Some Sample Mini-cases for Conditioning and Learning

When working through these examples, try to figure out what you think is going on before you look at my reasoning on the example. It's important to keep in mind that we may be looking for very different things in our explanations. The third example is probably most like the example you will see on the exam on Tuesday.

Dear Dr. Behavior--I work really hard in school, even though I don't always get "A's." How can this be an example of positive reinforcement if I don't always get what I want? What's going on here, Dr. Behavior?-- Grade gunner.
Some reasoning on the example
Dear Dr. Behavior--Just when I thought I finally understood this junk, along comes schedules of reinforcement, don'tcha know! Well, here's my problem--I work about 35 hours a week, but some weeks 30, and some weeks 40, and since my time working each week varies, I figure this has gotta be a VI schedule, but my CL group isn't so sure. What's going on here, Dr. Behavior?--Just a Working Girl.
Some reasoning on the example
An example showing the interaction of S^r, S^R and CS. It's sometimes difficult to make a distinction between behavior ("responses," in simple parlance) and environmental events ("stimuli"). Stimuli act as S^Ds, S^rs, and CSs, depending upon how we're looking at them, and what we are doing in a scientific analysis is seeing how these environmental events interact with our behavior. I think we can view primary reinforcement, or S^Rs, as different, in that, what is ultimately reinforcing is doing something primal--eating, drinking, breathing, etc. Ethologists refer to these acts as consumatory behavior. So, the end of the chain, then, is getting to engage in behavior that is reinforcing.
Let's look at an example. It's a beautiful June afternoon, you're driving down a country road, when you spot a raspberry patch. You stop, pick a bucket of raspberries, take them home, bake a pie with them, and enjoy a great dessert.
A sample diagram of the behavior