Learning: Operant Conditioning Flashcards
Thorndike’s puzzle box
Hungry cat in box
Food outside box
With thorndikes puzzle box there is a lever in box which can open door
By chance it stepped on lever and got quicker at doing this over time
The cat seemed to be learning something
But gradually so
The cat had no sudden insight
Trial and error learning which had the effect of eliminating responses that didn’t work
The thorndikes puzzle box displays
Instrumental learning- organisms behaviour is instrumental for outcome
What is law of effect?
In a given situation, a response followed by a satisfying consequence will become more likely to occur and a response followed by an annoying consequence will become less likely to occur
What is the basic principle?
Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences
What is the basic principle based on?
The study of the effects that patterns of rewards and costs made contingent on emitted responses
Classical conditioning is based on
Elicited responses
Radical behaviourism was explored by
B.F. ‘Fred’ Skinner (1904-1990) and coined the term operant conditioning
What does operant mean?
A class of behaviours on which a reinforcer is made contingent
Behaviour operates upon
The environment to produce a change in the environment
Reinforcement vs punishment
Consequences of any unit or class of behaviours which come to affect the subsequent frequency of those behaviours
With reinforcement, reinforcers
Always increase (strengthen) response rates
Reinforcement may be
Positive or negative
An example of reinforcement is
Getting a food pellet, removal of annoying noise
Punishments always
Decrease (weaken) response rates
Punishment also may be
Positive (aversive) or negative (response cost)
An example of punishment is
Getting an electric shock or having sweeties taken away
There are three parts to operant conditioning episode
Antecedent
Behaviours
Consequences
Antecedent refers to
Stimuli which exist before the relevant behaviour
Behaviour refers to
Behaviour that the animal emits
Consequences refers to
Some effect that the environment then has upon the animal based upon its earlier behaviour
A discriminative stimulus acts as s
Signal, in the presence of which responses are emitted or suppressed
A discriminative stimulus is similar to
Pavlovian conditioned stimulus in that it acts as a predictor of environmental contingencies
A discriminate stimulus, is dissimilar, according to skinner,
In that it does not elicit the response
The discriminative stimulus acts as a signal
That a particular behaviour will be associated with particular consequences
Think of discriminative stimulus as training a dog to sit
Use rewards
But dog doesn’t sit down at every opportunity as
This doesn’t produce a reward
There are two types of reinforcement and punishment
Primary and secondary
Primary reinforcement is where
Stimuli which are automatically valued by the organism as they satisfy a biological need- food, water, pleasure etc
Secondary reinforcement is where
Stimuli that acquire reinforcing properties through their association with primary reinforcers- e.g money, praise etc
Secondary reinforcement is a good example of how
Behaviour is often a mix of classical and operant conditioning
An example of secondary reinforcement being a good example of classical and operant conditioning is
In dog training, praise becomes a CS in place of UCS of food reward. This elicits the CR of salivation and excitement
Then praise can be used to operant condition behaviour instead of
Food
What is operant extinction?
Weakening and eventual disappearance of a behaviour that is no longer reinforced
Resistance to extinction is the degree to which
Non-reinforced responses persist- can vary greatly depending on how the response was initially acquired and level of reward/punishment
Immediate consequence to a behaviour is best
Especially for animal training
A delayed consequence still works but not so strongly
Better with people than animals as they can understand future consequences
Shaping is a complex or unlikely behaviour pattern that can be established in animals
By successive approximations to the desired response pattern
Chaining is conditioning several behaviours to happen
In succession and be dependent on a prior response
Shaping-B1-B2-B3-B4-B5-
Chaining
Operant generalisation is when the response will occur
With other antecedents that are similar to the one that was initially present during learning
Operant discrimination is when a response will be given to the learned antecedent
But not one that is markedly different
Operant discrimination has a general use in psychology
It enables researchers to ascertain whether an animal can actually tell the difference between 2 types of stimuli e.g colours, faces, sizes etc
Reinforcers occur at different
Frequencies in real life and this determines the strength of reinforcement
Continuous reinforcement is when
Every response of the desired nature is reinforced
Partial reinforcement is when
Only some of the desired responses are reinforces
With partial reinforcement, it can be
Ratio- certain % of responses are reinforced
Or
Interval- certain amount of time elapses before next reinforcement
With partial reinforcement it can also be
Fixed- reinforcement occurs after a fixed number of responses/ time interval
Or
Variable- reinforcement occurs after a random(ish) number of responses/ time interval
Although continuous reinforcement is the best schedule for learning
It also produces the quickest extinction
Partial reinforcement takes longer for strong learning to occur
But is also more resistant to extinction
Best for fast learning and resistance to extinction is to start with
Continuous reinforcement and when the behaviour is well established switch to a variable schedule that gradually becomes less frequent
Escape conditioning is when?
Animal learns a response that gets away from an unpleasant stimulus
Avoidance conditioning is when some antecedent predicts the onset of the unpleasant stimulus
Allowing the animal to avoid it via an appropriate behavioural response
Avoidance conditioning is very difficult to distinguish as there is no way of
Exposing the animal to the antecedent without the unpleasant stimulus occurring- think about phobias
