Operant/instrumental

Question 1

what is instrumental conditioning

Answer 1

associating an action/response with a biologically significant stimulus/event

Question 2

describe thorndikes famous procedure

Answer 2

discrete trial
cat in puzzle box - food out of reach
come to solutions to reach food progressively faster

Question 3

describe skinners famous procedure

Answer 3

free operant behaviour

rat in skinner box - food presentation conditioned on lever press and progressively increase lever pressing behaviour

Question 4

what is a discriminative stimulus

Answer 4

predicts when a response will be rienforced

learn to exhibit the behavior in the presence of the discriminative stimulus

Question 5

what is different about the responses in operant conditioning compared to classical

Answer 5

in operant, the responses are not necessarily innate/biological
ie lever pressing, key pecking etc

Question 6

describe sara shettleworth 70s

Answer 6

certain responses operantly conditioned better to certain stimulus
hamsters conditioned to associated feeding with scrabbling but not with face washing or scratching

Question 7

describe thorndikes law of effect

Answer 7

behaviours with positive consequences are repeated
behaviours with negative consequences are not repeated
pos rienforcement - repeat
pos punishment - avoid/escape
neg rienforcement - repeat
neg punishment - decrease

Question 8

define reinforcement

Answer 8

leads to a change in the strength of a behaviour due to its consequence

Question 9

describe catonia 1998 guidelines for op conditioning

Answer 9

the behaviour must have a consequence and therefore must increase in strength. this increase in strength must be due primarily to its consequence

Question 10

define pos rienforcement

Answer 10

get something good so repeat

ie rat get food for pressing lever

Question 11

define neg rienforcement

Answer 11

take away bad so repeat

ie pressing lever remove electric shock

Question 12

defne pos punishment

Answer 12

get given bad so do not repeat

ie pressing lever cause shock

Question 13

define neg punishment

Answer 13

remove something good so do not repeat

ie press lever removes food

Question 14

what types of rienforcers are there

Answer 14

natural
contrived
primary
secondary

Question 15

define a natural rienforcer

Answer 15

behaviour leads to a natural consequence ie eating choc = happier

Question 16

define contrived rienforcer

Answer 16

behaviour leads to an arranged consequence to modify its frequency ie exchange of goods

Question 17

define primary rienforcers

Answer 17

naturally rienforcing
ie food, water, sex
small impact on human learning
quickly become satiation making ineffective

Question 18

define secondary rienforcers

Answer 18

dependent on association with primary
ie money buy food
more effective as doesnt lead to satiation

Question 19

define higher/second order conditoning

Answer 19

stimulus and consequence learnt for the basis of learning with another stimulus
ie secondary rienforcers learned through association with primary

Question 20

describe yde 1976 and higher order conditioning

Answer 20

group 1 learnt that tone = food
group 2 do not learn association as tone and food random
BOTH - lever press = tone
group 1 - increase in lever press to play tone to present food
group 2 - did not learn lever press = tone

as probability of rienforcer response becomes

Question 21

define contiguity

Answer 21

relationship between cs and us
occurance of stimulus leading to response
ie if delayed, then other factors intervene, attention lost and not conditioned

Question 22

define blocking

Answer 22

dont learn new stimulus signalling an unconditioned stimulus - new stimulus is presented simultaneously with a stimulus that is already effective as a signal
cs =cr
cs+ns = cr
ns = no response
stimulus is already effective in predicting response

Question 23

give and example of blocking

Answer 23

conditioning a tone with a shock
cs (tone) + ns (light) + us (shock) = ur (fear)
ns (light) + cs (tone) = ur (fear)
ns (light) = no response

but ns (tone) + ns (light) + us (shock) = ur (fear) - both ns are novel so both learnt to produce fear for consequence of shock

Question 24

describe extinction

Answer 24

strength of response diminishes over time as learn that stimulus no longer leads to a response
shows that associations are felxible
important to adapt to change

Question 25

describe motivation as impact on learning

Answer 25

associations can be strengthened if motivated to get the response ie hungry so want food

Question 26

what other factors are also influential on learning

Answer 26

genes
cognition
arousal

Question 27

Describe shaping

Answer 27

Successively reinforce behaviours leading up to the target behaviour
-process you go through to perform the behaviour