trail and error learning

Question 1

what is trial and error learning?

Answer 1

often referred to instrumental learning, trial and error learning involves trying a number of different behaviours (exploration) and when the correct response is finally achieved, it is rewarding for the organism ( reinforcement)

Question 2

what is the law of effect?

Answer 2

the ‘law of effect’ that states that behaviour becomes controlled by its consequences – if it feels good, we do it again; if it feels bad (or has no outcome at all), we don’t. This law is now accepted as the definition of operant conditioning

Question 3

what is the IV and DV of Thorndike’s experiment?

Answer 3

IV: trial and error learning

DV: time needed to escape from the box

Question 4

what is the hypothesis of this study?

Answer 4

it was predicted that trial and error learning through a hungry cat being placed in a puzzle box with the reward of food outside, will eventually result in a decrease of the cats time in seconds taken to escape the box and retrive the food by 50% from the first trial to the last out of 50 trials

Question 5

what type of data is collected from this study

Answer 5

quantitative