Operant Conditioning

Question 1

What are voluntary behaviours

Answer 1

When everyday behaviours are not elicited by a specific stimulus- the creature can choose whether or not to engage in behaviours

Question 2

What is research on operant conditioning

Answer 2

An effort to discover general principles that can predict what nonreflexive behaviours a creature will produce and under what conditions

Question 3

What is escape latency

Answer 3

The measurement of time it took the animal to escape on each trial.

Question 4

What did Thorndike attribute the improvement to escape to?

Answer 4

The progressive strengthening of a s-r (stimulus response) connection

Question 5

What is the law of effect

Answer 5

When an animal creates a situation eventually ending in satisfaction, the animal will be more firmly connected with the situation so it reoccurs.
The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.

Question 6

How do we know what is satisfying or discomforting according to thorndike?

Answer 6

When an animal does things to attain and preserve a situation, it is satisfying. When it is discomforting or annoying, the animal avoids.

Question 7

What occurred in the experiment completed by Guthrie and Horton; Evidence for a mechanical strengthening process.

Answer 7

Cats in a puzzle box: a pole in the centre of the chamber had only to be tipped in any direction to open the door. A camera photographed the cat at the same instant that the door opened. At first each cats behaviour at the movement of reinforcement varied greatly from trial to trial. But after a few tials each settled on a particular method of manipulating the pole.

Question 8

What is the stop action principle

Answer 8

The occurrence of the reinforcer serves to stop the animals ongoing behavour and strengthen the association between the situation (puzzle box) and those behaviours that were occurring at the moment of reinforcement. The specific bodily position and muscle movements at the moment of reinforcement will have a higher probability of occuring on the next trial. It will produce a second reinforcer when subjects repeat this on the next trial.

Question 9

Why is Gurthrie and Horton’s view of the specific set of muscle movements and bodily positions strictly incorrect?

Answer 9

Because a certain amount of variability in bodily position from trial to trial is evident. It provides a means by which new behaviour can gradually be developed.

Question 10

What is the procedure that makes use of behavioural variability?

Answer 10

Shaping or the method of successive approximations.

Question 11

What is a conditioned reinforcer?

Answer 11

A previously neutral stimulus that has acquired capacity to strengthen responses because it can be paired with food or another primary reinforcer.

Question 12

What was the experiment completed by Isaacs for reinforcement?

Answer 12

40 year old patients who was schizophrenic had not spoken since becoming institutionalised. Gum became reinforcer.

Question 13

What is instrumental conditioning?

Answer 13

In instrumental conditioning procedures whether or not

a significant stimulus or event occurs depends of the behaviour of the organism.

Question 14

In Thorndike’s experiment, what did the subject do in the chamber?

Answer 14

Subject would take a long time to escape, exploring the chamber in a haphazard way.
It would eventually perform the response that opened the door which was a pure accident.

Question 15

In psychology, what has a satisfying state of affairs been replaced by?

Answer 15

A reinforcer

Question 16

Whats another phrase for the law of effect?

Answer 16

Principle of positive reinforcement

Question 17

What was the conclusion reached by Thorndike?

Answer 17

That during the course of instrumental conditioning an association comes to be established between the response and the environmental stimuli…the reinforcer serves to strengthen or stamp in this association but is not part of that association.

Question 18

In gutherie’s cat process, what happens to the specific bodily position and muscle movements at the moment of reinforcement?

Answer 18

They will have a higher probability of occurring on the next trial.

Question 19

In gutherie’s cat experient, what happens when the subject repeats the specific bodily and muscle movements at the time of reinforcement?

Answer 19

It will produce a second reinforcer, further strengthening the Stimulus Response association.

Question 20

What should eventually result in Gutherie’s cat experiment?

Answer 20

Should eventually produce one S-R connection that is much stronger than any other that its particular pattern of response will occur with high probability.

Question 21

In lever pressing shaping, what is a common solution to providing a reinforcer straight after the correct response is made?

Answer 21

To turn the sound of a pellet dispenser into a conditioned reinforcer… this is a previously neutral stimulus that has acquired capacity to strengthen responses because it can be paired with food or another primary reinforcer.

Question 22

How do you reinforce variability inherent in behaviour in regards to a rat pressing a lever that is far off the floor?

Answer 22

Wait until the rat is just below the lever then reinforce any detectable upward head movement…then go on to demand greater upward movements until the animal is bringing its head close to the lever.
The next step might be to require some contact with the lever, then contact with one forepaw, then some downward movement of the lever and so on, until the rat has learned to make a full lever press.

Question 23

Who is the father of operant conditioning?

Answer 23

BF Skinner

Question 24

What is operant conditioning a variation of?

Answer 24

Thorndike’s instrumental conditioning

Question 25

What was the scientific question that Skinner sought answers to?

Answer 25

What controls the frequency of emitted behaviours (those that occur without any readily identifiable eliciting stimulus)?

Question 26

What is a discrete trial procedure?

Answer 26

When a trial begins each time a subject was placed in the puzzle box, and the subject could make only one response on each trial.

Question 27

How did Skinner modify the puzzle box to make it a skinner box?

Answer 27

Skinners modification (Skinner box) to the puzzle box was to make use of a response the subject could perform repeatedly without experimenter intervention.

Question 28

What are free operant procedures?

Answer 28

Procedures that make use of lever pressing, key pecking or similar responses are called free operant procedures to distinguish them from the discrete trial procedures of the puzzle box or maze.

Question 29

What s the opposite of discrete trial procedures?

Answer 29

Free operant procedures

Question 30

What is a contingency?

Answer 30

a contingency is a rule that states that some event will occur if and only if another event occurs.

Question 31

What are the three components in the operant conditioning contingency?

Answer 31

1. The context in which a response occurs (stimuli preceding a response)
2. The response itself
3. The stimuli that follow the response (the reinforcer)

Question 32

What form did Skinner think that contingency took in operant conditioning?

Answer 32

In the presence of a specific stimulus (often called a discriminative stimulus) the reinforcer will occur if and only if the operant response occurs.

Question 33

What are the three components of the three term contingency?

Answer 33

Discriminative stimulus, response and reinforcer.

Question 34

What is acquisition in operant conditioning?

Answer 34

Acquisition of an operant response is usually a gradual process involving procedures in which a reinforcing outcome is presented.

Question 35

What is extinction in operant conditioning?

Answer 35

Extinction involves no longer following the operant response with a reinforcer….responses weaken and eventually disappear.

Question 36

What is the first step in using reinforcement effectively?

Answer 36

Identifying a suitable reinforcer

Question 37

What is a primary reinforcer?

Answer 37

Stimulus that naturally strengthens any response it follows…requires no special training to be effective.
The most obvious candidates are stimuli that are necessary for survival, such as food and water.
However, not all reinforcers are necessary for survival (not in the simple physical sense that food is)…

Question 38

What is visual stimulation?

Answer 38

An example of a sensory reinforcer characterised by the ability to provide us with variety in our perceptual environment.

Question 39

What are secondary reinforcers?

Answer 39

Secondary or conditioned reinforcers acquire reinforcing properties through experience.
Secondary reinforcers generally acquire their reinforcing properties through pairing with primary reinforcers

Question 40

What are Social Reinforcers

Answer 40

Stimuli whose reinforcing properties derive uniquely from the behaviour of other members of the same species. One reason for treating these separately is that they are a blend of primary and secondary reinforcers. For example, an adult’s smile can reinforce behaviour in infants, suggesting smiling is innately reinforcing.

Question 41

Why does a delay of reinforcement have an affect on learning

Answer 41

Like pigeons we seem to prefer immediate rewards, and the longer we have to wait the more they lose attractiveness.