Instrumental Conditioning

Question 1

Who was E. Thorndike?

Answer 1

in 1900 invented puzzle boxes to test whether or not animals could think. found out there was not problem solving thinking but instead when animal got a good response would repeat that behaviour.

Question 2

what does the law of effect state?

Answer 2

that once a situation is rewarded it increases the liklihood of repetition assuming all else stays the same.

Question 3

what is the difference between classical and instrumental conditioning?

Answer 3

classical conditioning associates two events with one another and elicits a response based on the conditioning of these two events whereas instrumental conditioning changes the liklihood of response based on the consequence

Question 4

what was B.F Skinner responsible for?

Answer 4

raised daughter in air crib - behaviourism. 1904 - 1990

Question 5

what does ‘positive reinforcement’ mean in regards to instrumental conditioning?

Answer 5

a stimulus is added after an event that increases the behaviour - reward

Question 6

what does ‘negative reinforcement’ mean in regards to instrumental conditioning?

Answer 6

there is something being done to prevent a negative consequence happening.

Question 7

what does reinforcement do?

Answer 7

increases the liklihood of a behaviour

Question 8

what does positive punishment mean?

Answer 8

adding a stimulus that decreases the behaviour - punishment

Question 9

what is negative punishment?

Answer 9

when there is something taken away to prevent a negative behaviour.

Question 10

difference between negative reinforcement and negative punishment

Answer 10

negative reinforcement is when something is done (stimulus) to avoid a negative response (prevention) whereas negative punishment is when something is taken away to avoid the repetition of unwanted behaviour (punishment happens after).

Question 11

what is a primary reinforcer/punisher

Answer 11

something that is instinctually rewarding/punishing

Question 12

what is a token reinforcer?

Answer 12

something that can be exchanged for primary reinforcers, e.g. money

Question 13

what is fixed ratio reinforcement and what are the distinctive features of it?

Answer 13

when a reward is given after a fixed AMOUNT of RESPONSES. time inbetween behaviour burts changes but time between non-rewarded responses stays the same

Question 14

what is variable ratio reinforcement and what are the distinctive features?

Answer 14

a reward is given after a VARYING amont of RESPONSES. there will be a high, steady maintenance rate as the subject does not know when the reinforcement will occur

Question 15

what is fixed interval schedule reinforcement?

Answer 15

when a reward is given after a FIXED amount of TIME. after reward, rate decreases but then increases towards end of fixed time.

Question 16

what is a variable ratio schedule?

Answer 16

when there is no signal to tell when the reward is happening and will occur at random. there is a high, steady rate of response but slightly lower than with variable ratio responses.

Question 17

why is extinction less effective on partial reinforcement?

Answer 17

very robust form of conditioning. there is more hope that reinforcement will follow the next time as they are used to not getting a response all of the time so are used to a changing response.

Question 18

what is time out a form of?

Answer 18

negative punishment - removing lots of +ve reinforcers - done after the behaviour to prevent it happening again.

Question 19

what is Premack’s Principle

Answer 19

instead of reinforces as stimuli as they are constantly changing, focusses on the probability of the behaviour. high probability behaviour should follow low probabilty behaviour.

Question 20

ehow did mice prove the Premack Principle?

Answer 20

baseline run and drink levels measured. running > drinking. when water deprived then baseline drinking increased and then forced to run, drinking decreased. as running acts as both a reinforcer and a punisher of drinking there needed new idea about probabilities of behaviour.

Question 21

what is the name of the stimuli that initiates instrumental behaviour at the right time?

Answer 21

Antecedent Stimuli

Question 22

does a decrease in a reward size increase or decrease the generalisation of a gradient of a stimulus?

Answer 22

decrease

Question 23

is natural instinct stronger than instrumental conditioning?

Answer 23

yes

Question 24

what did breland and breland do?

Answer 24

used operant conditioning to train animals for advertising. used racoons which could pick up tokens but struggled to put it in the tin. also used pigs to put $1 coins into a piggybank. found out natural instinct overrides conditioning

Question 25

what was breland and brelands conclusion?

Answer 25

after conditioning for a response in animals there is a high chance that the behaviour will drift back to the natural instinct.

Question 26

what did Tolman and Hoznik study and what was their conclusion?

Answer 26

rats in a mze with food as a reward. ones with no food did poor, ones with food did a lot better but ones that had none until day 11 then had food did the best after they were fed. increases even more when there is punishment also (cat)