> you write:
>
>In response to Arti Nigel:
>>The qualifiers mean what you would expect based on standard English meaning:
>>..... but I think you have a problem with my adjectives!
>
>No problem at all.  I just needed to determine whether you were using 
>adjectives as opposed to (say) coining some new technical terminology.
>
>>>>Most parents do not follow their toddlers around correcting the grammar ...
>
>>Well, okay, let's say from other people who are capable of responding
>>differentially (of providing contingent reinf.) to the child's language
>>production.    
>
>OK.  Let's make a distinction between reinforcement (a process or act)
>and reinforcers (stimuli that have reinforcing properties for an organism).

Ah, I see what you mean.  Yes, I fully understand the meaning of
reinforcement (positive or negative, it increases recurrence of the 'response.')
and of punishment and extinction (both of which decrease the recurrence.)
And I know that a reinforcer in any given circumstance is defined not by
its specific nature but rather by its function/effect on the 'response.'
Such a construct (reinforcer as defined in this way) is useful in trying
to explain behavior that currently occurs or that has occurred in the past.
It is not very useful, I tentatively suggest, in determining what will
cause a certain class of behaviors to start occurring.  Yes, different
things are reinforcers to different people/behaviors under different
conditions.  But it is mighty interesting, and needs a theory to explain,
that virtually every child on earth has an amazing propensity to get
reinforced for a certain class of behaviors; very regularly, EVERY child
gets reinforced for this class of behaviors (language production); there
must be a large body of potential reinforcers relevant to this class, as
well; it is unlike many behaviors that some people learn, some don't;
so, language is a pretty special thing, and the environment seems well
set up to be exceptionally conducive to (provide much and varied
reinforcements for) language production.  I think that fact is very
interesting, and if you want to know WHY rather than just the elements of
HOW, you are not asking a fruitless question.  You are asking something
that strict behaviorists do not claim to be answering (I think).  Certainly
behaviorists have not succeeded in answering that, and I think they have
not attempted it.  That is certainly just fine; no one has to know 
everything; but it is a legitimate scientific question to deal with.

Arti Nigam.

>Walter Rolandi
>rolandi@gollum.UUCP 
>NCR Advanced Systems, Columbia, SC
>University of South Carolina Departments of Psychology and Linguistics