 I think it's time to talk about how we can actually make reinforcement effective. Specifically, the very first thing that we want to worry about is actually setting a really easy early criteria for to earn reinforcers. So when you're first starting to reinforce a particular behavior or a new behavior, what you really, really want to focus on is making that initial response easy to obtain, easy to get. So for example, if I'm trying to learn to walk, I want to not have to walk very far or if I'm trying to learn how to navigate in a field, I don't want to have to navigate very far. I think in general, we just basically need to start off really simply and teach people that this particular, I don't know, contingency is going to be in place. And if we have this particular contingency in place, then we can, we got a place to start. We got something we can work from. So when we teach this initial response, when we reinforce this initial behavior, then we're going to be able to kind of jump start the process. So when you're first starting a treatment plan or program or even reinforcing yourself for self-change behavior, just make sure that first couple of responses that you're working on are super easy to obtain. That's all I'm after. That's all you got. That's really all you should worry about. Really easy. Make it easy. Why? Because easy teaches success. We're going to make it hard down the road. So one of the next things that we'd like to think about is actually making sure that you use high quality reinforcers of sufficient magnitude, right? Sorry about the weird voice. It just comes out and I don't have a choice. That was an awful matching logic. Anyway, so the point being that we need to identify what reinforcers are, right? So we're going to get into that in another video about preference assessments. But when you do find the preferences, when you do figure out what a person prefers as a reinforcer, then we're going to end up delivering those particular items that were most preferred as reinforcers. Then there's a bit of an issue with regard to the next section or subsection here. And that's about of sufficient magnitude. What does it mean to have a reinforcer of sufficient magnitude? I mean, some people could argue, well, as long as you can detect it, it's sufficient magnitude now or maybe not. Who knows, right? So let's back up a little bit and we're going to talk about what that preference assessment is. So that initial preference assessment. What kind of beer do you like, Ryan? Well, I like IPAs. I like some stouts. I don't like the pale ales too much, but you never know, right? So then we take the ones that I like the most, let's say an IPA, which probably isn't true, but it's worth a shot. And then we're going to make sure we deliver it in sufficient magnitude. If you're trying to reinforce me with an IPA, please do not make sure that you do it with just a drop or two. Make sure you do it with maybe a pint, right? Because that's going to be way better because just awesome. And definitely don't give me a K. The point is, is that you need to establish some function here with regard to, sorry, not function, you need to establish some control with regard to your delivery of your reinforcers. There's some other stuff to worry about, specifically habituation. We'll get to that at another time. So making reinforcers effective, one of the first things you, one of the other things that you need to think about, not the first thing, there's lots of first things you need to think about. It seems to be what I keep saying. Varying your reinforcers, there's a lot of reasons for this. There's even some arguments in the field. I'm going to jump into those arguments right now. So to make sure that you're establishing operations, remember those are types of motivating operations that establish the effectiveness of the reinforcers. To make sure those remain effective, you need to vary them, the reinforcer. You don't want someone to satiate, get full on something. Now, a lot of people in the field talk about satiation as the only thing that you're concerned about with regard to varying the reinforcers. And I think that's probably the least valuable. Let me say that again, varying the reinforcers is important, but I don't think it's for satiation reasons. I think it's for habituation reasons. And you need to go look at the McSweeney literature right now. That's Frances K. McSweeney at Washington State University, the work that she did over an entire career people. I don't know why it's not mentioned in all the textbooks. It's unbelievably accurate and an unbelievably clear analysis of habituation to reinforcers. So realize that people can habituate, realize people satiate, but that's probably not what's going on because they're not going to get drastically full on food over a 15 minutes ban or whatever. But they are going to habituate those reinforcers, change them up, change them off and make sure they're from that reinforcer preference assessment. Hopefully that the powerful reinforcers, hopefully they're of sufficient magnitude, but make sure you change them and keep them going. Always do something new. Still more stuff that we got to do to make reinforcement effective. Make sure you use direct contingencies. Make sure that that reinforcer is available upon the completion of the response. You absolutely need to make sure it's delivered. When you have, if you're using an indirect contingency, if you're using an indirect delivery of the reinforcer, you run into the risk of capturing maybe not the behavior you want. Yes, if there's too much delay, maybe you run into the risk of it not really being a reinforcer at all and not reinforcing the behavior. So make sure that you do deliver that reinforcer as soon as possible and make sure it's the real reinforcers. Sometimes I mean we use tokens, those are indirect reinforcers. Initially they can be direct. They become direct contingency reinforcers later on through pairing processes, but specifically those are the indirect reinforcers. So I need you to continue to think about when the behavior happens to deliver the reinforcer. When the behavior happens to deliver the reinforcer, it's just really important to do it that way. However, if you are going to have delay to reinforcement, then people will start to develop placeholders if you will. I remember a time way, way, way a long time ago when I was in basic training, we would sit in line with each other and just basically say the whole time, we're getting paid. We're getting paid. We're getting paid. It was boring. We're sitting there in line doing nothing. We're going, we're getting paid. We're getting paid. Why? Because we were bridging the gap to reinforcement through the use of indirect contingencies, if you will. So there was term, we were using those terms to hold the place of the reinforcer. The reinforcer was completion of the program, completion of basic training and also the paychecks that you'd get accordingly. All right. And we also want to make sure that we reinforce early on in a program or when you're teaching a new response, you want to make sure you basically reinforce every single response initially, right? So we're going to reinforce heavily, frequently. We're going to reinforce with quality reinforcers. We're going to make sure the direct contingencies. We're going to make sure the reinforcers of sufficient magnitude and we're going to capture that behavior as quickly as we can. So when we see the behavior, we're going to reinforce it, right? And then we're going to do it for every single time early on in the intervention program. Over time, you don't have to do it for everyone, right? Because you're thinking about the intermittent schedules. But when you're building a response, when you're training something new, you're really thinking about continuous schedules of reinforcement. So that continuous schedule is really important. It really locks that behavior in. And then you can start to fade out, sorry, not fade out, but thin those reinforcers. And by thinning those reinforcers, things are going to get better for you. You're going to make sure that the behavior maintains and you're going to help with generalization as well. Now, we also have to worry about contingent attention, right? So contingent attention, when you're engaging in the appropriate behavior, you want to make sure that you acknowledge that appropriate behavior. You want to make sure that you're attending to the behavior of the individual. And on top of, so when the appropriate response happens. So for example, right now, obviously I'm being recorded. So well done, cameraman. Well done. Thank you very much for recording. You're absolutely excellent with that particular skill set that you have. Your recording is amazing. You're nice and steady. You're avoiding trains. You're doing a great job. You haven't wiggled at all. You're prompting me appropriately by your stillness, right? So not only am I providing contingent attention, but I'm also providing very specific descriptive praise, right? So I'm telling you what the behavior is that you're engaging in that's earning you the reinforcers, that's earning you that contingent attention, right? So contingent attention, descriptive praise. And I can't really tell you how important the descriptive praise is. Be specific about the behavior that they did that earned the reinforcer. It's unbelievably important. And that kind of goes across the board. Even if it ends up not being a reinforcing scenario, that little piece can be super, super helpful in the future. And don't forget, you should gradually, and I mean gradually, increase that response to reinforcement delay. And I just, I just don't think there's anything else to add. And fine. I've been, I've been called out on my crap. I'm supposed to give you an example of how to do that. You do it gradually, folks. You start out with behavior happens, you immediately reinforce, and then, and then the next time the behavior happens, wait just a little bit, right? So I don't know why I did that, but anyway, then you wait just the next time behavior happens, wait just a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more. And eventually the behavior happens and you get paid two weeks later, right? So you're just, you're just increasing that time from when you engage in the behavior to one that reinforcers are delivered. It's that simple. Some of you may have asked why we're recording from the middles of roads and the middles of train tracks. I can't actually answer that question for you. The reason is probably because over time, we've switched from contrived reinforcers with a cameraman telling me I'm doing a good job and you people telling me I'm doing a good job or telling me that I suck. In fact, if you tell me pretty much anything, it's probably a reinforcer because I know you're watching. To natural contingencies. In other words, effective reinforcement often involves making sure that you switch from that contrived to a natural contingency. You have to eventually get rid of you managing the plan. You have to program to get the behavior to be maintained without the behavior manager, if you will. You have to transfer the power from the behavior manager to the environment. And I tell you, walking down the middle of a road in an environment like this is pretty damn reinforcing. And one of the last things we got to talk about for making reinforcement effective is using response prompts. Now response prompts are not discriminative stimuli. They are additional antecedent stimuli that kind of just nudge the person along in order to engage in the appropriate response in order to earn the particular reinforcer. I feel like I might be maybe just, would you like me to go away from you? Is that the issue? All right. So thank you. So I see as an example, the wonderful cameraman was reminding me that I got a little too close to the camera. So like this, he's going to provide a response prompt as I get a little too close. Hey. Hey. Yes. See, that's not a discriminative stimulus. I would prefer if you stepped back, please. And thank you kindly. There we go. I feel like I'm going to step into a puddle of water soon. But anyway, who cares? That's what we do here at Psychor. Anything to make reinforcement effective. Have a good day. Cheerio, people. Bye-bye.