Download Operant Conditioning

LEARNING UNIT STUDY GUIDES
OPERANT CONDITIONING
a) Operant Conditioning
-Operant Conditioning: Having a behavior be enforced or diminished by any type of
reinforcement or enforcer.
b) Skinner’s Experiments
-Elaborated Edward L. Thorndike’s Law of Effect
-Law of Effect: the idea that if behaviors are followed by rewards they are likely to reoccur, vs. if behaviors are followed by punishments, they aren’t likely to re-occur
-Operant Chamber (Skinner Box): a chamber that contains a bar or key that an animal can
manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar
pressing or key pecking.
-Reinforcement: a repetitive action that can enforce a repeating response
c) Shaping Behavior
-Shaping: Choosing specific reinforcers to guide behavior towards the desired behavior
d) Types of Reinforcers
-Positive reinforcements: when a desirable stimulus is added
-Ex: When a kid does their homework, they are given a lollipop
-Negative reinforcements: when a negative stimulus is taken away
-Ex: Turning off your alarm to stop the beeping
-Positive Reinforcer: is a reward that occurs after a reaction that increases the likelihood of
the action reoccurring
-Ex: You volunteer to answer a question in class, you get the right answer and your
teacher rewards you with a piece of candy
-Negative Reinforcer: something that is taken away as a result of a behavior, and will
reoccur because it was a favorable outcome
-Ex: Drying your hands off with a towel after you wash them, result is that the water is
gone from hands
-Primary Reinforcers: biological reinforcers, that comes naturally to organisms
-Ex: A dog is given dinner after they hear the dinner bell
-Conditioned Reinforcers: when a stimulus is strengthens and reinforcers set behaviors
through the learned primary reinforcer
-Ex: Telling your dog to sit, and rewarding it with a treat (Treat=Food=Primary
reinforcer)
e) Reinforcement Schedules
-Reinforcement Schedules: a tool that allows you to control the timing and frequency of
a reinforcer in order to see desired behavior
-Continuous reinforcement: Constantly reinforcing a behavior
-Partial (intermittent) reinforcement: reinforcing a response only part of the time. Result
in slower development of a response, but much greater resistance to extinction.
-Fixed-ratio schedules: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only
after a specified number of responses
-Variable-ratio schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an
unpredictable number of responses
-Fixed-interval schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after
a specified time has elapsed
-Variable-interval schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at
random time intervals
f) Punishment
-Punisher: any type of consequence/punishment that decreases the likelihood of a
response recurring
-Ex: spraying a dog with a spray bottle after exhibiting bad behavior
-Four Major Drawbacks of punishment:
Punishments are only suppressed, not forgotten
Punishments teach discrimination among situations
Punishment can teach fear
Physical punishment can/may increase aggression by modeling aggression
as a way to cope with problems
BIOLOGY AND COGNITIONS EFFECT ON CONDITIONING
1) Biological Constraints on Conditioning
a) Limits on Classical Conditioning
i)
An animal’s biology can restrict or expand its ability to be conditioned.
(1) Proposed by John Garcia.
(2) Supports Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
(a) Conditioning is strengthened if the CS is relevant to an
animal’s biology, like something associated with sexual
activity.
b) Limits on Operant Conditioning
i)
Similarly, associations that are natural to the organism will be stronger.
(1) For example, if you were training a pigeon to avoid a shock,
having one flap their wings to obtain food would result in weaker
conditioning than if you had them peck to obtain food, because
this is a natural motion, the beak is associated with eating already.
2) Cognition’s Influence on Conditioning
a) Cognition includes our thoughts, perceptions and expectations.
b) Cognitive Processes and Classical Conditioning
i)
Predictability matters, the more predictable a stimulus is, the stronger the
response.
ii)
Positive and negative associations can affect our associations.
(1) If the same character is shown with ice cream or brussel sprouts,
people tend to like the one shown with ice cream more.
c) Cognitive Processes and Operant Conditioning
i)
ii)
Latent learning is a type of learning that occurs regardless, we just don’t
see it until a reward or punishment is at stake.
(1) For example, rats produced a cognitive map, a mental image of
their surroundings, while put through a maze but did not go
through it as quickly and efficiently as possible until offered a food
reward.
Two types of motivation:
(1) Intrinsic: Wanting to act for your own benefit.
(2) Extrinsic: Wanting to act to receive a reward or avoid a
punishment.
LEARNING BY OBSERVATION
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Observational learning: Learning by watching and observing others
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Modeling: we learn our native languages and various other specific behaviors by
observing and imitating others
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Mirror neuron: Frontal Lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing
certain actions or when observing anything doing so. The brain's mirroring of another’s
action may enable imitation and empathy
○ Neural basis
■ Imitation is widespread
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Applications of observation
○ Prosocial model
■ Prosocial effects-good outcomes
■ Consistency with words/actions is key
○ Antisocial effects
■ Environmental
■ Genes
Classical Conditioning
● Classical Conditioning
○ Occurs when a neutral stimulus signals an unconditioned stimulus and it begins
to produce a response that anticipates an unconditioned stimulus
● Learning
○ A permanent change in behavior due to past experiences
■ Associative Learning
● The brain naturally connects events that occur in sequence
○ Ex: We learn to associate two stimuli (See lightning and
anticipate thunder)
● Components of Classical Conditioning
○ Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
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■ Stimulus that automatically and naturally triggers a response
■ Flowers that triggers sneezing is an unconditioned stimulus
○ Unconditioned Response (UCR)
■ Unlearned and natural occurring response to the UCS
■ Ex: Sneezing due to smelling flowers
○ Conditioned Stimulus
■ After being associated with the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned
stimulus comes to trigger the conditioned response
○ Conditioned Response
■ Learned response to a previously neutral stimulus
Acquisition
○ The first stage of classical conditioning
○ The neutral stimulus pairs with the unconditioned stimulus which causes the
neutral stimulus to elicit a conditioned response
Extinction
○ When the CR (conditioned response) disappears
○ Happens when the UCS doesn't follow a conditioned response
○ No response to the unconditioned response
Spontaneous Recovery
○ A response that reappeared after the conditioned response disappeared
Generalization
○ Tendency for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to cause similar
responses
○ Ex: Tyler got food poisoning after eating some chicken, he later felt nauseous at
the sight of turkey. Tyler is reminded of his bad chicken experience when
introduced to turkey.
Discrimination
○ The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other
stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus