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The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the sel

by tokai 3y ago

The connection to selfies is really weak. Its just classical conditioning. The stimulus is the food not the selfie taking, and the continued pressing of the selfie button without food is conditioned response.

ravenstine 3y ago
Even that is attributing too much. When you give animals food, they tend to do things to get that food, humans being no exception. If you plant a soft-serve machine in the middle of a city square, you can bet people will press the lever to receive free ice cream. Hell, just give out coupons for free anything and people will show up. In either case, if you take away the free thing, people will keep returning in hopes the thing will come back, not just because they've been conditioned but because they want more of the free thing. Neat little art project, but it's not that insightful when you think outside the 34th percentile.
- moolcool 3y ago
  > not just because they've been conditioned but because they want more of the free thing That is what literally what "conditioned" means. You're belabouring a point that OP is already making, and then following that up by sneering at the "34th percentile". Maybe the real art is always in the comments section.
  - ravenstine 3y ago
    > You're belabouring a point that OP is already making I don't believe I am. I'll try to clarify. > That is what literally what "conditioned" means. Yes and no. I'm suggesting that attributing the effect merely to "conditioning" is reductionist. There's some level of conditioning to all biological behavior, and repeating a behavior in response to a reward is not entirely irrational. In principle, it's very rational for rats to keep returning to perform an action they know through experience provided food at some point. The rats in this art project aren't necessarily as thoughtless as conveniently suggested by the conditioning explanation. There's plenty of evidence that rats have the ability to remember details about the past and plan for the future. > and then following that up by sneering at the "34th percentile". I didn't mean it that way, and in retrospect I admit shouldn't have said that. It was rude but that's truly not the attitude I had in mind. Apologies to whom I was replying to.
- ta988 3y ago
  When you give human likes...
everforward 3y ago
The selfie taking draws a parallel between rats in a Skinner box and humans in social media. The point is to make people wonder whether social media companies view their users the same way Skinner viewed his rats in a box: dumb, and able to be manipulated with meager and cheap rewards. It is not a functional piece of the "experiment", but I don't think it was ever meant to be functional or a real experiment. The artist says the rats don't recognize themselves, so I would assume they predicted the selfies would do nothing. The selfie taking is the only interesting part of the piece, imo. Without that, it's just replicating an 80 year old experiment that has already been replicated to death.
moolcool 3y ago
It's an artistic remix of the classic Skinner Box experiment. The creator is an artist, not a scientist, and his point is being artistically rather than scientifically. As a sidenote: Social media has been described as a skinner box a million times before, but expressing it literally like this is, IMO, clever, interesting, and also cute. The idea using scientific experiments as metaphor to make art is cool, and I hope people start to do more things like this.
- lukan 3y ago
  I don't know, it seems a bit dishonest to imply that the rats wanted the selfies(I got that impression), when all they wanted was pressing the button, because they learned, it would produce treats reliable, and later at least sometimes. If at some point, there never would be treats coming anymore, that would uncondition themself and at some further point, they would not care about that stupid button anymore. Unless of course, they would have nothing else to play with. (Is that also a metapher about FB?)
  - yareal 3y ago
    Did it make you feel something to see this article? Frustration, interest, excitement, anything? It's art. How you interpret it is sort of the point. It's not science, it's someone trying to make you think, and it seems like you thought in response to it. Successful art then.
  - moolcool 3y ago
    I don't see how it's dishonest. The artist is transparent in his methodology, and the metaphor (engagement = treats) is clear. Either way, this is an art piece so it isn't subject to the same kinds of rigor or scrutiny of a scientific experiment.
    - lukan 3y ago
      "For me, they're really like performers, you know? They perform for the camera," he said. "They look cute." Yeah, it is art. It wants to be interesting nested in many layers. I still don't buy this.
montjoy 3y ago
I don’t think it matters. While it would have been interesting if the rats got pleasure looking at themselves, ultimately this is an art project about human society that is meant for human consumption. The fact that we read about it means it was somewhat successful. The issue of whether the rats got a dopamine kick from just pressing the button is irrelevant.
skazazes 3y ago
Isn't basic conditioning the point the artist is attempting to make? I interpreted the project as pointing out that social media uses fundamentally similar reward mechanisms as we use in training animals
- tokai 3y ago
  Yes, and I'm saying I'm finding his point weak. It is a old and well know experiment and the social-media-is-a-skinnerbox talking point is as old as social media. I find the selfie angle tacked on without adding or illuminating the subject further. The work doesn't work for me. But I appreciate the cute rat photos.
  - broscillator 3y ago
    This is an odd comment to me. It's like saying "people have been painting realistic portraits of women for centuries, Leonardo, and this one doesn't add anything or illuminate the subject of portrait-taking further. Still, I appreciate her ambiguous smile."
  - WarkFlark 3y ago
    > Yes, and I'm saying I'm finding his point weak. This would be a stronger point itself if you didn't succinctly validate it with the second sentence of your initial post!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
phkahler 3y ago
>> After the rats were trained to push the level for sugar, Lignier changed the experiment's parameters. Sometimes taking a picture would yield a piece of sugar, and sometimes would not. And this part is using an extinction schedule. When you provide a reward for a behavior consistently and then take away the reward (extinction), the behavior tends to stop immediately. By randomizing the reward and maybe gradually decreasing the frequency you have a much better chance that the behavior will persist without the reward. Because he did this we can't really be sure the selfies are their own reward, since the rats may have been simply trained to push a button.
- calamari4065 3y ago
  Rats simply like playing games, I'm not surprised that they thought pressing the button is fun. But really this is a variant of the mirror test. These rats were freshly adopted and have probably never seen a mirror, and have no idea what they look like. If they were given a mirror for a while before running this experiment, we might see different behavior. I found a paper [0] suggesting that rats do recognize other rats in mirrors, still photos, and video, but the results aren't very strong. I think the theory is that their eyesight is pretty poor and they rely mostly on scent to identify other rats. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5849344/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5849344/
WarkFlark 3y ago
> The connection to selfies is really weak. It's just classical conditioning. Isn't the idea that the compulsion to take a selfie being classical conditioning the very point of the piece?
- hn_acker 3y ago
  The rats were conditioned to push the button. Whether the rats were conditioned to take a selfie is unclear. The sugar is an unconditioned stimulus, the rat's pleasure of receiving sugar is an unconditioned response, and pushing the button is a conditioned response. The button is a conditioned stimulus. Is the selfie a conditioned stimulus as well? Melodramatically put, is the selfie more than a pearl cast in front of a swine? My killjoy answer is: give the rat two tunnels. The rat can see partway into the tunnel from the entrance. One tunnel has a selfie inside. The other tunnel has a picture of the wall in the background of the selfie. Add more tunnels and check which tunnels the rat prefers. My artistic answer: give yourself the pleasure of assuming that the rats like the selfies.
  - WarkFlark 3y ago
    Well sure—I'd also like to point out that rats aren't human, if that helps you understand the piece better.
timeon 3y ago
Maybe they continue with pressing the button because if it brings them food maybe it will also free them from Skinner box.
lukeinator42 3y ago
Very true, although this type of conditioning is operant conditioning since the rats are performing a voluntary behaviour as opposed to classical conditioning like Pavlov's dogs.
bashmelek 3y ago
I guess I don’t really see this as hacker news material. Popular media aggregators tend to promote these kinds of statement art projects. I suppose I’m a little weary and wary of it all. I do not need a sanctioned individual—that we must know an Artist or Philosopher did this—to command some reaction from me on a rather tired topic. One might argue that the fact we still argue over something shows the need for such art. Perhaps some people could use that slightest nudge. But I find these works often subtly disingenuous, and maybe serve better to reinforce a crowd’s own thinking. Like I heard taking shallow versions of opposing views tends to just strengthen already held beliefs, might some art be the same?
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
What if the quality and quantity of rewards were linked to the engagement metrics on the selfie posts? Wouldn't that be a better approximation of our current addiction? * More likes -> more food * Retweets -> better food * More followers -> larger cage

by tokai 3y ago

ravenstine 3y ago

Even that is attributing too much. When you give animals food, they tend to do things to get that food, humans being no exception. If you plant a soft-serve machine in the middle of a city square, you can bet people will press the lever to receive free ice cream. Hell, just give out coupons for free anything and people will show up. In either case, if you take away the free thing, people will keep returning in hopes the thing will come back, not just because they've been conditioned but because they want more of the free thing. Neat little art project, but it's not that insightful when you think outside the 34th percentile.

moolcool 3y ago
> not just because they've been conditioned but because they want more of the free thing That is what literally what "conditioned" means. You're belabouring a point that OP is already making, and then following that up by sneering at the "34th percentile". Maybe the real art is always in the comments section.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  > You're belabouring a point that OP is already making I don't believe I am. I'll try to clarify. > That is what literally what "conditioned" means. Yes and no. I'm suggesting that attributing the effect merely to "conditioning" is reductionist. There's some level of conditioning to all biological behavior, and repeating a behavior in response to a reward is not entirely irrational. In principle, it's very rational for rats to keep returning to perform an action they know through experience provided food at some point. The rats in this art project aren't necessarily as thoughtless as conveniently suggested by the conditioning explanation. There's plenty of evidence that rats have the ability to remember details about the past and plan for the future. > and then following that up by sneering at the "34th percentile". I didn't mean it that way, and in retrospect I admit shouldn't have said that. It was rude but that's truly not the attitude I had in mind. Apologies to whom I was replying to.
ta988 3y ago
When you give human likes...

everforward 3y ago

The selfie taking draws a parallel between rats in a Skinner box and humans in social media. The point is to make people wonder whether social media companies view their users the same way Skinner viewed his rats in a box: dumb, and able to be manipulated with meager and cheap rewards. It is not a functional piece of the "experiment", but I don't think it was ever meant to be functional or a real experiment. The artist says the rats don't recognize themselves, so I would assume they predicted the selfies would do nothing. The selfie taking is the only interesting part of the piece, imo. Without that, it's just replicating an 80 year old experiment that has already been replicated to death.

moolcool 3y ago

It's an artistic remix of the classic Skinner Box experiment. The creator is an artist, not a scientist, and his point is being artistically rather than scientifically. As a sidenote: Social media has been described as a skinner box a million times before, but expressing it literally like this is, IMO, clever, interesting, and also cute. The idea using scientific experiments as metaphor to make art is cool, and I hope people start to do more things like this.

lukan 3y ago
I don't know, it seems a bit dishonest to imply that the rats wanted the selfies(I got that impression), when all they wanted was pressing the button, because they learned, it would produce treats reliable, and later at least sometimes. If at some point, there never would be treats coming anymore, that would uncondition themself and at some further point, they would not care about that stupid button anymore. Unless of course, they would have nothing else to play with. (Is that also a metapher about FB?)
- yareal 3y ago
  Did it make you feel something to see this article? Frustration, interest, excitement, anything? It's art. How you interpret it is sort of the point. It's not science, it's someone trying to make you think, and it seems like you thought in response to it. Successful art then.
- moolcool 3y ago
  I don't see how it's dishonest. The artist is transparent in his methodology, and the metaphor (engagement = treats) is clear. Either way, this is an art piece so it isn't subject to the same kinds of rigor or scrutiny of a scientific experiment.
  - lukan 3y ago
    "For me, they're really like performers, you know? They perform for the camera," he said. "They look cute." Yeah, it is art. It wants to be interesting nested in many layers. I still don't buy this.

montjoy 3y ago

I don’t think it matters. While it would have been interesting if the rats got pleasure looking at themselves, ultimately this is an art project about human society that is meant for human consumption. The fact that we read about it means it was somewhat successful. The issue of whether the rats got a dopamine kick from just pressing the button is irrelevant.

skazazes 3y ago

Isn't basic conditioning the point the artist is attempting to make? I interpreted the project as pointing out that social media uses fundamentally similar reward mechanisms as we use in training animals

tokai 3y ago
Yes, and I'm saying I'm finding his point weak. It is a old and well know experiment and the social-media-is-a-skinnerbox talking point is as old as social media. I find the selfie angle tacked on without adding or illuminating the subject further. The work doesn't work for me. But I appreciate the cute rat photos.
- broscillator 3y ago
  This is an odd comment to me. It's like saying "people have been painting realistic portraits of women for centuries, Leonardo, and this one doesn't add anything or illuminate the subject of portrait-taking further. Still, I appreciate her ambiguous smile."
- WarkFlark 3y ago
  > Yes, and I'm saying I'm finding his point weak. This would be a stronger point itself if you didn't succinctly validate it with the second sentence of your initial post!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

phkahler 3y ago

>> After the rats were trained to push the level for sugar, Lignier changed the experiment's parameters. Sometimes taking a picture would yield a piece of sugar, and sometimes would not. And this part is using an extinction schedule. When you provide a reward for a behavior consistently and then take away the reward (extinction), the behavior tends to stop immediately. By randomizing the reward and maybe gradually decreasing the frequency you have a much better chance that the behavior will persist without the reward. Because he did this we can't really be sure the selfies are their own reward, since the rats may have been simply trained to push a button.

calamari4065 3y ago
Rats simply like playing games, I'm not surprised that they thought pressing the button is fun. But really this is a variant of the mirror test. These rats were freshly adopted and have probably never seen a mirror, and have no idea what they look like. If they were given a mirror for a while before running this experiment, we might see different behavior. I found a paper [0] suggesting that rats do recognize other rats in mirrors, still photos, and video, but the results aren't very strong. I think the theory is that their eyesight is pretty poor and they rely mostly on scent to identify other rats. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5849344/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5849344/

WarkFlark 3y ago

> The connection to selfies is really weak. It's just classical conditioning. Isn't the idea that the compulsion to take a selfie being classical conditioning the very point of the piece?

hn_acker 3y ago
The rats were conditioned to push the button. Whether the rats were conditioned to take a selfie is unclear. The sugar is an unconditioned stimulus, the rat's pleasure of receiving sugar is an unconditioned response, and pushing the button is a conditioned response. The button is a conditioned stimulus. Is the selfie a conditioned stimulus as well? Melodramatically put, is the selfie more than a pearl cast in front of a swine? My killjoy answer is: give the rat two tunnels. The rat can see partway into the tunnel from the entrance. One tunnel has a selfie inside. The other tunnel has a picture of the wall in the background of the selfie. Add more tunnels and check which tunnels the rat prefers. My artistic answer: give yourself the pleasure of assuming that the rats like the selfies.
- WarkFlark 3y ago
  Well sure—I'd also like to point out that rats aren't human, if that helps you understand the piece better.

timeon 3y ago

Maybe they continue with pressing the button because if it brings them food maybe it will also free them from Skinner box.

lukeinator42 3y ago

Very true, although this type of conditioning is operant conditioning since the rats are performing a voluntary behaviour as opposed to classical conditioning like Pavlov's dogs.

bashmelek 3y ago

I guess I don’t really see this as hacker news material. Popular media aggregators tend to promote these kinds of statement art projects. I suppose I’m a little weary and wary of it all. I do not need a sanctioned individual—that we must know an Artist or Philosopher did this—to command some reaction from me on a rather tired topic. One might argue that the fact we still argue over something shows the need for such art. Perhaps some people could use that slightest nudge. But I find these works often subtly disingenuous, and maybe serve better to reinforce a crowd’s own thinking. Like I heard taking shallow versions of opposing views tends to just strengthen already held beliefs, might some art be the same?

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

What if the quality and quantity of rewards were linked to the engagement metrics on the selfie posts? Wouldn't that be a better approximation of our current addiction? * More likes -> more food * Retweets -> better food * More followers -> larger cage