The heyday of behaviourism: operant learning

Question 1

What did Edward L. Thorndike study?

Answer 1

‘Human-like’ attributes in animals, explained in terms of reflexes and connections

Question 2

What was Thorndike’s idea on human psychology?

Answer 2

> In humans, ‘mental life’ requires the assumption of internal events
-> mediated the stimulus-response relationship

> Mediation = key to cognitive psychology
- cognitive processes are mediational

Question 3

What does the behaviourism vs. cognitivism debate on?

Answer 3

> The nature of the mediating events between observable events (input, output)

> Wether they are necessary for a comprehensive model of the mind

Question 4

What did Thorndike use as a measure of intelligence?

Is it contested?

Answer 4

Ability to learn as measure of intelligence

• historically challenged by later behaviourists

Question 5

What are Thorndike’s puzzle boxes?

How do they work?

Answer 5

Puzzle box to study learning:

• hungry cat in cage has to escape to fet the food placed out of reach
• > how long does it take the cat to do it?
• at one point, the cat will push the lever that opens the cage door
• with repeated trials, animal learns to push the lever to get the food

Question 6

What is Thorndike’s process behind his puzzle boxes?

What is his subsequent learning theory?

Answer 6

Trial and error learning

-> Connectionism

Question 7

What is the type of learning Thorndike set out, that differs from classical conditioning?

Answer 7

Operant / Contingency (SR) learning:
- association of stimulus-response- outcome
(rather than simple pairing)

• when a specific response is made contingent to a specific stimulus being present

Question 8

Was Thorndike’s operant learning in experiments with animals limited to simple behaviours?

Answer 8

No, experiments from Thorndike showed animals could learn complex behaviours with same operant learning

Question 9

What did Thorndike emphasise, which represented a fundamental step in behaviourist thinking?

Answer 9

Importance of the Effect:
> Critical role of the consequences of the response for the organism and in future behaviour

> Dissatisfaction -> less likely to repeat behaviour
Satisfaction -> more likely to repeat behaviour

=> law of effect

Question 10

What is Thorndike’s concept of 3-Term contingency?

Answer 10

1. Situation (stimulus) - antecedent
2. Response
3. Effect - consequence

Question 11

What was the work of BF Skinner on behaviourism?

Answer 11

Defined and codified behaviourism

• standardised the tools
• defined its language

Question 12

Why was BF Skinner more than an experimental psychologist?

Answer 12

He applied principles of behaviourism:

• to child development
• inter-individual differences
• education
• the criminal justice system
• and its wider impact in shaping society/culture

Question 13

What is Skinner’s categorisation system?

Answer 13

Describes types of consequences:

• increase of behaviour -> reinforcement
• decrease of behaviour -> punishment

Question 14

What is Skinner’s meaning of positive and negative in his categorisation system?

Answer 14

> Positive (reinforcement/punishment) = add, present, provide something

> Negative (reinforcement/punishment) = remove, take away something

Question 15

What is a positive reinforcement (Skinner)?

Answer 15

Stimulus is added/provided contingent on the behaviour
- leading to an increase of behaviour in the future

-> add to increase

Question 16

What is a negative reinforcement (Skinner)?

Answer 16

Stimulus is removed contingent on the behaviour
- leading to an increase of behaviour in the future

-> remove to increase

Question 17

What is a positive punishment (Skinner)?

Answer 17

Stimulus is added/provided contingent on the behaviour
- leading to a decrease of behaviour in the future

-> add to decrease

Question 18

What is a negative punishment (Skinner)?

Answer 18

Stimulus is removed contingent on the behaviour
- leading to a decrease of behaviour in the future

• remove to decrease

Question 19

Why do we have to be careful about how we understand and use terms in psychology (e.g. “reinforcement”, “punishment”)?

Answer 19

They have precise technical meanings and similar but often different everyday usage

e.g. the act of fining as retribution for a crime is seen as punishment by behaviourists only if the fine lead to a reduction of the offending behaviour in the future

Question 20

What are primary reinforcers?

Answer 20

Natural, unconditioned reinforcers

- adding or taking away any of the primary reinforcers is a powerful determinant of learning and future behaviour

Question 21

What does the power of primary reinforcers rely on?

Answer 21

Context dependent
- on the state of the organism at a time

e.g. same food will influence behaviour more if animal deprived/hungry vs. satiated

Question 22

What are secondary reinforcers?

Answer 22

Conditioned reinforcers
- that have acquired reinforcing properties by association with another reinforcer (often primary)

e.g. ‘Little Albert’

Question 23

Do primary and secondary reinforcers provide different results in animal behaviour studies?

Answer 23

They have similar properties, and show the same effects of deprivation and satiety

Question 24

What is Skinner’s box?

Answer 24

Puzzle box - operant chamber

• operant learning
• reduces behaviour to simple parameters: speed, intensity, duration

Question 25

What are the common features of a Skinner box?

Answer 25

> Stimulus (e.g. light, speaker) > Response (e.g. lever) > Reinforcer or punisher (e.g. food, electric shock) > Controller

Question 26

What do reinforcement schedules refer to in behavioural psychology?

Answer 26

Relationship of contingency between behaviour and reinforcer/punisher, in term of how and when it is delivered

Question 27

What are the two types of reinforcement schedules?

Answer 27

1. Continuous reinforcement schedule (CRF) - where reinforcement occurs every time a response is made 2. Intermittent (partial) reinforcement schedule - reinforcement occurs only after some responses

Question 28

What are the parameters that define the main types of intermittent reinforcement schedules?

Answer 28

> Time/quantity: ratio or interval > Certainty/predictability: fixed or variable

Question 29

What are the 4 types of intermittent reinforcement schedules?

Answer 29

1. Fixed ratio (FR): every nth response exactly 2. Variable ratio (VR): every nth response on average 3. Fixed interval (FI): response every t minutes exactly 4. Variable interval (VI): response every t minutes on average

Question 30

What does a reinforcement schedule influence?

Answer 30

- Learning time - Intensity and pattern of responding - Persistence of learnt behaviour

Question 31

What is the shaping process in operant learning?

Answer 31

Early in learning, it is usually necessary to have a continuous reinforcement schedule or one with a high probability of reinforcement -> the initial trial and error response is reinforced and likely to be repeated - once learned, the ratio can be slowly increased across trials so that reinforcement happens less and less while maintaining the responding

Question 32

What is the characteristic of the behaviour during fixed ratio reinforcement schedules?

Answer 32

'Staircase pattern': - bursts of responding: steep part of the trace until reinforcement is obtained, at which point the response stops (trace shows horizontal line) - same pattern for all animals during fixed ratio schedules

Question 33

What is the characteristic of the behaviour during fixed interval reinforcement schedules?

Answer 33

'Scallop shaped': - once animal has learned the interval, they tend to stop or slow down the rate of responding after obtaining the predictably timed reward - start responding more quickly as duration increases towards the end of expected interval

Question 34

What characterises the behaviour during variable reinforcement schedules?

Answer 34

- Continuous behaviour - Rate of responding gets slower as interval between reinforcements is larger, or the higher the number of responses needed on average to get a reward

Question 35

During variable reinforcement schedules, why is the behaviour continuous, even when animal has just obtained a reward?

Answer 35

Because of uncertainty | - it's adaptive for the animal to keep responding just in case

Question 36

During variable reinforcement schedules, why is the rate of responding slower as the interval between reinforcements is larger, or the number of responses needed on average to get a reward is higher?

Answer 36

Adaptive logic: - e.g. if the reward is food, animal adjusts the amount of energy it uses by varying the rate of responding -> makes sure there is a gain in energy > to energy spent (we don't assume this process is conscious)

Question 37

What happens when the response stops being reinforced in reinforcement schedules?

Answer 37

Extinction process

Question 38

What is the pattern of extinction in fixed reinforcement schedules?

Answer 38

> We typically see a continuation in behaviour rather than an immediate stop - even though it's more obvious when expected reward is not delivered (than in variable schedules) > Pre-extinction burst > Fixed schedules and variable ratio schedules have similar extinction pattern

Question 39

What is a pre-extinction burst during reinforcement schedules?

Answer 39

Rate of responding increases before eventually stopping

Question 40

What is the pattern of extinction in variable reinforcement schedules? Why?

Answer 40

> Behaviour continues much longer than in fixed schedules - because there's the degree of uncertainty about when the next reward is expected - animal is less able to determine wether it's an unusually large pause or wether behaviour is no longer reinforced > The larger the mean time between responses, the larger the behaviour will continue before it starts to extinguish

Question 41

What is the intermittent/partial reinforcement extinction effect?

Answer 41

Intermittent (partial) reinforcement - on fixed or variable schedule - is more resistant to extinction then when the animal has been previously continuously reinforced at every response

Question 42

When the response stops being reinforced, why does the animal's behaviour extinguishes?

Answer 42

It's not useful or adaptive to respond to a stimulus that did not produce a reward (reinforcer)

Question 43

After a response that has stopped to be reinforced is reinforced once again, why does the animal's previous behaviour is quickly reestablished and much quicker than it took to learn originally?

Answer 43

The learned association remained within the animal's learned repertoire and was available to be used when the circumstances changed - similar to Ebbinghaus' use of 'saving' scores, where participants had not forgotten the associations within informations and could recall even after a month