[This is the second half of a two-part post. Part 1 can be found here.] Negative Reinforcement (R-) makes a wanted behavior more likely by taking away or reducing something the learner does not enjoy. It “eliminates an aversive,” as they say in the field. In this sense, it’s a kind of relief from unpleasantness. [more…]
A Positive-Minded Primer on Punishment and Reinforcement–with a Buddhist Twist (Part 1 of 2)
People often misunderstand positive reinforcement because those of us who espouse and employ the technique can get sloppy with our definitions. As we’ve discussed before, for example, the “positive” in positive reinforcement need not mean ‘happy,’ ‘kind,’ or ‘joyful.’ It simply means “added in,” as in the reinforcer added in to make a behavior more [more…]
Positively Tricky
We use the word “positive” to mean many different things—and muddy our waters of understanding as a result. In the behavioral sciences, in the strictest sense, the word positive means “something added in.” In positive reinforcement training, then, “positive” means “treat” or reinforce added within a setting to make a particular behavior more likely to [more…]
Easy to Preach, Tough to Practice
The world’s best animal trainers rely on one simple and profound principle: reward movement towards the behavior you want and ignore the rest. The method works with species from dolphins to goldfish, from tigers to spiders. And, of course, it holds for humans too. Given a functioning nervous system, any learner reinforced for success rather [more…]
