The grooming behavior of the chimpanzee as a reinforcer

The Grooming Behavior of the Chimpanzee as a Reinforcer

John L Falk made a basic study on the grooming behavior of the chimpanzee . He noticed that the behavior was characterized by the animal 's stroking of its hair , extending its lips , freeing embedded dirt on its skin and putting it on its mouth . Falk wanted to find out if grooming could be a reinforcer that would motivate the chimpanzee to learn discrimination

Falk , the experimenter (E , conducted an experiment using a 3 years , 10 months old male chimpanzee as a subject . This

was the independent variable . He built a square plexiglas with two patterns - a box and a cross - glued in its surface . The objective was for the chimpanzee to touch each pattern in the plexiglas . After the ape touched the box pattern , E put his right arm inside the cage and groomed the animal for 30 seconds . E rotated the plexiglas , exposing the cross pattern to the animal but it did not receive grooming from E after touching the cross pattern . The process was then reversed : the chimpanzee got grooming for the cross pattern and not in the box pattern . This procedure was repeated several times until 10 reinforcements were achieved . The animal gave a positive response by touching the pattern where it could get grooming and displayed negative response to the pattern where grooming was not presented . This discrimination behavior of the animal was the dependent variable . The grooming pattern or the opportunity to groom which was the...