Peter is trying to train Brian the dog (poorly) in not chewing his slippers. Whi

Question

Peter is trying to train Brian the dog (poorly) in not chewing his slippers. While Brian is chewing on his slippers, he decides to make a high-pitched giggling sound and then shock Brian. The shock stops Brian from chewing. However, Peter giggles all the time and he likes to shock Brian randomly for fun.

1. What does the "probability of receiving a shock given that peter giggles"--> Pr(Shock|Giggle) have to be if the Pr(Shock|no Giggle) is at .3 for the training to work?

2. Peter is so bad at training that when he giggles now, Brian will chew his slippers even harder. Explain what contingency is occurring and what are the Pr(Shock|Giggle) and Pr(Shock|no Giggle) that lead to Brian’s behavior.

Explanation / Answer

1. Pr(Shock | no Giggle) is at .3

Therefore , Pr(Shock | Giggle) = 1 - Pr(Shock|no Giggle)

= 1 - 0.3

= 0.7

Pr(Shock|Giggle) = 0.7

2. Explain what contingency is occurring

Peter used giggle as a shock behaviour, but he kept using this behaviour again and angain, and thus, this did not feel as a shock to Brian anymore as the behaviour did not come only at the time of chewing, but rather it would come back again and again. To Brian, it became more of a repetitive behaviour, than a reinforcement behaviour. Hence, now Brian chews harder on seeing the giggling behaviour.

Now, the probabilities have reversed, as shock coming from giggling is not occurring anymore.

In fact now it would be Pr(Shock | no Giggle) = 0

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