Quote Originally Posted by Bird_Dog View Post
Sorry about not attaching my name to my last post. I should reveal that I have a PhD in experimental psychology and have taught the principles of learning to well over a 1000 students. Using the conventional abbreviation CR in Pavlovian conditioning and then as an abbreviation for a "conditioned reinforcer" would simply lead to mass confusion in students. I sampled the index in a few textbooks. Several listed CR under the topic of conditioned response, but no index listed CR as conditioned reinforcer. I was attempting to help people understand the topic, not to offend a falconer.

-- Scott
Scott,

It was apartment to me that you had a background in psychology when you suggested that I had used the wrong term for the acronym CR. I certainly was not trying to down play your education, credentials or background. I also didn't have time when I responded then to elaborate much.

I am a life long science junkie without so much as one single college hour behind me, so take that as your point of reference. I ravenously consume science information, and love reading papers directly. Although I like that a lot more now that the authors of those papers no longer seem driven to write them in needlessly obscure language.

Operant Conditioning has it roots in research psychology, but it has diverged a bit, particularly in the flavor we are talking about. I have never gone back and read the original research by Skinner, although it has always seemed interesting to me. My source of info is actually rooted in the work of Karen Pryor (retired as a professional dolphin trainer who studied Skinner in college).

It does lead to confusion when acronyms can mean more than one thing. I work in the computer industry, and we use "overloaded" acronyms all the time. I was recently working with a group where the same acronym might have two different meanings in the same sentence! And often did.

I don't really know, since I have not read the base research, if this overloading of the CR acronym was in Skinner's work or not.