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At a time when America seems to grow more divided by the day, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong still believes in the power of music to bring people together.

'Horizon' by Pigeons Playing Ping Pong 'Psychology' (2014) Download the full album at Tour dates and more: www.pig. 299-324 Operant Conditioning- Can Pigeons Play Ping-pong? Operant conditioning- learning based on consequences of responding Law of Effect- responses leading to desirable effects are repeated; those that produce undesirable effects are not Positive Reinforcement Operant reinforce- any event that reliably increases the probability/frequency of responses it follows Acquiring an Operant Response.

“We want to offer people an escape, a place where they can leave all their troubles and worries behind and embrace the joy of human connection,' says guitarist/vocalist Greg Ormont. 'Our mission with our music is to create the most blissful, carefree experience possible.”

Judging by the band’s remarkable growth, it’s a mission well accomplished. In the past two years alone, the psych-funk trailblazers have co-billed at Red Rocks, played halftime at Madison Square Garden, performed on Adult Swim’s FishCenter Live, celebrated the tenth anniversary of their beloved music festival, Domefest, and even earned their first headlining arena show. Now, they’re set to release Presto, their fifth studio album and most sophisticated collection to date. Recorded in the band’s native Baltimore, the record draws on everything from funk to rock to electronic music, building off the group’s unparalleled live energy and stretching their sonic boundaries further than ever before. Ormont breaks fresh ground with his lyrics here, too, reflecting new heights of emotional and technical maturity as he carves out a space for fans to cut loose, forget their struggles, and celebrate the present together.

“Excitement is infectious,” says Ormont. “There’s nothing more rewarding than radiating the kind of positivity you want to see in the world and then watching it ripple beyond you.”

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Hailed as “musical explorers” by Rolling Stone, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong—Ormont, fellow guitarist Jeremy Schon, bassist Ben Carrey, and drummer Alex “Gator” Petropulos—first took flight roughly a decade ago at the University of Maryland, and the band has since gone on to play more than a thousand shows across 44 states. Driven by a relentless work ethic and an ecstatic sound, the fun-loving four-piece built their reputation on epic, blissed-out concerts blending addictive funk grooves with psychedelic jams and intoxicating energy. Glide called them “a band that melts faces and pulls no punches,” while Relix praised the group as “joyous” and “dance-worthy,” and Jambase described them simply as a “powerhouse.” Acting as their own independent label, the quartet released four studio albums prior to Presto (including their most recent record, 2017’s widely-acclaimed Pizazz) and racked up more than twenty million streams on Spotify alone. They quickly became festival favorites, too, performing everywhere from Bonnaroo to Electric Forest to Jazz Fest and welcoming top-tier sit-ins along the way from Marcus King and Karl Denson along with members of Vulfpeck, The Revivalists, Umphrey's McGee and The String Cheese Incident among others. Fueled by their rabid fanbase, known colloquially as The Flock, the band closed out 2019 with some of their biggest headline shows yet, topping it all off with a triumphant New Year’s Eve bash at North Carolina’s ExploreAsheville.com Arena.

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s annual holiday shows actually played an important role in shaping the sound of Presto. Every Halloween and New Year’s Eve, the band hosts intricately themed blowouts, usually with a clever pun for a title, that find them adopting the styles of various other artists. One year, for example, it was “Red Hot Sergeant Peppers” (combining the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Beatles); another, it was “New Year’s stEve” (bringing together the music of Stevie Wonder, Steve Miller Band, Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc.).

“Those shows have been crash courses in learning new ways to play and arrange music,” says Ormont. “We picked up different techniques from all these different genres that we were able to draw on when writing Presto.”

Writing is a never-ending process for the band, and their songs are constantly evolving organisms. Often, an extended improvisation in the group’s rehearsal space will lead to an unexpected melody or chord progression, which will go on to form the foundation of a track. Once the foursome fleshes out the song's structure and Ormont adds lyrics, the band will take the song on the road and perform it live for their most trusted confidants: The Flock.

“The crowd is like an equal member of the band at this point,” says Ormont. “We really feed off their response and truly value their input, and we can tell right away what works and what doesn't from their reaction.”

While those live shows are marathon, sprawling affairs, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong takes a more concise approach in the studio, boiling tracks down to their core essence in order to capture the most crisp, clean, and focused iterations possible. The result is a distilled dose of pure energy, the kind of pulse-pounding lightning in a bottle that absolutely explodes out of the speakers.

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“We went from a lengthy tour straight into the studio to record Presto,” says Ormont, “and I think that had a big impact on the sound. We had just finished playing a lot of these songs on the road, and that experience made our performances on the album so much more confident, lively and electric.”

That fiery confidence is immediately apparent on album opener “King Kong,” which features lightspeed guitar work and funky horns anchored by a rock-solid rhythm section and wry, playful lyrics. It’s a big, bold sound that sets the stage perfectly for an album all about embracing our power to focus on the good in this world and to share it with the ones we love most. The effervescent “High As Five,” for instance, implores listeners to “lead the life you’ve always hoped for,” while the rousing “Overrun” insists “You gotta give it all, all for one / Let’s appreciate all of the times we’ve made,” and the swaggering “Snake Eyes” reminds us that “this fight is for people who want to stand up.” As carefree as the album can feel (the bilingual “Yo Soy Fiesta,” inspired by one of former NFL star Rob Gronkowski’s more iconic catchphrases, is a lighthearted highlight), it also recognizes that there can be no happiness without heartache, no joy without defeat. The psychedelic instrumental “Skipjack” descends into darkness before emerging into the light, while the jazz-tinged “Havana” wrestles with doubt and despair before a helping hand lifts it back into hope and optimism, and the breezy “Dawn A New Day” explores all the ways we can pick ourselves up when we’re feeling down and out.

'We're fortunate to have met so many people on the road who've said that our songs helped them get through a tough time in their lives,” says Ormont. “Our music has always been about looking on the sunny side of life, and it means a lot to know that we can help others do the same while having a blast and pursuing our dreams.'

With an album as uplifting as Presto, the future’s looking very sunny indeed.

B.F Skinner, a leading 20th century psychologist who hypothesized that behavior was caused only by external factors, not by thoughts or emotions, was a controversial figure in a field that tends to attract controversial figures. In a realm of science that has given us Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Jean Piaget, Skinner stands out by sheer quirkiness. After all, he is the scientist who trained rats to pull levers and push buttons and taught pigeons to read and play ping-pong.

Besides Freud, Skinner is arguably the most famous psychologist of the 20th century. Today, his work is basic study in introductory psychology classes across the country. But what drives a man to teach his children’s cats to play piano and instruct his beagle on how to play hide and seek? Last year, Norwegian researchers dove into his past to figure it out. The team combed through biographies, archival material and interviews with those who knew him, then tested Skinner on a common personality scale.

They found Skinner, who would be 109 years old today, was highly conscientious, extroverted and somewhat neurotic—a trait shared by as many as 45 percent of leading scientists. The analysis revealed him to be a tireless worker, one who introduced a new approach to behavioral science by building on the theories of Ivan Pavlov and John Watson.

Skinner wasn’t interested in understanding the human mind and its mental processes—his field of study, known as behaviorism, was primarily concerned with observable actions and how they arose from environmental factors. He believed that our actions are shaped by our experience of reward and punishment, an approach that he called operant conditioning. The term “operant” refers to an animal or person “operating” on their environment to affect change while learning a new behavior.

Operant conditioning breaks down a task into increments. If you want to teach a pigeon to turn in a circle to the left, you give it a reward for any small movement it makes in that direction. Soon, the pigeon catches onto this and makes larger movements to the left, which garner more rewards, until the bird completes the full circle. Skinner believed that this type of learning even relates to language and the way we learn to speak. Children are rewarded, through their parents’ verbal encouragement and affection, for making a sound that resembles a certain word until they can actually say that word.

Skinner’s approach introduced a new term into the literature: reinforcement. Behavior that is reinforced, like a mother excitedly drawing out the sounds of “mama” as a baby coos, tends to be repeated, and behavior that’s not reinforced tends to weaken and die out. “Positive” refers to the practice of encouraging a behavior by adding to it, such as rewarding a dog with a treat, and “negative” refers to encouraging a behavior by taking something away. For example, when a driver absentmindedly continues to sit in front of a green light, the driver waiting behind them honks his car horn. The first person is reinforced for moving when the honking stops. The phenomenon of reinforcement extends beyond babies and pigeons: we’re rewarded for going to work each day with a paycheck every two weeks, and likely wouldn’t step inside the office once they were taken away.

Today, the spotlight has shifted from such behavior analysis to cognitive theories, but some of Skinner’s contributions continue to hold water, from teaching dogs to roll over to convincing kids to clean their rooms. Here are a few:

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1. The Skinner box. To show how reinforcement works in a controlled environment, Skinner placed a hungry rat into a box that contained a lever. As the rat scurried around inside the box, it would accidentally press the lever, causing a food pellet to drop into the box. After several such runs, the rat quickly learned that upon entering the box, running straight toward the lever and pressing down meant receiving a tasty snack. The rat learned how to use a lever to its benefit in an unpleasant situation too: in another box that administered small electric shocks, pressing the lever caused the unpleasant zapping to stop.

2. Project Pigeon. During World War II, the military invested Skinner’s project to train pigeons to guide missiles through the skies. The psychologist used a device that emitted a clicking noise to train pigeons to peck at a small, moving point underneath a glass screen. Skinner posited that the birds, situated in front of a screen inside of a missile, would see enemy torpedoes as specks on the glass, and rapidly begin pecking at it. Their movements would then be used to steer the missile toward the enemy: Pecks at the center of the screen would direct the rocket to fly straight, while off-center pecks would cause it to tilt and change course. Skinner managed to teach one bird to peck at a spot more than 10,000 times in 45 minutes, but the prospect of pigeon-guided missiles, along with adequate funding, eventually lost luster.

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3. The Air-Crib. Skinner tried to mechanize childcare through the use of this “baby box,” which maintained the temperature of a child’s environment. Humorously known as an “heir conditioner,” the crib was completely humidity- and temperate-controlled, a feature Skinner believed would keep his second daughter from getting cold at night and crying. A fan pushed air from the outside through a linen-like surface, adjusting the temperature throughout the night. The air-crib failed commercially, and although his daughter only slept inside at night, many of Skinner’s critics believed it was a cruel and experimental way to raise a child.

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4. The teaching box. Skinner believed using his teaching machine to break down material bit by bit, offering rewards along the way for correct responses, could serve almost like a private tutor for students. Material was presented in sequence, and the machine provided hints and suggestions until students verbally explained a response to a problem (Skinner didn’t believe in multiple choice answers). The device wouldn’t allow students to move on in a lesson until they understood the material, and when students got any part of it right, the machine would spit out positive feedback until they reached the solution. The teaching box didn’t stick in a school setting, but many computer-based self-instruction programs today use the same idea.

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5. The Verbal Summator. An auditory version of the Rorschach inkblot test, this tool allowed participants to project subconscious thoughts through sound. Skinner quickly abandoned this endeavor as personality assessment didn’t interest him, but the technology spawned several other types of auditory perception tests.