Spontaneous Recovery: Sniffy Virtual Pro

Spontaneous Recovery Spontaneous recovery is a phenomenon that can be defined as the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period or displaying a behaviour that was thought to be extinct (Jackson, 2015). Generally, it involves a partial restoration of responding in a test session administered after a delay (Rescorla, 2004). Extinction may be in part due the formation of new memory (i.e. extinction memory), that an organism retrieves and triggers. Spontaneous recovery thus occurs because that organism fails to retrieve an extinction memory (Brooks & Bouton 1993; Quirk, 2002). Sniffy Virtual Pro is a computer simulation that allows learners to explore the realistic responses and behaviors of a typical rat on a typical day in
The first phase of the experiment requires the experimenter to observe the rat’s behaviour for 3 minutes taking notes and familiarising with everything it does minute by minute. These behaviours form the baseline behaviours of the rat. Next, the baseline frequency of bar pressing per minute is established. The experimenter records the number of touches and bar presses by the rat and divides the cumulative bar presses with the number of minutes. Phase 2 sees the experimenter training the animal to go to a particular place for his reinforcements. At the end of the skinner box lies the hopper and magazine. The experimenter rewards the rat when he comes close to the magazine with a food pellet, delivering one reinforcer at a time, while waiting until the rat consumes it moves away before delivering another. This process is conducted until magazine approach behaviour is well established. This is confirmed when Sniffy is located at the corner and the food pellet is released and Sniffy comes over and eats it. Number of reinforcements given are to be tallied at end of this phase 2 and recorded. Phase 3 relies on successive approximation to shape Sniffy’s bar pressing behaviour. The experimenter starts by reinforcing behaviour remotely resembling bar pressing, gradually progressing to behaviours that are approximately closer to a true bar press. The phase ends when Sniffy exhibits a full minute of all true bar presses, or virtually all true bar presses as indicate by the operant associations chart. The experimenter then tabulates and records the number of bar presses per min. Phase 4 requires the experimenter to discontinue manually reinforcing Sniffy while observing the increase in rate of the bar pressing response. The program function should be changed so that reinforcement is delivered each time the bar is pressed, simulating continuous reinforcement (CRF). The experimenter records the number of bar