Lecture 2 - Operant Conditioning- Pos and Neg reinforcement Flashcards
What is a response?
A specific instance of a particular behaviour. The response is the measurable unit of anaylsis
What is a response measured in?
Repeatability and occurencecin time
What are the two types of response classes?
Topographical and functional
What is a topographical response class?
A collection of responses that share a common form (look the same)
What is a functional response class?
A collection of responses that dont look the same but result in same consequences.
What do we mean by environment?
Any physical event tht is not part of the behaviour and may include others parts of the organism.
What do we mean by stimulus/stimuli?
A particular aspect of the environment that affects behaviour. Behaviour is influenced primarily by stimulus change
What is a stimulus class?
A group of stimuli that share common elements, can be formal or functional
What is a formal stimulus class?
Where something about the way they look is similar, eg may be same colour
What is a functional stimulus class?
Where the outcomes of a stimulus are similar but not look totally different
What is operant conditioning?
Behaviour operates on the environment by obtaining consequences
What is a key feature of operant conditioning?
When it is arranged that occurences of a particular class of behaviour are followed by certain consequences then that class of behaviour will increase in frequency
Finish : operant conditioing is any behaviour whose frequency is determined by its…
Consequences
Appetitive stimuli =
Approach
Aversive stimuli=
Avoid
What is the three term contingency?
Antecedent - behaviour - consequence
What is a contingency?
A dependent relationship between a response class and one or more stimulus classes.
What is a consequence?
A stimulus that follows behaviour and affects the probablility that behaviour will occur again under similar circumstances.
What are the four basic consequences?
Postive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, pos punishment, neg punishment
What increases the likelihood of behaviour occuring again?
Reinforcement
What decreases the likelihood of behaviour occuring again?
Punishment
What is postitive reinforcement?
The addition of a stimulus after behaviour that increases the probability of that behaviour occuring again under similar circumstances n
What CANT reinforcement do?
Affect the response that it follows, it can only increase te frequency with which similar responses are emitted in the future.
In what three conditions can we say positive reinforcement has occured?
A reponse produces a stimulus, the reponse occurs more often and the response occurs more often because of the response-consequence relationship.
What does it mean to say ‘1 second is less effective than 0 seconds’?
That the immediacy of reinforcement is important
What is circular reasoning?
When an effect is mistaken as the cause
What is one of the things reinforcement depend on?
Motivating operations (estabolishing and abolishing operations)
What is automatic reinforcement?
Reinforcement that can occur without the mediation of others.
What are some examples of automatic reinforcement?
Scratching an itch, hair twirling (sensory)
What is an unconditioned reinforcer?
Reinforcement that does not depend on a relation to other reinforcers
What are some examples of unconditioned reinforcers?
Food, water, oxygen, warmth, sexual stimulation.
What is a conditioned reinforcer?
Something thats learnt to be reinforcing.
Should you make reinforcement easy to access at start of intervention?
Yes
Should you usevonly one kind of reinforcement or a variety?
A variety to maintain potent EO’s
Can response prompts be used with reinforcement?
Yes they should be
Wht should you do at the start of reinforcement schedule?
Reinforce every occurence of the behaviour
What is negative reinforcement?
The removal of a stimulus after a behaviour that results in an increase in the probability of that behaviour occuring again under similar circumstances.
What distinguishes between positive and negative reinforcement?
The stimulus change that occurs following a response
When can a distinction between stimulus change be ambigious?
Turning on a heater, is this producing heat or removing cold?
What is escape?
When a response terminates a stimulus which is present
What is avoidance?
When a reponse prevents or postpones the presentation of a stimulus.
Is this escape or avoidance? You are outside in the rain and you put up your umbrella?
Escape as you are escaping from the rain
Is this is escape or avoidance? You are inside and see its raining outside so put up ur umbrella before leaving the house?
Avoidance as u have avoided getting wet
How are positive and negative reinforcement similar?
They both produce an increase in responding via a stimulus change.
How are pos and neg reinforcement different?
The type of change that follows behaviour is different.
