Question

Please create a contingency diagram for the following situation:

There is a pigeon in an operant chamber. He finds a shiny metal thing and pecks it. When the pigeon pecks it, a food pellet comes out of the wall of the chamber which the pigeon eats. The pigeon continues pecking the shiny metal thing more and more.

Answer 1

The contingency of reinforcement compromises of:

1. An antecedent event or the event that occurs before a behavior,
2. A response or a certain behavior that occurs due the antecedent event, and
3. A consequence that occurs right after the response/behavior.

In this case, there is positive reinforcement and is a generic reinforcement contingency, wherein there is a response contingent, i.e., pecking the shiny metal, leads to a reinforcement, i.e., food pellets, which results in increase of the frequency of the response/behavior that resulted in food pellets or the positive reward. This helps to increase the behavior.

A contingency diagram is presented below:

Antecedent Event --------------------> Behavior -------------------> Consequence (Reinforcer)

Before reinforcement:

(Pigeon In Operant Chamber)-----> (Pecking the Shiny Metal) --------> (Receiving the food pellet)

After reinforcement:

(Receiving the food pellet)--------->( eating the food pellet) ----------> ( continuous pecking of the food pellet to obtain food)

A positive reinforcement contingency has been established when the behavior (pecking the shiny metal) before reinforcement was produced becomes a reinforces itself. That is to say that the behavior of pecking the shiny metal becomes the consequence or the reinforcer after the pigeon realizes that the pecking has resulted in obtaining of the food pellet.