Variable Interval Schedule

So this is apparently why I obsessively check my email/twitterstream ALL THE TIME.

HT @jemimakiss, from her recent Observer article about digital detoxes.

This phenomenon can result in some magnificently bizarre behaviour. Psychologist BF Skinner described the attempts at control based on a variable-interval schedule in a classic article from 1947: ‘Superstition’ in the Pigeon (First published in Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 168-172).

In this article, Skinner describes the behaviour of a pigeon that was rewarded with food and water at random intervals. To make sense of this effect that had no apparent (or logical) cause that it could learn, the pigeon began to create patterns that it believed created the reward.

The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior.  Rituals for changing one’s luck at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if he were controlling it by twisting and turning his arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one’s luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing — or, more strictly speaking, did something else.

I haven’t yet started dancing on one foot or spinning around twice to stimulate a new text message, twitter mention/DM or email, but I have integrated behavioural patterns - like checking my phone the instant I wake up or arrive at a destination - into my daily digital routine.

(via untanglingtheweb)

(via untanglingtheweb)