Lecture 3: Instrumental Learning Flashcards
What was Edward Lee Thorndike interested in? Give 3 points.
Animal intelligence. Whether animals show insight. He was dissatisfied with popular descriptions and lack of rigour.
What did Thorndike use to investigate shit?
A puzzle box with subject, release pedal and food
What patterns did Thorndike observe with his main experiment?
Trial and error.
The cat did not learn with ‘sudden insight’.
Instead he observed progressive improvement over many trials.
What is Thorndike’s 1911 Law of Effect?
If an organism does something in a particular situation that is met with satisfaction, then it is more likely that the organism will repeat that action the next time round when in the same situation.
How is the Law of effect generally explained? How would you characterise the effect?
what an organism does is strongly influenced by the immediate consequences of such behaviour in the past. It is a ‘robust’ effect.
Explain Free Trial Procedures. What is important to note?
The animal has an option to perform a certain act which is correct. The trial will terminate when the animal makes the desired response or after a certain period of time elapses. e.g. T-maze, rat runs to the end and has to decide left or right. Can learn where to go based on environmental signals along the chamber.
NB.
- they are single trial procedures.
- Measured objective dependent variables such as ‘time’ or ‘errors’
What is Free Operant Procedure? What is important to note?
Rat placed in a skinner box and is free to respond at any time. Usually the rat can press a lever for food (e.g food pellets). The delivery of food is contingent on a certain response, in this case the pressing of a lever.
NB the environment is loud so the rat does not get startled by any sudden noises.
What was radical behaviourism. Who invented and popularised it?
It was the notion that rejected anything unobservable in the study of mental processes, which proposed that all human psychology was reducible to relationships between stimuli and responses.
It was invented by Watson in 1913 and popularised by Skinner through the 90’s.
What is Instrumental Learning? How does it differ from Pavlov’s model of learning?
The behaviour is instrumental in determining what happens. i.e. the reward that is delivered at the end is only delivered if the subject behaves in a certain way.
Pavlov the subject has no control over events but responds to them, whereas Skinner/Thorndike the subject has to respond to control/determine the outcome.
What are reinforcers
Reinforcers are events that result in an increase in a particular behaviour.
What are different types of reinforcers?
Primary reinforcers - reinforcers which are intrinsically valued (e.g. give dog food)
Secondary reinforcers - reinforcers which derive their value from being accompanied or complimented by a primary reinforcer, but which can eventually be a reinforcer in itself (e.g. “good dog” or clicker with food)
–> do not need too interrupt dog with food everytime you want the desired response.
Social reinforcement - e.g. praise
What is shaping?
It is the principle of successive approximation.
Explain how one achieves it or how it occurs? What is important to note about shaping?
Reinforce behaviour which is closer and closer to the targeted behaviour, and gradually make the requirements/conditions of reinforcement more stringent and precise.
NB:
- Shaping can generate entirely novel behaviours. e.g. Bar pressing in rats, dog opening doors.
- if shaping did not achieve desired response, Skinner would say that the researcher did not enforce correctly
- occurs irrespective of whether one wants it to or not.
What are some famous examples of shaping
skinner, commissioned by the military to train pigeons, trained them to turn their heads to the left in order to receive food.
In our day you can get a R2 Fish school kit to condition instrumentally pet goldfish.
Draw a 4*4 table of response-consequence contingencies
see slide
