1. Find a group of animals (preferably humans, but dogs, rats, pigeons, etc. should also work just fine).
2. Target a specific unnecessary behavior pattern (hobby) that all individual engage in.
3. Measure the baseline rate of that activity.
4. Introduce a reward:
4a. For a randomly selected subset the reward follows imminently the targeted behavior.
4b. For the rest they'll receive the "reward" equally often but at a time independent of the targeted behavior.
5. Drop the reward.
6. Let some time pass.
7. Measure the drop/increase in the behavior from the baseline measure.
---
[edit] format.
1. Find a group of animals (preferably humans, but dogs, rats, pigeons, etc. should also work just fine).
2. Target a specific unnecessary behavior pattern (hobby) that all individual engage in.
3. Measure the baseline rate of that activity.
4. Introduce a reward:
4a. For a randomly selected subset the reward follows imminently the targeted behavior.
4b. For the rest they'll receive the "reward" equally often but at a time independent of the targeted behavior.
5. Drop the reward.
6. Let some time pass.
7. Measure the drop/increase in the behavior from the baseline measure.
---
[edit] format.