Word: lindsley
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...Lindsley, who is a student in the Department of Experimental Psychology, carried on his experiments at the Atomic Energy Commission laboratories, directed by Dr. W. W. Jetter of the Boston University Medical School. His basic tool in these experiments was a device known as the "Skinner Box." This is a small, cubby-hole sort of enclosure, in which the dog is placed. Inside the box are a feeding trough, a metal lever, and several electrical appliances, such as lights, buzzers, and horns that can be regulated from the outside. When the box is closed, it provides a perfectly controlled environment...
...Lindsley's method in these experiments was an adaptation of the technique developed by B. F. Skinner, professor of Psychology, and inventor of the "Box" which bears his name. Through the study of pigeons and rats, Skinner and other experimental psychologists, have discovered means for controlling an animal's behavior, and certain laws to which that behavior conforms. It was found that an animal, who has to perform a certain task for his food will work at a highly constant pace, when he is rewarded with food at an arbitrary, erratic rate...
...Lindsley placed his dogs in the Skinner Box, and taught them to press the lever in order to get food. He rewarded them intermittently, however. A dog would sometimes obtain food for one or two lever presses; other times, it would take a few hundred to do the trick...
...such a procedure, Lindsley got his dogs to work at a constant rate, each pressing the lever an average of over 3,000 times an hour. The next step was to break up the hour a day during which each dog worked into parts where the dog would sometimes not get paid off, no matter how much pressing he did on the lever. For the first 15 minutes, everything continued as before--the dog worked at a constant rate, and was rewarded at erratic intervals. Then came 10 minutes where the animal would not get paid off at all. During...
...such a procedure, Lindsley had produced highly stabilized and regular behavior in the dogs, and had conditioned the animals' behavior to certain factors--when the light was on, the dogs would remain idle, when the buzzer sounded, the animals refused to work. With such stability and consistent performance, any changes in the dogs' behavior due to radiation could be observed...