Winning money from slot machines or on a lottery ticket is an example of reinforcement that occurs on a variable-ratio schedule. For instance, a slot machine (see Figure 8.7, “Slot Machine”) may be programmed to provide a win every 20 times the user pulls the handle, on average.

Positive reinforcement, using food rewards to increase the likelihood a dog will repeat a desirable behavior, is universally regarded as the most reliable method for teaching commands. While the basic concepts of rewardbased training are easy to understand, people sometimes inadvertently inhibit progress by using too many—or too few —treats.

Let’s say you’re in Las Vegas playing a slot machine, but every time you deposit a quarter and pull the arm, you get your one quarter in return. This wouldn’t keep your attention for long, and you’d probably opt for a different machine.

Now, what if you started feeding your hard-earned quarters into the next machine, but for hours on end got none back? Chances are you’d become equally frustrated and end your short gambling career.

Applied to dog training, both of these extremes—continuous reinforcement or none at all—can lead to lower command compliance.

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“My dog will only sit if I have a treat.” Over the years, I have heard this refrain many times, and it almost always indicates that the dog was rewarded with treats for sitting on cue too often and for too long. Essentially, the dog had learned two things had to be true for him to comply: the sit cue plus a treat. If either were not true, he’d find something more interesting to do.

When initially teaching a new command, “Continuous Reinforcement”—CR in the geeky learning-theory world— is the most effective approach. For instance, when first teaching a puppy to sit, rewarding each successful completion (or “trial”) makes sense because your focus is on clearly pairing the verbal cue and hand gesture with the behavior: put the quarter in (your puppy sits on cue) and the reward appears (treat!).

But acting as your puppy’s loose slot machine for too long causes him to stop working so hard. Why bother sitting quickly, or at all, when a treat invariably appears? CR for too long also causes the dog to become dependent on the food reward: he will refuse to work unless food is presented. Before you get to that point—usually within a few days of teaching a new cue —it’s time to move to a less predictable reinforcement schedule.

Back to the gambling analogy. Once you’re sure your dog has a grasp on what you’re teaching him, it’s time to become a fair and honest slot machine, dispensing small food rewards less frequently for successful trials. (This is also a good time to find soft treats that won’t easily crumble to bits, and to always have a few hidden in your pocket.)

The psychology behind slots— enticing folks to pump coins into machines for hours on end—is that the probability of winning remains constant, even though the number of plays it takes to recoup your money, or better yet, hit the jackpot, changes. The unpredictability makes doing the same mundane activity, over and over, interesting and exciting. You can take advantage of this same psychology to train your dog faster.

When teaching your dog a new command, once you’ve determined that he knows what you’re expecting from him, begin randomly rewarding successful trials using “Variable Ratio” (VR) reinforcement. Start with a low ratio, rewarding roughly one out of every three trials, then increase the ratio over the course of several training sessions.

For example, when teaching your puppy to sit, provide a small treat for (successful) trials 2, 7, 9, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 25. Notice that during 25 trials, sometimes he gets three rewards in a row, but sometimes, there’s a longer lag between treats. The idea is to keep him guessing—and working!

Over the course of twice-daily training sessions (two to five minutes each), increase the ratio until he is rewarded for roughly one out of every ten successful trials. The behavior should become a happy habit by then, although, to keep commands fresh, continue to occasionally reward your dog for life. In other words, don’t become the slot machine that never pays a jackpot!

Slot Machines Provide Reinforcement On A Certain

There are other types of reinforcement schedules too involved for our purposes here, but one to take advantage of is “Differential Reinforcement of Excellent Behavior” or DRE. This is just a fancy way of saying “better performance earns bigger rewards.” Once you’ve worked through Continuous Reinforcement (treating every time to teach the command) and Variable Ratio (treating randomly to hone the behavior), you can polish the command by handsomely rewarding only the best trials.

Let’s think about DRE in terms of teaching recalls. Once your dog is largely responding to your “come” command, and you’ve worked through Variable Ratio reinforcement—by sometimes treating and sometimes not— start rewarding with higher-value treats, or more of what you have, only when your dog immediately and enthusiastically answers your call. If he stops and smells the roses (or whatever that was) en route, no reward is given.

Slot Machines Provide Reinforcement On A

Advancing through these levels is not rigid, and you may combine aspects of more than one as you progress. Be ready to back up a step if you’ve moved too fast—your dog will let you know!

By closely monitoring the occurrence of behaviors and the frequency of rewards, Skinner was able to look for patterns. Receiving a reward each time the lever is pressed would be an example of continuous reinforcement. But Skinner also wanted to know how behavior might change if the reward wasn’t always present. This is known as intermittent reinforcement (or partial reinforcement). By tracking the accumulated behavioral responses of animals in his operant boxes over time, Skinner could see how different reward schedules influenced the timing and frequency of behavior. Though each of these approaches could be varied in countless ways, there were 4 general types of schedules that Skinner tested. https://prelucky.netlify.app/top-slot-machines-to-play-at-sycuan.html.

Fixed-Ratio (The Vending Machine)

A fixed-ratio schedule follows a consistent pattern of reinforcing a certain number of behaviors. This may come in the form of rewarding every behavior (1:1) or only rewarding every 5th response (5:1), according to some set rule. Just as nobody continuously feeds coins to a broken vending machine, when the set ratio is violated (like when each level press no longer delivers food), animals quickly learn to reduce their behavior.

Variable-Ratio (The Slot Machine) Best buy online casinos.

A variable-ratio schedule rewards a particular behavior but does so in an unpredictable fashion. The reinforcement may come after the 1st level press or the 15th, and then may follow immediately with the next press or perhaps not follow for another 10 presses. The unpredictable nature of a variable-ratio schedule can lead to a high frequency of behavior, as the animal (or human) may believe that the next press will “be the one” that delivers the reward.

Basically, when it comes to slot machines, strategy boils down to this: Know the rules, your probability of winning, and the expected payouts; dispel any myths; and quit while you’re ahead. (Don’t expect this information to be front and center.) Implementing a simple strategy for slotsAdvice varies regarding whether you should play nickel, quarter, or dollar slot machines and whether you should max out the number of coins you bet or not (you usually get to choose between one and five coins to bet on a standard slot machine). In this section, you’ll find a few tips for getting the most bang for your buck (or nickel) when playing slot machines. How to spot winnin slot machines. You can also try to check the information on the machine to see if it lists its payouts.

This is the type of reinforcement seen in gambling, as each next play could provide the big payoff. Skinner found that behaviors rewarded with a variable-ratio schedule were most resistant to extinction. To illustrate this, consider a broken vending machine (fixed ratio) versus a broken slot machine (variable-ratio). How long would you keep putting money into a broken vending machine? You’d probably give up after your first or maybe second try didn’t result in a delicious Snickers bar. But now imagine playing a slot machine that is broken and unable to pay out (though everything else appears to be working). You might play 15 times or more before you cease your coin-inserting and button-pressing behavior.

Fixed-Interval (The Paycheck)

In a fixed-interval schedule, reinforcement for a behavior is provided only at fixed time intervals. The reward may be given after 1 minute, every 5 minutes, once an hour, etc. What Skinner found when implementing this schedule was that the frequency of behavior would increase as the time for the reward approached (ensuring that the animal gets the reward), but would then decrease immediately following the reward, as if the animal knew that another reward wouldn’t be arriving any time soon. Gta online casino high roller gambling.

This may be of concern for human fixed-interval situations like biweekly or monthly paychecks, as work effort may be reduced immediately after a paycheck has been received (just as most students reduce studying effort in the days immediately following exams, because the next exams aren’t coming for a while).

Variable-Interval (The Pop-Quiz)

In a variable-interval schedule, reinforcement of a behavior is provided at a varying time interval since the last reinforcement. This means a pigeon might be rewarded for pecking after 10 seconds, or it might be rewarded after 1 minute, then after 5 minutes, then 5 seconds and the time interval between reinforcements is always changing. This schedule produces a slow and steady rate of response. The pigeon pecks steadily so it doesn’t miss any opportunities for reinforcement but there’s no need to rush, since that won’t influence the length of delays.

A human comparison might be a class with pop-quizzes for extra credit given at varying and unpredictable times. These would encourage students to study a little each day to always be prepared to earn some points, though they probably wouldn’t cram for hours and hours every night.

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Superstitious Minds

Skinner also tried rewarding the animals at random, dropping food into the box at unpredictable times that didn’t correspond to any particular desired behavior. Rather than doing nothing and just waiting for the food to arrive, the animals who were rewarded randomly developed bizarre “superstitious” behaviors.

If the animal was lifting a leg or turning his head in the moment preceding the reward, this behavior would be reinforced, making it more likely to be repeated. If, by chance, this behavior was repeated as the reward was delivered again (randomly), this would further serve to reinforce the behavior. As a result, Skinner found pigeons turning in circles or hopping on one leg, simply as a result of this random reinforcement. From this we may view all sorts of superstitious human behaviors, from rain dances to lucky charms to salt thrown over the shoulder, as the result of chance occurrences of reinforcement.

Looking for more information on learning theory and behaviorism? This post is an excerpt from the learning chapter of Master Introductory Psychology. You can find this chapter in the ebook version of Volume 2 or in the complete print edition.