After reading Skinner's articles, I engaged in an interesting conversation with my oldest daughter about operant conditioning and the ways in which people and animals respond to stimulus. She asked, "Mom, where in the body does this need to respond develop?" I immediately explained that this type of response is learned, so this need to respond occurs in our brains. Feeling my response satisfied her question, I had grossly underestimated the direction she managed to take our conversation.
"Mom," she replied, "I watched a fascinating show where scientists trained jellyfish to respond to light. It seemed liked they had learned to do things based on light."
"How interesting," I quickly responded, "I didn't know scientists were interested in teaching jellyfish how to do anything."
"Well," she said, "where in the body does this need to respond to light occur in a jellyfish?"
Not hesitating for one moment, I replied, "in their brain."
"Mom, jellyfish do not have brains, so how do they learn?"
I found myself completely baffled. A quick Internet search led to an interesting article on the biology of invertebrate learning. These creatures learn through stimuli and response, reactions occurring within their nervous system. Skinner's statement,"Just as we say that species-specific behavior did not evolve in order that a species could adapt to the environment but rather evolved when it adapted," can provide some explanation. Perhaps how invertebrate respond to light and sound through the nervous system is a result of evolving and adapting to the environment. I wonder how that transfers to humans and other animals that have brains and can make decisions.
Students in the classroom are conditioned as well. I spent numerous hours training students to raise a hand to speak. When a student raised a hand to speak, I gave a sticker as a reward. Initially, the student received the award everytime the hand was raised, then after some time I phased the reward out. While thinking of my intentional training of student behavior, I wondered about a different question. In what ways do external stimuli cause humans to respond without our knowledge? When my phone "dings," without effort I pick it up to read the text sent. When my name is called, I turn my head. Have I been conditioned?
So the example of behavior changing as a result of our adaptation to our environment means that at the point of our adapting, we are unaware that it occurred. Or, is it that we are aware of adapting but unaware of the behavior change? I think skinner mentioned in one of the articles that we realize that our behavior has changed but we are unable to explain why we did what we did. Also do you think that the jellyfish responded to the light in terms of their senses (sight and feeling) and it was unrelated to brain action?
ReplyDeleteI believe the jellyfish do use their senses to move toward sound or light. Since jellyfish do not have a brain, they must rely on their nervous system. My daughter also said the scientists trained the jellyfish to go through a maze, relying on how the jellyfish would respond to specific stimuli.
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