Lecture 4- Operant Conditioning

Question 0

What is the process of shaping in operant conditioning? Give an example.

Answer 0

Shaping is process of reinforcing at behaviour that resembles the target behaviour. Eg pigeon shaped up do a counter-clockwise turn

Question 1

What was thorndikes early experiment on operant conditioning?

Answer 1

Cats were placed into puzzle boxes and had to find their way out by pulling a string, standing on a platform and turning a latch on the door. Results indicated that cats got quicker at performing this with experiences.

Question 2

What did type of behaviour did skinner find when random behaviours were reinforced? What’s some real life examples of this?

Answer 2

Skinner found superstitious behaviours in the animals such that they would perform behaviours that they think were eliciting the stimulus. Lucky charms, closing lift doors

Question 3

What is chaining and backward chaining? Give an example.

Answer 3

Chaining is the process of reinforcing smaller behaviours that lead up to a large behaviour. Backward chaining is when the process begins at the end behaviour and goes to beginning behaviour. An example of chaining is toilet training - letting mummy know need to pee is reinforced first. An example of backward chaining - taking of a sweater begin by pulling sweater off head then pulling sweater of head and shoulder

Question 4

What is skinners 3 term contingency that make up operant conditioning?

Answer 4

1. The discriminative stimulus (cue for behaviour)
2. The operant response (the behaviour)
3. The outcome (reinforcer or punisher that follows)

Question 5

If a behaviour is reinforced or punished will it predict the future behaviour?

Answer 5

If it is reinforced it will

Question 6

What is an example of a positive reinforcement?

Answer 6

Something is given in order to promote the continuation of the behaviour. Eg. A sticker

Question 7

What is an example of positive punishment ?

Answer 7

Something is given to discouragement the behaviour from occurring eg. A smack

Question 8

What is an example of negative reinforcement ?

Answer 8

Something is taken away to promote the continuation of the behaviour eg. No homework

Question 9

What is an example of negative punishment ?

Answer 9

Something is taken away to discourage the continuation of a behaviour eg. Time out (as in time is taken away) maybe Xbox taken away better example

Question 10

What is the most effective reinforcement or punishment?

Answer 10

Reinforcement.

Question 11

How do you punish effectively?

Answer 11

No escape 
As intense as possible 
Continuous schedule 
No delay 
Over a short period of time 
No subsequent reinforcement

Question 12

What are some consequences of punishment?

Answer 12

Modelling bad behaviours like aggression/violence
Fear
Learned helplessness

Question 13

What is a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 13

A response every nth behaviour

Question 14

What is a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 14

A response is given approximately every nth behaviour

Question 15

What Is a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 15

A response is given after an nth amount of time

Question 16

What is a variable interval schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 16

A response is given approximately after an nth amount of time

Question 17

Draw what the 4 schedule of reinforcement’s would look like on a graph.

Answer 17

VR (straight line so continuous behaviour, quickest learning)
FR (stepped learning, second quickest)
VI (straight line, continuous behaviour, 3rd quickest)
FI (scalloped so behaviour begins when time is estimated for stimulus to occur, slowest learning)

Question 18

What is the most effective schedule of reinforcement ? Why?

Answer 18

Variable ratio- because the organism consistently elicits the behaviour in hope it will be rewarded eg. Gambling, nagging

Question 19

What is the most effective schedule of punishment ?

Answer 19

Continuous - know punishment WILL occur

Question 20

What three other variables affect operant conditioning (other than schedules):

Answer 20

Drive - how much the organism wants to achieve the goal (ie. starving so strong drive to get food)
Size- the bigger the reward, the better (aka quickly learnt)
Delay- if there is a delay, hard to know what behaviour is being reinforced/ punished

Question 21

What is the law if diminishing return?

Answer 21

As the level of reinforcement increases, the response level will begin to die off once the level of reinforcement isn’t too desirable anymore

Question 22

In the wager up between long term punishment or short term reward, what do people prefer? Give an example in real life.

Answer 22

People prefer short term reward ie chocolate over a long term punishment ie getting fat

Question 23

What is stimulus control? Give an example.

Answer 23

Stimulus control is when a stimulus or a cue tells you what to do in a given situation. The presence of the stimulus makes the behaviour happen, the absence of the stimulus prevents the behaviour. Eg traffic lights- green=go

Question 24

What is stimulus generalisation? Eg?

Answer 24

Stimulus generalisation is the tendency to produce the behaviour for stimuli that are similar to the target stimulus. Eg. When first learning to train dogs may jump to the cue “up” but also to similar sounding words like “guh”, “ah” etc

Question 25

What is stimulus discrimination? Eg?

Answer 25

Stimulus discrimination is process of discriminating the target stimuli with other stimuli so that the behaviour is only produced for the target stimuli. Eg. The dog will discriminate between “up”, “guh” and “ah” to only jump to “up”