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Review the research conducted to establish CyberRat's simulational realism
and Contribute to our developing database
to make it even more realistic!
was redesigned to be as
Realistic as Possible.
The Behavioral Systems Dynamics research which
inspired the development of the original CyberRat V 1.0 were first introduced
by Ray and Brown (1975) and Ray and Ray (1976). These and subsequent projects
were fully summarized in an integrative article published by Ray and Delprato
(1989). CyberRat itself was an elaboration of a cartoon simulation of a trainable
monkey summarized in Ray (1992) and in Ray and Mitchell (1992); while the first video-rat "proof-of-concept"
was drafted by Ray in 1993. From these humble beginnings the first commercial-level
development of CyberRat, programmed by Victor Begiashvili, began in 1993.
In March, 1996, V1.0 was introduced to the consumer via Brown and Benchmark
Publishers. The subsequent sale of Brown and Benchmark, along with other Times-Mirror
Higher Education Publishing Group companies, to McGraw-Hill in 1996 transferred
distribution rights to McGraw-Hill. Distribution rights were returned to the
developing company, (AI)2, Inc. in late 1999. When development started on
CyberRat, Version 2.0 in January, 2001, all sales activity of CyberRat were
frozen until the new version could be completed. The new version (V2.0) of
CyberRat now includes a total rewrite of all algorithms and matrixes, as well
as a total retaping/editing of new video footage.
The new CyberRat is being founded upon three fudamental sets
of models: 1) behavioral kinematics measured by conditional probability matricies
and represented by corresponding video clips of each behavioral category; 2)
transitional functions suitable for modeling gradual evolutions from existing
matricies to new ones; and 3) "switching" functions allowing for situationally
specific matrix selection/translation dependent upon appropriate setting functions,
including establishing (deprivation/satiation) and discriminative training (S+/S-)
operations. A primary purpose of this sub-site is to share with potential adopters
and the academic community at large the specific empirical research and critiques
used to define the new CyberRat's parameters for simulations. A second purpose
of the site is to invite submissions by the behavioral research community at
large any-and-all data which might help us to refine and improve CyberRat's
realism in simulating fundamental behavioral dynamics under various training
and reinforcement scheduling conditions. We are limiting the scope of our
efforts to singular manipulandum and simple schedules, but want to offer the
most realistic effects possible for those conditions we are attempting to simulate.
Feedback from users of CyberRat V1.0 was critical in defining
our total commitment to rewriting and retaping the new CyberRat V2.0. For example,
Ray (1996) reported that CyberRat V1.0 had a limited repertoire/sample-of-video-clips
for playback of bar-press variations. More importantly each of the several clips
in this sample incorporated not only the bar press itself, but also a subsequent
visitation to the water reservoir. As Paul Brandon graciously pointed out originally
(unfortunately too late for us to correct it), this resulted in a critical artificiality
of the V1.0 CyberRat simulations on two important fronts: 1) no bar-press response
"runs" involving bar pressing were possible wherein only successive bar presses
occurred without reservoir visitations; and 2) maximum bar-press response rates
were kept significantly and artificially low as a result of the excessive durations
of our representative video clips of bar pressing (since visitations to reservoir
were included) elongating the "duration" of each occurrence (translating into
artificially long IRTs). The minimum duration of clips was between 3-4 seconds,
and thus the minimum IRT reflected this parameter.
A second design-imposed artificiality in CyberRat V1.0 was pointed
out by Richard Malott during our many demonstration at APA from the Brown and
Benchmark display booth. After successfully magazine training CyberRat, the
animal rarely responded within a short latency to shift from ongoing behaviors
to the natural "run to the water reservoire" typical of a well established elicitational
change in behavior (c.f., Ray and Brown, 1976). Unfortunately the fact that video clips are used that must "play out" to their "natural" transition-to-next-behavior successive clips, and the fact that some of these are relatively long (a matter of a few seconds), translates into an unsolvable dilemma within the confines of reasonable amounts of source video footage. This this criticism will apply to CyberRat V 2.0 as well. Nevertheless, we were mindful of the effect and made every effort to minimize it.
We have tried our best to correct
many such obvious errors in V2.0 and have thus relied much more heavily on empirical
probes and published data to guide our latest efforts. The following pages share
those efforts explicitly with the scientific community and invite feedback,
conversation, and data submissions from our potential user base and/or all other
interested parties to help us fill in the numerous missing pieces we have discovered
in our searches of extant literature. Many of these pieces are missing because
the literature upon which we have relied is silent on parameter specifications
required for guiding realistic simulation and model construction. We thus invite
any and all to add their knowledge, whether based on shared references or original
data, to guide us to our goal of making CyberRat V2.0 as realistic, and thus
as useful for simulated laboratory exercises, as is possible given the current
limitations of technology and practical (including financial) constraints.
Please keep in mind that V2.0 of CyberRat is still somewhat limited
in its aspirations for variety of simulations. We are only targeting realistic
simulations of the following experimental conditions in operant chambers where
only one manipulandum (a lever) is present:
With these specific goals in mind, we offer links from each item
on this list to a page (where we were able to conduct the research and thus make it available) detailing the data upon which we have
based our simulations. Most of our experimental animals used in the above studies
were also used for the new video taping, and thus had a variety of (limited/brief)
experimental histories that we have assumed had no significant effect on the
results herein reported. Click Here to view the exact sequence and time intervals
invovled. As noted above, we invite you to please join us in our quest to make
CyberRat V2.0 as realistic as possible, thus meeting your most discriminative
needs for laboratory teaching without live animals! Thanks for your help and
interst--e-mail us whenever you feel inclined.
1. Pre-conditioning Habituation-to-an-Operant-Chamber effects on behavioral system dynamics.
2. New response shaping and existing response probability change processes
based on contingency manipulations.
3. Establishing Operations which include:
A. Bar Pressing under AdLib (Satiation) home water availability
4. Simple intermittent reinforcement scheduling effects (both transitions
and steady-state patterning) attendant to:
B. Bar Pressing following water deprivation scheduling
(including "phase-in" effects on response probabilities).
C. Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery following
CRF maintenance
D. Stimulus discrimination (sound) attending selective response reinforcement.
A. CRF (Constant Reinforcement)
5. Extinction
B. Fixed Ratio (FR)
C. Fixed Interval (FI)
D. Fixed Temporal (FT) - including superstitous ritual development
E. Variable Ratio (VR)
F. Variable Interval (VI)
G. Variable Temporal
H. Differential Reinforcement of Other Behaviors (DRO)
6. Leaning across successive parameters of Ratio and Interval schedules
7. Schedule transitions between one simple schedule to another (We especially need lots of input from the community on these!)
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(AI)2, Inc.
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