On June 13, 2011, Writer Sebastian Anthony at Extreme Tech

question 98

Multiple Choice

On June 13, 2011, writer Sebastian Anthony at Extreme Tech wrote, "During the two days that the Les Paul [Google] doodle was online, those 740 million visitors spent 26 seconds more on the Google home page than normal. That's a total of almost 10.7 million man-hours spent playing with the Les Paul Google Doodle. Assuming the average Google user earns $25/hour, the doodle cost companies around the world $268 million in lost productivity." Mr. Anthony's mistake is overestimating opportunity costs. He is doing this by assuming that:

• A) labor has no incentive to work.
• B) all those man-hours would have been spent working if not for the doodle.
• C) all the Google visitors do not sleep.
• D) that labor is not making a marginal decision.

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Definitions:

Stimulus Discrimination

The learned ability to distinguish between similar stimuli and respond differently based on their associative properties with reinforcement or punishment.

Secondary Reinforcer

Indicates any stimulus that has become reinforcing through its association with a primary reinforcer, often used in behavioral conditioning.

Probability

A measure of the likelihood that a particular event will occur, often expressed as a number between 0 and 1.

Operant Conditioning

a method of learning that uses rewards and punishments to influence behavior.