April 29 Behavior Program

So here's the result of Monday's behavior observation.

9:30am - remembered to go set up an appointment with counselor
11:30am - inquired about history essay

i was able to remember to go set up an appointment with my counselor at 10am but when the time arrived, i forgot to go and set up that appointment which was weird because i had absolutely nothing to do from 10am-11:30. I only remembered that i forgot to set up an appointment during break for history class. since i only got 20 minutes difference from my history class to the next, i wasn't able to go set up an appointment and this was moved to be done tomorrow after my physics class.
i will be doing my physics homework after this... and do my household chores after that.


i think my behavior didn't change much since the behavior baseline... so i guess the mere absence of my planner is not enough. This observation is going to affect the program im going to design in order to make this behavioral modification work.

The challenging thing about using operant conditioning to modify my forgetfulness is when to actually do the reinforcements or the punishments. Will it be right after remembering the task correctly or at the end of the day? In psychological terms, will be fixed ratio or fixed interval?

But, based on my observations today, i choose a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcements. Everytime i DO (not remember to do) something that i believe is in my schedule, i will ask my friend to check my planner for the day if it was right. The reason why I will be asking a friend is to avoid seeing the next task that is planned on my schedule for the day.

If the task was at the right time and day, my positive reinforcement will be more time for psp in the evening. I will have time for psp because i will leave out an hour for me to do anything that i want. BUT if I forget the scheduled task after that hour, there will be a punishment of stress because surely i will be staying up for it and after playing my psp more than the normal length of time i play, i will surely be tired already to do this scheduled task.

If the task i was doing was delayed, advanced, or at a time that i should be doing something else, my friend will simply tell me that i shouldn't be doing that task but won't tell me what the task is supposed to be. I should strain to remember what i should be doing at the moment. Furthermore, i will be punished because i will have no extra hour to play psp because instead of psp, i will add a task on that extra hour, either an unimportant homework that i could set aside but, ofcourse, something that i had to do just because its my punishment.

Example:

Schedule for the day:
10am - schedule an appointment
7:00 pm - physics homework


(positive reinforcement)
-10am i set up an appointment = since the next task will be in the evening, and my class will still be at 11:30, i could use the one hour playing time i earned for myself (yey!)

(punishment)
8:30pm - i did my physics homework but the time is not right - no psp time for me plus i will add another task in my schedule which is to do the physics homework for tomorrow.


The reason why i chose playing psp as my reinforcement is because psp is all around me. It could be a retrieval cue sometimes by helping me remember that i could get an hour playing time by trying to remember something at a right time. Why is psp all around me? hahaha... all my friends play psp everytime we hang out together (even my aunt at home plays psp!), we play music with it, share each other pictures with it, watch anime with it and lots more. So for me, not allowing myself to play psp is a punishment because everybody else will be playing except for me.. ='(

I believe that this program will be effective because i have psp as a retrieval cue and as a positive reinforcement tempting me to try my best to remember. And also because there is someone (my friend) to help me observe my behavior, keep track of my schedule, and to check if im not cheating my way into this behavior modification project.