Neap Trial Exam 2007, Odd multi-choice question?

[meadr05]

Hey all.
The answer to this question struck me as odd.

(Scott is a Year 9 student who does ten subjects and recieves a school report on his progress every six weeks.)

Question 35
Scott's parents give him a fifty-dollar bonus each time his progress report shows he has been awarded at least five 'A' grades.
Which schedule of reinforcement are his parents using?
A. continuous reinforcement
B. variable interval
C. variable ratio
D. fixed interval

Neap lists the answer as C, yet surely this should be A, considering he is reinforced with $50 every time he produces the desired behaviour?

Help me out, thanks everyone

[studying_hard]

it definitly not C. From those options it has to be A

[Spreadbury]

I was doing this exam just before, and I was torn between A and C. I eventually went with C, the "every time" persuaded me, and it shouldn't matter about needing 5 A's on his test, I doubt it would make it variable ratio.

yeah, A is right... I think

[matt123]

Hey all.
The answer to this question struck me as odd.

(Scott is a Year 9 student who does ten subjects and recieves a school report on his progress every six weeks.)

Question 35
Scott's parents give him a fifty-dollar bonus each time his progress report shows he has been awarded at least five 'A' grades.
Which schedule of reinforcement are his parents using?
A. continuous reinforcement
B. variable interval
C. variable ratio
D. fixed interval

Neap lists the answer as C, yet surely this should be A, considering he is reinforced with $50 every time he produces the desired behaviour?

Help me out, thanks everyone

Hmm
Nah i can see why the answer is C.
Dont be fooled by this question.

it says " at least 5 "
They are TRYING to say .. on average 5.
C is not correct .. well it is partly.

But because it infers " atleast " . they are trying to tell you that its an average.

questions like these are stupid
and they often asks questions like these which dont test your knowledge , but only test the "comprehension of a stupid question".

The "atleast 5 " means that its happening atleast 5/10 .. since he has 10 subjects.

this means that they are proposing that .. instead of being rewarded for getting A in ALL SUBJECTS .. he only has to get an average of 5 ..

Thus in part .. C is correct ..
if this was VCAA . they would take both answers.

[Spreadbury]

"at least 5" is the requirement for reinforcement, it's quite unrelated to the schedule used. Scott needs 5 or more A's for reinforcement, but that's not really what's in question here, he gets reinforced every time he meets his requirement for reinforcement. you're only reinforced for performing the behaviour that will initiate that consequence in operant conditioning, and whatever your requirement is, whether it was "get 10 A's" or "get at least 5", the variability of what you have to do doesn't matter. he's reinforced every time he meets his prerequisite... that's what swayed me doing this question anyway

[masonnnn]

Our teacher used this on a sac and i can say i got it wrong.
It is c as it doesn't matter how many he gets aslong as it is 5, so it can be 5 or 6 or 8,
it can even be 10, so he achieves it twice, yet still gets the one reward.
they trick you by saying the amount of weeks between reports, vcaa make a point not to be that tricky, that's just cruel.

[Spreadbury]

It is c as it doesn't matter how many he gets aslong as it is 5, so it can be 5 or 6 or 8,

that's not all you can take into account for the schedule though. there's the prerequisite for reinforcement (which is the 5+ A's) but he's reinforced every time he gets that. seems continuous to me. in thorndike's experiment the cat was only reinforced every time it pressed the lever and that was continuous reinforcement. Scott is reinforced every time he gets 5 or more A's.

[jinny1]

wait arent all variable ratios continuous reinforcement then??

[sillysmile]

wait arent all variable ratios continuous reinforcement then??

if there is variation in the reinforcement schedule, then no it is not continuous.

[Spreadbury]

getting the 5 A's isn't a ratio for reinforcement, it's a requirement to receive it.

say in the skinner box a rat had to press the lever one in 10 times to receive a food pellet. reinforcement is given on average 1/10 times, but can, for example, be given on the 5th press of the lever, the 17th, 39th so long as the average is maintained

[masonnnn]

getting the 5 A's isn't a ratio for reinforcement, it's a requirement to receive it.

that's true (and i originally said continuous, then fixed interval before having this answer explained to me), yet once that requirement is achieved the correct behavior (gettings A's) is then repeated a varying amount of times of any variable number with the same reward.
In variable ratio whatever the requirement is, it still has to be achieved but the amount of times it occurs after it is first achieved, varies.

there's so many different definitions and different approaches to all these schedules of reinforcement, as you can probably tell by the other threads leaving people confused about them.

[sillysmile]

getting the 5 A's isn't a ratio for reinforcement, it's a requirement to receive it.

that's true (and i originally said continuous, then fixed interval before having this answer explained to me), yet once that requirement is achieved the correct behavior (gettings A's) is then repeated a varying amount of times of any variable number with the same reward.
In variable ratio whatever the requirement is, it still has to be achieved but the amount of times it is achieved varies.

there's so many different definitions and different approaches to all these schedules of reinforcement, as you can probably tell by the other threads leaving people confused about them.

you know, I have heard that schedules of reinforcement aren't on the study design anymore.
but that could be wrong.

[masonnnn]

you know, I have heard that schedules of reinforcement aren't on the study design anymore.
but that could be wrong.
[/quote]

i might leave vcenotes for the night and hit some sleep. but i am checking that out tomorrow morning... that would make me so happy. the confusion of it is pretty frustrating and it's one of the main things i tend to slip up on in MC.

[Spreadbury]

he is reinforced every time he meets the requirement. sounds continuous to me.

[sillysmile]

he is reinforced every time he meets the requirement. sounds continuous to me.

yeah.