Step by Step: Exercising the Positive Way

As we plunge into the holiday season in much of the world, weight management might be on your mind.  I covered a number of consequence-based methods that can help in the book, and new research comes out every day.

Exercise is an important part of weight management, and quite apart from that, it's an important healthy habit for everyone.  Here’s a link to the US Center for Disease Control’s webpage with exercise recommendations. The idea is to get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise each week, and tackle strength training twice a week.  If you’re at these levels, you’re ahead of the game!  How do we get--and keep--ourselves on track (literally)?

Simply recording how much you exercise can provide enough reinforcement for effective motivation.  I know that one of my friends who bought an electronic pedometer started walking more.  After all, what fun to watch the number of steps add up.  If you monitor your progress on a graph with a rewarding upward slope of steps per week, all the better.  Some of the devices on the market do this automatically.

A recent study by University of Florida researchers in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis used an admirably simple approach to investigate what might help inactive older people.  The participants didn't even have to come in to the university much, because the Internet let them submit their results far more easily and frequently.  At first, they followed their usual routines while wearing pedometers, providing a "baseline" level of activity.  Using these initial data, the researchers then set goals for each participant individually.  Everyone submitted their results each night--and got to see graphs of their progress.  In one group, that was essentially it.  In another group, small payments were available in addition for meeting the goals.  Would money make a difference?

Well, yes, the group getting the financial incentives did do better, meeting nearly all of their goals.  But that wasn't the take-home point.  Instead, and even more encouraging:  Both groups exercised substantially more than they had been.

Of course, take advantage of social support, commitments, intrinsically rewarding forms of exercise, etc.  And enjoy the holidays!

Bird Migration, Ultralights, Magnetic Fields, and Consequences

Bird migration is on my mind, and not just because of the geese I’ve been hearing overhead.  I’ve been fine-tuning a book-related talk for the Central Valley Birding Symposium here in California later this month:  "No Birdbrains Here: The Latest on Bird Learning, Instinct, and Intelligence."  Should be fun.

This birding festival is scheduled at a time when many thousands of birds descend upon the Central Valley for the winter, particularly ducks and geese.  An additional winter highlight is the spectacular, nearly five-foot-tall "greater" subspecies of the sandhill crane (along with the smaller "lesser" subspecies).  The crane in the photo is an adult, as you can tell by its red crown.

While learning appears to play at least a small role in the migration of many bird species, it clearly plays a major role for cranes and most waterfowl.  The cranes, for example, migrate in their family groups.  Without adults to guide them south, young birds born that year are clueless.

Attempts to re-establish the endangered whooping crane in some of its former eastern US range have relied on ultralight aircraft leading the way (see this link).  Encouragingly, the first group of young birds managed to return to their breeding grounds on their own in the spring.  Researchers have found, however, that the cranes continue learning, fine-tuning their migration routes over many years (and this long and detailed blog post by GrrlScientist provides a nice summary).

As always, the interactions between "instincts" and learning from consequences are fascinating--and there’s still much we don’t know when it comes to migration.  What exactly is the role of the earth's magnetic field, for example?  Some migrant birds are clearly influenced by it, but decades of research have shown that the story is complex and still mysterious.  One of my colleagues, Michael Davison (University of Auckland, New Zealand), coauthored a study on this topic in the prestigious journal Nature.  Using a choice setup--with rewarding consequences, of course--the researchers demonstrated that homing pigeons could detect changes in the intensity and inclination of a magnetic field.  Pretty impressive.

For really impressive, though, visit your local park or wildlife refuge and marvel at the feats of long-distance migrants, frequently returning over thousands of  miles to the same breeding and wintering areas year after year.  If you can't get away, I recommend Scott Weidensaul's Living on the Wind, a great read about bird migration in the Americas. 

Video Games, Schedules of Reinforcement, and a Lot of Money

An NPR radio report this morning covered the way companies use data from online video games to keep kids playing and to sell in-game products.  (Here's a link.) The report says that the for-profit study of these games has "become a science."  Indeed, even several decades ago, science was being applied to the early games.  But few could have anticipated just how big the video game industry would become. 

Why play at all?  Because of the reinforcing consequences--consequences on schedules of reinforcement.

Anywhere there are consequences (which is everywhere), they're on schedules.  So applications of schedules are everywhere, video games included. A classic article on the reinforcement schedules in video games appeared in the trade magazine Gamasutra in 2001 (article link). And author John Hopson got the schedules absolutely right:  ratio (work-based), interval (time-based), etc., and the typical behavior patterns they produce.  Obviously, game designers generally want a high, steady, and persistent rate of play.  If you've read my book, you know why they go for variable ratio schedules for those basic experience points or extra skills.  But designers also utilize time-based schedules:  With the slower rates of play that they foster, these schedules encourage more exploration--more chances to check out the new possibilities that the game designers introduce for variety.  After a while, also, anyone can get tired of a frenetic pace and want a bit of a break.  The international connections provided by the real Internet friends who are helping or fighting you adds another dimension, with social reinforcers adding to the attraction.  You can see where the science comes in, as game designers try to build in optimal schedules of reinforcement as they balance all the other factors they need to consider. 

Negative consequences play a role too:  You want to avoid getting killed in the game, or losing tools, or friends.  The possibilities are infinite, and avoidance is a powerful motivator.  The NPR report notes what scientists find, that being given an immediate threat enhances the power of the opportunity to pay real money for survival aids.

On a larger scale, reaching the next level in the hierarchy of accomplishment is a big positive reinforcer (shaping!).  While World of Warcraft offers different scenarios, most with dozens of levels, Candy Crush Saga has hundreds of levels.  Caught up in the game for weeks or months, kids and adults alike can lose track of how much they've spent.  Because the games are online and require permission to join, every click can get recorded into the database.

How big are these effects?  The top games raise millions of dollars every day.  That's the power of consequences . . .

Learning to See

A recent post on Current Developments in Behavioral Science summarized the latest research showing that babies have to learn to perceive and avoid the apparent dropoffs called "visual cliffs."  Even though they can see, their lack of experience with depth perception and the dangers of heights puts them at risk.

While that's taken for granted these days, I was reminded of two related findings even more dramatic.  The first can be illustrated by an example from anthropologist Colin Turnbull's classic, The Forest People, in which he describes his time living with the Pygmies of what's now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  On his first trip away from his dense jungle home into large open spaces, Turnbull’s friend Kenge thought distant objects like animals really were as small and bug-like as they appeared.  His background had not provided suitable experience in perspective, showing how important learning from consequences is to this essential skill.  Presumably, as children we have to learn this too.  Anyone remember their experience?

Then there's the line of research on blind people whose sight has been enabled.  Way back in the 17th century, John Locke speculated that such people who were blind from birth would be unable to visually discriminate shapes without some experience.  He appears to have been right (and that's also the case for many blind people who'd previously had sight, but not for many years).

In one recent case study, a young woman born blind had her sight partially restored in one eye at the age of 12.  According to her parents, only after months of learning was she able to acquire skills such as the ability to recognize people visually (Ostrovsky, Andalman, and Sinha, Psychological Science, 2006).  These researchers summarized current views about these skills as "learned over time through experience" (p. 1013).  For a less positive example tracking the ups and downs of the process in detail, neurologist and author Oliver Sacks described the case of "Virgil" in An Anthropologist on Mars.  As Sacks pointed out, unfortunately, a number of the re-sighted never attain anything close to normal vision, and some understandably become depressed. 

Talk about depressing, some experts used to think that most re-sighted blind people would never be able to use their vision properly because of irreversible changes in their brains.  Let's hang on to some hope, though:  Clearly some can.  And, while the extensive brain plasticity that we now celebrate is far from unlimited, perhaps new help for rehabilitation may come from the introduction of methods from the science of consequences--much as has been the case for stroke victims (described in Chapter 4 of my book).

Who's Got Rhythm?

Animals do!  People used to think that our own species might be unique in following a musical beat.  Wrong.

In my book, I cited a 20th century anecdote from author and animal lover Gerald Durrell:  "A hand-raised pigeon loved music and would snuggle close to the speaker of an old-fashioned record player. What’s more, the bird performed distinctive dances to marches and waltzes."  That would seem to indicate some sense of rhythm, along with possible intrinsic reinforcement value for moving in time to a beat.  I'm sure there must be many such anecdotes.  (Do share them if you know of any!)  In the end note accompanying Durrell's story, I mentioned a sulphur-crested cockatoo that appeared to be following the rhythm of rock music, made famous on a youtube video that went viral.  Researchers in the journal Current Biology concluded that indeed the bird was.

The next step:  Check it out with a mammalian species--and one that's not especially good at vocal flexibility in response to consequences.  In a recent issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology, Peter Cook and colleagues showed that Ronan the female sea lion could learn to bob her head to different rhythms just fine, even from complex music.  Thirty weekend training sessions was all it took.  Standard positive reinforcement methods were used, and if you want to enjoy watching Ronan in action, check out "Beat keeping in a CA Sea Lion" on youtube.
 From lab studies, we've known for many years that animals can learn to time events quite accurately.  How cool that scientists are now building on this research to look at something that appears to come naturally to many people.  I would say everyone, but I've danced with some who could have used a few lessons!

Most people, like Durrell's pigeon, find that moving in rhythm with the beat of music is rewarding.  Where does that come from?  Would Ronan eventually enjoy "dancing" and do it spontaneously, like Durrell's bird?  Stay tuned for further research.

Trying to remember

Yesterday I struggled to remember something I'd intended to mention during a phone conversation.  If I don't write it down ahead of time, it's a hit-or-miss proposition.

Same thing for those great thoughts I might have while I'm driving, or when I awaken at 3 AM.  When I arrive at my destination, or get up at 7, those thoughts have flown the coop.  The science is clear:  Using mnemonic techniques can help us cage those flighty birds.  Even in the 21st century, mnemonics have a place.

In Introductory Psychology, students learn about a method used by the ancient Greeks:  associating things to remember with locations or objects in a consistent sequence.  You might imagine walking around your living room, noting landmarks like a lamp, an end table, a sofa, etc. To remember that you want to attend your niece's trombone recital, you picture a horn sticking out of your lamp.  (The weirder the image, the better.)  For a whole list of things to remember, just add associations to the standard landmarks, in order.

With smartphones and all the rest of our high-tech doo-dads, do we really need mnemonic devices?  Not as much as the ancient Greeks, surely.  But they still come in handy surprisingly often, and the skill is a useful one to develop.

I could summarize some of the extensive data showing that these methods really work.  But instead, I want to focus on why we use them.  And that's--consequences!  I can personally testify how annoyed I get when I think I'll remember something and I don't.  Ouch.  Conversely, when I take the extra time to use a mnemonic technique, how rewarding when it works--and how much more likely I am to use it again.  Even a simple method, like saying out loud what I want to remember, does take extra time and effort.  It's a choice:  a more effortful behavior with the likely consequence of a longer-lasting memory, versus just hoping for the best and (all too often) forgetting.  Those darned delays are an inherent part of these particular choices, exerting their usual drag.  But over time, we can learn to remember--given enough consequences.

Discriminating Pigeons

We know pigeons can categorize classical music, apparently in similar ways that we do.  We also know they can distinguish a Monet painting from a Picasso.  These and many other pigeon feats are in my book.  But who would possibly have thought that pigeons could learn to categorize children's "good" and "bad" art? 

One of the neat things about being on a book tour is learning from members of my audiences--stories from their lives or their reading.  In Minnesota, one audience member told me about this recent study in Animal Cognition by the same researcher (Shigeru Watanabe) who did the Monet-Picasso study.  The "good" and "bad" art was judged by people, of course, 10 adults and an art teacher--but the pigeons readily learned similar standards.  Then they generalized to novel examples of children's art.

What is it that makes for "bad" art?  It was messier and harder to identify objects, for one.  But defining the basis used for categorizing wasn't easy even for the art teacher.

Using clever tests, Watanabe showed that the birds were using color and pattern as a basis for their choices.  We do too, of course.  Does that mean that the birds would enjoy viewing the "good" art?  It's not an outlandish question.  We know that a species of sparrow prefers melodic music over dissonant sounds, after all (also courtesy of Dr. Watanabe).  And pigeons have great vision, unlike our closer companions, dogs.

Kind of makes us look at these common street birds a bit differently!

Helping Kids Undergo Medical Procedures

Adults have enough trouble with painful medical procedures.  Think about what kids face . . .  How can we help them cope? 

An article in the March issue of the Monitor on Psychology, a magazine from the American Psychological Association, summarizes several approaches, including one based directly on the science of consequences.  (See link here; the article is called "Vulnerable Patients.") 

Psychologist Keith Slifer (Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University) helps children with sleep apnea, who may have to wear an uncomfortable breathing mask at night.  By gradually introducing the mask--watching others use it, for example--and rewarding the children for making progress, the youngsters have less trouble adjusting to wearing it. 

What reinforcers are used in this sort of work?  Praise is pretty universal, but beyond that, not surprisingly, they vary.  While stickers work for many kids, they don't work for all.  One youngster hated getting wired up for an electroencephalogram (EEG).  Slifer's team ended up using the chance to toss a ball as a very effective reward.

One successful innovation also used elsewhere is "break cards."  Children undergoing a procedure can give these to the nurse when they need a break--getting immediate reinforcement by escaping the discomfort, plus the benefits of control.  (Not a bad idea for adults either.)  Do the kids ask for too many breaks?  No, says Slifer, they're generally reasonable--a real win-win situation.

The rewards for the psychologists?  Seeing their patients cope better, with less pain and frustration.  Successfully thinking up more ways to ease the process.  And, not least, the fun of coming up with creative rewards for their patients. 

Dance of the Balloons

Balloons created and clutched by little dance flies, that is . . . as described in my book.  Over time, different species in this family of insects developed variations on the basic dance that forms their courtship ritual--"as close to behavior fossils as we're going to get."

Dance flies with "balloon."  © Ken R. Schneider

I've never seen this spectacle, but now my brother has!  He was even able to get this photo.  You can't really see it, but attached to the balloon is an even tinier edible insect for the female to nosh on during mating.

Preschooler Self-control

Choices.  Go for the impulsive smaller-sooner or the larger-later reward?  These decisions challenge us throughout our lives.  Develop self-control, and choose the wiser larger-later more consistently.  Just as we can see in our everyday experience, researchers find a host of benefits.

But we all know it's not easy.  Starting young helps, but how do we get kids to resist their natural impulse to grab?

In a new article in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, researchers at the University of Kansas checked out a few of the possibilities--for preschoolers.  One of the established methods includes a type of shaping process (called "delay fading"), in which individuals face the same delay to the two choices at first, and naturally choose the larger reward.  The delay to that outcome is then gradually increased.  Voilà!  Maybe self-control isn't so hard after all.  Another successful method involves teaching kids to repeat a rule about the benefits of waiting.  A third is providing other activities to help bridge the delay.

In their study, the researchers tested different forms of self-control aids that don't rely on gradually increased delays: (a) provide a timer, (b) include a brief rule, one that's not repeated, and (c) make toys available during the delay.  The delay to the larger reward was only 5 minutes.  Even so, in this case, only (c) reliably enhanced self-control for the children.

Psychologist Walter Mischel famously found that preschoolers who had more self-control in the "marshmallow test" (one marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes for two) also did better on their college exams many years later.  Self-control matters.  So start 'em young!