Reply To: AB Star Wars 2 : Carbonite

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Gelfling
@gelfling

@luvtub and @mvnla

Of all the ways we know of to reward a desired behavior (in people or pigeons), the variable interval schedule works best. It is like a slot machine, and that’s why gamblers get addicted. You come back to that slot machine and pull the lever and hope for a jackpot, believing (or having been told) that every once a while that slot machine kicks out some coins. That is one of the reasons that they make such a big deal out of jackpots, with lights and noise, to convince everybody that every once in a while their slot machine will do the same.

If the slot machine gave you a jackpot everyone hundred times, or every two minutes, your behavior would be very different.

Wikipedia: pigeons were more prone to act when they only sometimes could get what they wanted.This effect was such that behavioral responses were maximized when … uncertainty was maximized.

This is assuming that you are dealing with external reward for relatively simple behavior. It doesn’t explain selfless behavior — why a mother wants her child to live and not herself, or why people gave up their own lives for others in concentration camps. And it doesn’t explain intrinsically motivated angry birder behavior.

Dr. Gelfling sticks her beak up in the air, says something derogatory like “the Angry Birds psychologists obviously went to the University of Northern Texas, like Dr. Phil,” then climbs off of her high horse and reminds herself to melt some carbonite tonight.