Operant conditioning Flashcards
What is operant conditioning?
Conditioning that relies on consequences of past actions influencing future behaviour, resulting in an increase or decrease in voluntary behaviour
What is the law of effect?
Positive consequences have an effect on the likelihood of behaviour.
What did experiment did Skinner do with pigeons that linked to superstitious behaviour?
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
What are the five techniques of teaching new behaviour?
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
Is backwards or forwards chaining more effective?
Backwards, as it is closer to the obvious target.
What is a positive reinforcement?
Adding a stimulus, increasing the likelihood of the behaviour. eg. a piece of cake
What is a negative reinforcement?
Removing a stimulus, increasing the likelihood of the behaviour? eg. elimination of pain after taking panadol makes you more likely to take panadol
What is a positive punishment?
Adding a stimulus, decreasing the likelihood of the behaviour. eg. giving a child chores after they yell at you.
What is negative punishment?
Removing a stimulus, decreasing the behaviour. eg. taking a child’s video game away after they don’t do their chores.
What is bridging?
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.
What are the two schedules of reinforcement?
Continous (reinforcement occurs after each instance of behaviour)
Partial (reinforcement occurs after only some instances)
What are the two types of partial reinforcement? What are the subtypes?
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
What are the strongest to weakest partial reinforcement schedules?
Variable ratio, fixed ratio, variable interval, fixed interval
Why are the fixed schedules weaker than the interval schedules?
With the fixed ratio and fixed interval schedules, you can predict the outcomes
Which partial schedule is most resistant to extinction?
Variable ratio schedule, as it teaches persistence
Is continous punishment more effective than partial?
Yes
Is punishment or reinforcement more effective?
Reinforcement is more effective, however this is circumstance dependent.
What are the 7 principles to punish effectively?
- 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
What are three reward variables?
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
What is the law of diminishing returns, and what reward variable does this relate to?
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.
How does the size of the reward impact acquisition and extinction rates?
Larger reward - faster acquisition and faster extinction
What did Skinner argue as being the basis of operant conditioning?
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.
