Memories

Memory recalls the smell of the air at 4 a.m. when I was younger. In my childhood, I would listen to the sounds of sleep: breathing, snoring, crickets. It was like a treasure for those who dare to traverse the lonely night hours. Imagine me sitting in the living room, listening the sounds of the first birds. The grayish color of the early morning always enticed me. It will soon forfeit to the orange hues and the waking life that follows. At that time, the reward was solace. Living in a house with three younger brothers, you don't get the privacy most children seem to have. Even now, the best hour for me to work is in the late hours of the night. Since the only lessons they offer at 1 a.m. are smoking and drinking, I need to adapt to a 9 to 5 schedule.

Two forces eventually dominated my wake and sleep, respectively, caffeine and alcohol. The latter I was able to wean myself way from, but the coffee is too good. My operant behavior blog is actually effecting many elements in my life like sleep, stress, memory, and my overall health. For the most part these are primary reinforces, that is a biological need or drive. Somehow coffee became a secondary reinforcer. Now I realize I'm stretching the rules here, but caffeine became a learned association with less sleep.

Sunday (May 27) and Monday (May 28), were my beta testing for the operant conditioning experiment. In the course of the two days I have stunningly lived without coffee. My craving for it has lessened.

The main strategy for my operant conditioning experiment is the schedule I created, which is based on baseline sleep activity. 6 am is the optimum time for me to be up for either work or school, so I count back 8 hours to 10 pm. An important component to getting a good nights sleep is to have time to relax, so my rule is to be in bed by 9 pm and allow my body time to get sleepy.

The stimuli I am applying for this experiment are reinforcement and punishment. First, as a reward for getting 8 hours I am applying a positive reinforcement by donating money to The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. In contrast, if I get less than 8 hours of sleep I am applying a postive punishment by donating money to Exodus International. Administering these is the best way to deal with me, because I am strong on sticking to my principles and yearn for integrity.

Lastly, the schedule of reinforcement will be fixed-ratio, due to the nature of my experiment: sleep. Now my friend Rebecca, who is a Psych and Sociology major, seemed interested in helping me. I may ask her to perform some variable-interval style follow-up; by that I mean she would call me at random to check up on my sleep schedule.

Having 8 illustrious hours of sleep a day seems like a ambitious goal, but that's just how I roll.

Describe the Behavior

In order to gel together the previous entries, explain some concepts to readers, help me study for the test, and officially complete the next blog assignment, I will explain the purpose of my behavior blog.

The second quarter of psychology started with learning. We began with Pavlov's discovery of "conditional reflex." Classical conditioning affects something innate, sweating or blinking. Whereas classical conditioning is attributed to a natural reflex, operant conditioning affects a complex, voluntary behavior. Specifically, we are manipulating a consequence and influencing it's likelihood of occurring.

As I have mentioned, I want to change my sleep patterns because they are causing issues with my memory and comprehension in class. Also, the grogginess I experience during the day causes me to be moody. At baseline the schedule looks approximately like this:

Bed --------- Wake
SUN: 12:00 am -- 6:30 am
MON: 10:20 pm -- 6:30 am
TUE: 12:05 am -- 6:00 am/8:00 am
WED: 10:30 pm -- 6:15 am
THU: 10:42 pm -- 5:00 am/6:45 am
FRI: 12:00 am -- 8:00 am
SAT: 10:00 pm -- 6:00 am

There is no clear way for me to explain how operant conditioning may be perpetuating this behavior. I think there is an underlying connection to caffeine and naps, but I believe that has more to do with a natural response than a behavioral thing.

For the upcoming experiment I plan to keep a continuous schedule of reinforcement. I have created a rough sleep schedule allowing me time to relax before bedtime. For the days I get 8 hours of sleep, I will be saving $5.00, which will go towards The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which is an organization benefiting gender awareness, homosexual issues, such as HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as other community outreaches, like wigs for cancer patients. For the nights I get less than 8 hours, that same $5.00 will go to Exodus International, which is a Fundamentalist, Christian organization who claims they can change homosexual behavior. (Ahem!?)

Outside of that, I hope to get some love and maybe some friends matching my beneficial donation to the Sisters. I'm stoked to help the sisters and even more so now that I know Sister Barbi Mitzvah, The Board Charinun, is reading this blog.

Below is my proposed schedule which I will begin April 29th.

Reward & Punishment

Today, lecture went well. I was able to absorb the information that (shocking) I had time to read. All this despite the fact that I went to bed at midnight. What changed this morning was that I didn't have to be at work. However, the late bed time was due to my two banes: a nap and caffeine. Sleep indirectly affects my need for naps and caffeine, but this means I will need to regulate those two variables closely once I begin my experiment. What remains unsaid is if I will punish myself or reward myself. Punishments never seemed to help. … point being, I can punish myself, but that idea won't directly work. Another method that works on myself is the idealism in a personal sacrifice, which sounds like it would be a positive punishment? One reward I started to think of would also be an indirect consequence of a well-rested night: the money I'd save. Maybe I should: a) as a reward put $5 in a jar if I follow my sleep schedule; and b) if I don't follow the schedule, I have to give the money to something that I abhor.

At the end of the semester the punishment money will go to Exodus International:
http://exodus.to/content/category/6/24/57/

At the end of the semester the reward money will go to The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence: http://thesisters.org/meet_leadership.html

Bad News & Good News

Since I have time, I am going to keep track of baseline levels, which is a fancy word for "what do you normally do." Starting last night, Sunday, I failed miserably, and as Carlotta observed, my punishment was sleep deprivation at it's fullest on Monday. According to our text, Psychology: Concepts and Applications by Jeffrey S. Nevid, chronic sleep deprivation will impair memory and learning abilities (pages 151 and 152). The text also states that college students people report an average of 6 to 6.9 hours of sleep, but it is recommended to have 8.5 hours of sleep. Last night I got about 5.0531 hours of sleep (because I need to show three significant digits after the decimal). First part of the morning was bearable, but that lack of sleep plus no lunch break killed me. I came home to make up my other 3.4469 hours of sleep when I got home. As you can see, my sleep cycle is already off to a bad start.

There are a few "confounding variables" which I need to address before I establish a schedule of punishment or reinforcement. First of these is what I think would be a negative reinforcement with caffeine. Coffee is the last of my bad habits and I refuse to give it up. Half of the time it has a kind of placebo effect, because coffee, as wonderful as this chemical is, can't truly be the source of a wakeful day. Going back further in our lectures, I think that coffee has become a good example of classical conditioning, where I associate a good cup of coffee with a pleasant day. Obviously, there is more to all of this, but I wouldn't want to bore you so soon. The other issue we are dealing with is my naps, which are also a bad habit. Who doesn't love naps? It's like someone who doesn't like The Beatles -- I don't get them. My last issue is keeping track of baseline levels. It appears I am over analyzing this process, but still feel I am the worst warden of my behavior.

This afternoon I received some good news: I can take Wednesday mornings off. This means I can catch up on some Z's and be more prepared for Psychology lecture. Even at my crusty old age I have a lot to work on, like this coffee craving I'm having right now.

Intro

The purpose of this blog is to track modifying operant behavior for an intro psychology course at Mount San Antontio College. This is my eighth illustrious year at Mount Slack and I am looking forward to transferring to a University in fall of 2008. As you can imagine, I am an old man of 29; yes, this is my Saturn return year. Needless to say, getting old takes a toll on your energy; specifically, sleep. According to my mother, I've always been a late night person, but working 32 hours a week with 9 units is not the best for my health or my nerves. Recently my doctor asked me to bring down my workload or risk giving myself chronic fatigue. As of a few weeks ago, I would lay down for a quick 30 minute nap and wake up four hours later. As you can imagine, my geezer body can't handle this whippersnapper schedule. For the next week I am going to keep track of my baseline activity. After the first week I will set up a schedule of reinforcement or punishment to help modify my behavior.

If I do punishment, is anyone here into sadomasochism?