I don't know what your background is (?), but my colleagues and I have no trouble understanding what "aversive punishment" means. No incoherence, no confusion. It's one part of behaviourist principles that are taught in undergraduate psychology. It is often referred to as positive punishment.

Would you care to cite the relevant evidence that shows the effects are vanishingly small? Because punishment, from everything I have learned, is an excellent means of behaviour control -- it just has many drawbacks, which is why reinforcement is the preferred alternative. The problem is that there are severe cases where nothing else works. What then do you do?

Reductions in social skills, communication skills, and cognitive ability are all possible outcomes. However, every one of those will depend on the punisher used, its properties, the behaviour in question, and a large variety of other factors. Your brush paints thickly.

I'm not sure what to make of your last paragraph. It reeks of ad-hom.

>> ^RhesusMonk:

"Aversive punishment" is not a coherent term in the realm of emotional/behavioral psychology. What's more, the practice to which this term seems to refer has vanishingly small effect on "self-injurious" behavior (which is actually called self-stimulating behavior). What effects it may have are significantly offset by the reduction in social and communications skills, and a decrease in cognitive ability. These reasons are why, when aversive conditioning is used in the developmental setting, it is as a last resort and the aversive stimulus is sparing and lenient. In this case, the video and other evidence around the boy's condition and behavior are sparse, and any judgment whether this was the correct course of action based on the information we have is laughable. Great measures require great evidence in their justification.
In any event, cooling people off their outrage at authority who inflict barbaric emotional and physical pain in an effort to encourage compliance for its own sake with quasi-psychology based claims is sophomoric at best. There may be some intellectual satisfaction with the idea that some minds are so beyond reason that they only respond to pain of this kind, but that idea only smacks true when the thinker lacks the creativity necessary to actually manage these kinds of malfunctions. Seems Nurse Ratched would pass muster with at least some of our Sifters.

>> ^berticus:
The sad, cold truth of things is that there are some severely autistic children who engage in the most horrific self-injurious behaviour, and aversive punishment is the ONLY treatment (in conjunction with a broader treatment plan, naturally) that works. And yes, it DOES work.
I'm not talking about kids with minor problems. I mean the ones who will do things like smash their own face into the ground over and over until they lose so much blood they pass out. The ones who will, left to themselves, die.
Positive punishment is horrible. But, it's either that, or let these kids maim or kill themselves (or possibly others) through their behaviour.
(I make no comment regarding this specific incident, I just want you to know the issue is far more complicated than this mind-bite would have you believe.)

The sad, cold truth of things is that there are some severely autistic children who engage in the most horrific self-injurious behaviour, and aversive punishment is the ONLY treatment (in conjunction with a broader treatment plan, naturally) that works. And yes, it DOES work.

I'm not talking about kids with minor problems. I mean the ones who will do things like smash their own face into the ground over and over until they lose so much blood they pass out. The ones who will, left to themselves, die.

Positive punishment is horrible. But, it's either that, or let these kids maim or kill themselves (or possibly others) through their behaviour.

(I make no comment regarding this specific incident, I just want you to know the issue is far more complicated than this mind-bite would have you believe.)

hah! actually i'm flagging d3. the beta was fun though, thank you
>> ^gwiz665:

And in 9 days, Diablo 3 will donkey punch you into playing that as well. I hope you've enjoyed your social life so far, because it will end soon.
>> ^berticus:
I caved and bought GW2 and managed to play a few hours in the beta weekend.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I recommend everyone go immerse yourself in as much footage/reviews/commentary/gameplay/whatever of this game that you possibly can. (e.g., http://www.reddit.com/r/guildwars2)
I am so psyched now. Arenanet just seems to be doing EVERYTHING right. The world is alive, in a very real sense. You can play the game how you want to. The combat is active and skillful, not click+repeat. The events are dynamic. The list of things that make this game incredible just goes on and on and on.
JESUS CHRIST MY LIFE IS OVER
@enoch it's certainly not just pvp focused -- but the pvp is going to be insane. I was worried about it when I first heard about gw2... It seemed like they were getting rid of the incredible pvp from gw1. But no, in fact, they've just made it even better. People are raving about how great WvWvW is, and structured PvP looks to be more 'classical'.
OH GOD
OH GODDDDDDDD IM FUCKED

level of overdramatisation in this documentary: infinite.

(i really liked it anyway)

nightmare material

I caved and bought GW2 and managed to play a few hours in the beta weekend.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I recommend everyone go immerse yourself in as much footage/reviews/commentary/gameplay/whatever of this game that you possibly can. (e.g., http://www.reddit.com/r/guildwars2)

I am so psyched now. Arenanet just seems to be doing EVERYTHING right. The world is alive, in a very real sense. You can play the game how you want to. The combat is active and skillful, not click+repeat. The events are dynamic. The list of things that make this game incredible just goes on and on and on.

JESUS CHRIST MY LIFE IS OVER

@enoch it's certainly not just pvp focused -- but the pvp is going to be insane. I was worried about it when I first heard about gw2... It seemed like they were getting rid of the incredible pvp from gw1. But no, in fact, they've just made it even better. People are raving about how great WvWvW is, and structured PvP looks to be more 'classical'.

OH GOD

OH GODDDDDDDD IM FUCKED

http://www.innocenceproject.org

Good sir, I present: http://videosift.com/talk/SIFTER-SURVEY-RESULTS

This woman is simply wonderful.

195 responses so far. I think tomorrow marks 2 weeks, shall I close it up then, so we can take a look at the data?

oh, so much ♥ right now. *MOTORBOAT*

our @eric3579 who art in sifthalla,
hallowed be thy username.
thy kingdom come.
thy sifts adored
in unsifted as they are on front page.
give us this day our quality videos,
and forgive us our shameless kittens,
as we forgive those who downvote us,
and lead us not into youtube,
but deliver us from evil.

for thine is the kingdom,
and the powerpoints, and the badges,
for ever and ever,
ramen.

@lucky760 or @dag can you explain? i confuse!

@my15minutes and I are both GW1 veterans. Thousands, and thousands, and thousands of hours. I would love nothing more than to lose myself in GW2, but I'm terrified it will jeopardise my PhD because of my lack of self-control. (I'm not even kidding, I'm actually very worried.)

GW1 was nothing short of amazing. Perhaps what is not known quite so well about GW1 though, is that it had intensely competitive, challenging, and satisfying PvP. (See here for an example from one of the best guilds ever [rawr] -- probably hard to follow if you don't know GW.)

GW2 looks spectacular too.

Fuck. FSM help me, I'm so screwed.

It's impressive, but legacy0100 is right, it's just basic operant conditioning. If you want a demonstration of the cognitive capabilities of a parrot, Alex is the place to start. Griffin is even more amazing.

Comparative cognition is really fascinating.