Instinctive drift or instinctual drift is the tendency of an organism to revert to instinctive behaviors that can interfere with the conditioned response. The concept originated with B. F. Skinner's former students Keller and Marian Breland when they tried to teach a raccoon to put money into a piggy bank. Instead the raccoon instinctively drifted to its instinctive behavior of putting money on ground or turning it over in its paws, as they would do with food.
Famous quotes containing the words instinctive and/or drift:
“Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)