Talk:Skinner box
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[edit] Criticism section
The criticism section seems very out of place. Criticism of an experimental tool? Somewhat strange. On top of that, the comments are not borne out by the evidence. It states:
- The Skinner box is not as objective as might be thought. Lever presses with the rat's right paw, left paw, and even with its nose or tail are recorded as a single lever press, regardless of the fact that the rodent's behaviour is constantly changing.
In behavioral research, the form of the behavior is not as important as its function. It doesn't matter which appendage is being used to push the lever at any given time. The difference is inconsequential (unless the experimenter wished to introduce different consequences based upon which paw is used, in which case you'd begin to see a difference in paw-use emerge). Whether the lever is pushed with one paw, the other, the nose, or its tail, the behavior is being controlled by the same set of consequences. Although the forms of the responses may appear to be different, since they result in identical consequences they are, as Behaviorists would call them, "functionally equivalent."
- Furthermore, the rat may sometimes press the lever too gently to activate the mechanism, thus not counting it as a lever press.
This criticism does not amount to much either. If the rat presses too gently for the lever to activate the delivery of a reinforcer, then weak lever-pressing will be extinguished. Any response maintained by consequences can be modeled with a bell curve. An organism's response is subject to slight variation from one case to another. The most successful variations occur with the greatest frequency (at the top of the bell curve) while the least successful variations occur with minimal frequency (down at the margins of the bell curve). I'll leave these comments here. If nothing comes up after a couple of weeks, I'll remove the section in question. Lunar Spectrum | Talk 01:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
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- Agreed. Both criticisms reek of POV, neither are issues of "objectivity" as claimed in the article, and neither cite sources credible or otherwise. I've removed the section, and I don't think it should be re-added lest someone find research-backed criticisms from published behavioural psychologists.--Gonnas 21:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Discussion
Doesn't make sense to merge it with Skinner. How can an invention be merged with the inventor? It would be equivalent to merging AK-47 with Mikhail Kalashnikov! Shushruth 18:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, it doesn't make any sense to merge an invention with its creator. The Skinner Box is a worthy enough invention to hold its own.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.166.54.246 (talk • contribs) .
I also agree that the article for this device should not be merged with the BF Skinner article. I have already referenced this page within the article for the experimental analysis of behavior as a tool of behavioral research, and this article itself could benefit from the addition of pictures and further elaboration of its uses. While it's understandable that the operant conditioning chamber has become intertwined with Skinner (hence the eponym) its use is much wider than that of one man. It could even be said that BF Skinner isn't even the original inventor of the "Skinner Box" since Thorndike's puzzle boxes also constitute rudimentary operant conditioning chambers (although shabbily constructed since Thorndike seriously lacked Skinner's carpentry skills). Lunar Spectrum 03:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
