 I don't even really know what this video is supposed to be about now. We're in a classical conditioning mode and Lev Vagatsky popped into my head because we're talking about classical conditioning, which got me thinking about theories of learning, which got me thinking about Lev Vagatsky's zone of proximal development, and you get the idea and it's all connected. How about this? What if we just cover something called higher-order conditioning? Yeah. So, yes, I know, we've already got a Penny Packers patents on it, but it doesn't really go into much detail. I talk really, really fast in the video because those are supposed to be done in one minute. And I'm not sure if you can get this idea across in one minute very clearly, although a lot of you seem to think that you've, I did. So anyway, whatever. The point is higher-order conditioning. Let's take a look at it with some examples this time. So here we go. So, no, not yet. I have to explain something. So, in the middle. So higher-order conditioning is really straightforward. It's classical conditioning, right, except we're going to use multiple layers of classical conditioning. I did three, but really, we're just going to do two. Why are you gropin' on there? You didn't say level. He's really trying to trap me behaviorally. It's this weird self-management thing he's trying to do. He really wants me to say that particular word, and I'm not going to say it, because it's going to prompt him to burst into song. So anyway, we're going to start with classical conditioning in a nutshell. It's really straightforward, right? So we have a neutral stimulus. We're going to put a stimulus up here on the screen that is a neutral stimulus, if you've been following along. So there's your neutral stimulus. We're going to turn that neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus by pairing it with an unconditioned stimulus, whatever that may be up there as well. So we've got two stimuli up on the board. The neutral stimulus is going to be presented, and then we're going to follow that with the unconditioned stimulus, and you're going to develop a CS, right? The CS is going to elicit a CR, right? Everything's normal. This is just classical conditioning. This is good Pavlovian stuff, responding conditioning, whatever you want to say. So really straightforward, but that's just the primary conditioning. Now, we're going to level up a notch, and we are going to add what shall we say another, like I said, another layer, another level of conditioning. So we're going to take that CS that you just developed. We will now call that CS1. So we will take a new neutral stimulus, that one, and then we're going to pair that neutral stimulus with CS1, with the conditioned stimulus that was up there before, right? So now the neutral stimulus is going to predict CS1, CS1 is functionally at this point hanging out on extinction. Why? Because it's not being paired with the U.S. We could pair that CS1 back with the U.S. to keep the strength up, and ultimately you would have to over time, and this is where higher-order conditioning starts to fall apart. We're not there yet. So then we have, so the neutral stimulus, the second neutral stimulus, now becomes our CS2 when we pair that second neutral stimulus with the CS1. So CS2, then takes on the properties, I hate saying that, but whatever, takes on the properties of CS1. CS1 has developed power because of its pairing with the unconditioned stimulus. CS2 has never been paired with the unconditioned stimulus, not once, but it seems to have an evocative effect. It seems to have an eliciting effect on your responding. So you're going to have a CR. There is no guarantee, folks, that the CR looks exactly like the UR. There's a misconception out there that they're literally the exact same thing. They do not have to be. So keep that in mind whenever you're thinking about conditioning. The conditioned response does not necessarily have to look exactly like the unconditioned response. It just has to be elicited by a particular stimulus. So we've got our primary conditioning. We have our secondary conditioning, which is CS2, so CS2 gets paired with CS1 and develops its own CR, so CR2 now. So we could do a third one that's very rare. Some people report it as being effective. It's kind of a mixed bag on the literature. People have been studying this for a long time. It seems to fall apart. Sometimes people can show it. Sometimes they can't. So it's not a very robust effect, but we'll talk about it anyway. So it's tertiary, right? So the tertiary level would be taking a third neutral stimulus and pairing it with the second CS. So now we take that third neutral stimulus. We're going to pair it with the CS2 and we're going to produce the CR3. So now we're going to get a third CS and it will produce a third CR. Again, not very powerful. It doesn't seem to always work, so I wouldn't really want to go there. So this is something to keep in mind then when you're out there doing your program, right? So because you've got your basic reinforcers, your primary reinforcers, and then you're wanting to pair something with us, like praise or something like that, all sorts of things are secondary reinforcers, or conditioned reinforcers, sorry. So all sorts of things are conditioned reinforcers, which are really just special types of conditioned stimuli. So those particular conditioned stimuli can then have an effect on behavior when delivered contingently. We call that reinforcers or punishers or whatever. You get the idea, right? But you have to maintain the power of that conditioned reinforcer. It doesn't just automatically stay there forever. It tends to get weakened over time. Why? Because every time you present that CS by itself without ever a reinforcer following it, without ever an unconditioned stimulus following it, you're on extinction, respond to extinction, right? So CS presented by itself without the US produces extinction. So every time you have a conditioned stimulus that is a reinforcer, then guess what? Can you present it without the US? You're functionally on extinction. So don't forget that, right? So then when you try to go up to another level, now you're going to run into all sorts of weird problems, okay? So even on secondary higher-order conditioning, when you're talking about conditioned stimuli and their effect as associated with a reinforcer, then we're really going to start to get some very interesting effects. They're not going to be as robust as what you would hope for. So you really, really, really have to make sure that your conditioning is really crystal clear. This is something that can happen in token economies if you don't do your token economy, right? So just make sure that when you're using your token economy that you don't have too many layers, right? You want those tokens to be able to be exchanged for something and you want to exchange them frequently. Why? Because they lose their value. If they don't, those tokens are functionally, functionally. That's a flip and new word. Functionally. Functionally. CS2s. Think about it. You've already had the CS1, the CS1 is the reinforcer that you're not trading those things in for food, sex, water, or warmth. You're trading them in for toys or money or videos or whatever. So those things that you're trading them in for, those tokens in for, they're already conditioned stimuli. They're already conditioned reinforcers. As a result, when you then take your token and anyway it gets paired and the value of it becomes, you know, it starts to take on the value of the other condition stimuli, you already had higher order conditioning. I wouldn't be adding too many more layers in there. And so the take-home message for the applied piece is that all of this stuff that you may not think about, may not focus on really does play a role. When you're thinking about the effectiveness of reinforcers, when you're thinking about the effectiveness of a token economy, you need to be thinking about higher order conditioning and primary conditioning and secondary conditioning, all that fun stuff. If you don't think about that, then the programs are not necessarily going to be as effective as what they could be. Some of you have been shaped to where it's just automatic and you get it, right? And that's fine. I have no problem with that. Contingency-shaped behavior and the behavior analyst. I love it. Hey! I'm just giving you another rule to follow that. Don't forget to remember your history here. Don't forget to remember your old-school research, the stuff that people often tend not to remember. There's value in it and I just want you to keep that in mind as you move forward that a lot of things affect the effectiveness of your practice in here as some of them. So anyway, that was higher order conditioning and a bit bigger of a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did wearing flannel.