Operant conditioning

Question 1

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 1

Conditioning that relies on consequences of past actions influencing future behaviour, resulting in an increase or decrease in voluntary behaviour

Question 2

What is the law of effect?

Answer 2

Positive consequences have an effect on the likelihood of behaviour.

Question 3

What did experiment did Skinner do with pigeons that linked to superstitious behaviour?

Answer 3

Skinner randomly rewarded pigeons (eg. every 15 seconds), and found they repeatedly performed distinct behaviours between food presentations - can create idiosyncratic behaviour
→ reflecting apparent belief that we need to perform a certain behaviour to achieve a certain outcome, even if it is not causally linked

Question 4

What are the five techniques of teaching new behaviour?

Answer 4

Shaping (scan and capture) - keep rewarding closer and closer behaviours until they perform the target behaviour.

Baiting - use an animal’s desire for food to get them to do what you want.

Mimicry - Animal copies sounds and actions, you reinforce them when they do

Sculpting - make them physically do the behaviour, then reinforce when they do.

Chaining - linking multiple actions together - teach the actions independently, then string the behaviours together

Question 5

Is backwards or forwards chaining more effective?

Answer 5

Backwards, as it is closer to the obvious target.

Question 6

What is a positive reinforcement?

Answer 6

Adding a stimulus, increasing the likelihood of the behaviour. eg. a piece of cake

Question 7

What is a negative reinforcement?

Answer 7

Removing a stimulus, increasing the likelihood of the behaviour? eg. elimination of pain after taking panadol makes you more likely to take panadol

Question 8

What is a positive punishment?

Answer 8

Adding a stimulus, decreasing the likelihood of the behaviour. eg. giving a child chores after they yell at you.

Question 9

What is negative punishment?

Answer 9

Removing a stimulus, decreasing the behaviour. eg. taking a child’s video game away after they don’t do their chores.

Question 10

What is bridging?

Answer 10

Teaching an animal to associate a stimulus with the reward. eg. a seal trainer uses a whistle (associated with food) to get the seal to do tricks - example of classical conditioning.

Question 11

What are the two schedules of reinforcement?

Answer 11

Continous (reinforcement occurs after each instance of behaviour)
Partial (reinforcement occurs after only some instances)

Question 12

What are the two types of partial reinforcement? What are the subtypes?

Answer 12

Ratio (associated with instances of behaviour)
- fixed ratio - every x instances reinforced
- variable - random instances reinforced

Interval (associated with time of behaviour)
- fixed interval - behaviour reinforced after x time
- variable interval - behaviour reinforced after random time intervals

Question 13

What are the strongest to weakest partial reinforcement schedules?

Answer 13

Variable ratio, fixed ratio, variable interval, fixed interval

Question 14

Why are the fixed schedules weaker than the interval schedules?

Answer 14

With the fixed ratio and fixed interval schedules, you can predict the outcomes

Question 15

Which partial schedule is most resistant to extinction?

Answer 15

Variable ratio schedule, as it teaches persistence

Question 16

Is continous punishment more effective than partial?

Answer 16

Yes

Question 17

Is punishment or reinforcement more effective?

Answer 17

Reinforcement is more effective, however this is circumstance dependent.

Question 18

What are the 7 principles to punish effectively?

Answer 18

• no escape
• as intense as possible
• continous schedule
• no delay between behaviour and punishment
• over a short period of time
• no subsequent reinforcement of negative behaviour
• reinforce alternate, good behaviour

Question 19

What are three reward variables?

Answer 19

Drive - reinforcement depends on how much the animal wants the reinforcer

Size of reward - larger reinforcers are more effective, however also the quickest to extinguish.

Delay - time between behaviour and reinforcement
- immediate reinforcer more effective - need to link the reinforcer with the action

Question 20

What is the law of diminishing returns, and what reward variable does this relate to?

Answer 20

As the level of reinforcement increases, the level of responding also increases - but then eventually plateaus (exponential growth). This relates to the size of the reward.

Question 21

How does the size of the reward impact acquisition and extinction rates?

Answer 21

Larger reward - faster acquisition and faster extinction

Question 22

What did Skinner argue as being the basis of operant conditioning?

Answer 22

Discriminative stimulus - the antecedent stimulus that has stimulus control over behavior because the behavior was reliably reinforced in the presence of that stimulus in the past
* it is important to learn to differentiate/ discriminate the stimulus
* when a child does their school work when the teacher is in the room, but not when they teacher has left the room

The operant response - the behaviour, eg. the dog sits

The outcome - the consequence (reinforcer/ punishment that follows), eg. the owner gives the dog a treat.