Download Module_10vs9_Final

Operant & Cognitive Approaches

Operant conditioning
◦ Also called instrumental conditioning
◦ Kind of learning in which an animal or human
performs some behavior
◦ Following consequences (reward or punishment)
increases or decreases the chance that an animal or
human will again perform that same behavior

Thorndike’s law of effect

Skinner’s operant conditioning
◦ behaviors followed by positive consequences are
strengthened
◦ behaviors followed by negative consequences are
weakened
◦ Operant response: can be modified by its
consequences and is a meaningful, easily measured
unit of ongoing behavior
◦ Focuses on how consequences (rewards or
punishments) affect behaviors
◦ 1920s and 1930s discovery of two general principles
 Pavlov’s classical conditioning
 Skinner’s operant conditioning

Principles and procedures
◦ Skinner box
 automatically records an animal’s bar presses and
delivers food pellets
 efficient way to study how an animal’s ongoing
behaviors may be modified by changing the
consequences of what happens after a bar press
◦ Three factors in operant conditioning of a rat
 a hungry rat is more willing to eat the food reward
 can thus condition the rat to press the bar
 successively reinforced behaviors lead up to or
approximate the desired behavior

Shaping
◦ Facing the bar
 rat is put in box
 when rat faces the bar, food pellet is released
 rat sniffs the food pellet
◦ Touching the bar
 rat faces and moves toward the bar
 another pellet is released
 rat eats then wanders; returning to sniff for a pellet,
another pellet is dropped into the cup; rat places a
paw on the bar, and another pellet is released

Shaping
◦ Pressing the bar
 when rat touches bar, pellet is released; rat eats and
then puts paws back on bar and gets another pellet;
wait for rat to push bar then release pellet
 rat soon presses bar repeatedly to get pellets
 rat’s behavior reinforced as it leads up to, or
approximates, the desired behavior of bar pressing

Immediate reinforcement
◦ Reinforcer should follow immediately after the
desired behavior
◦ If reinforcer is delayed, the animal may be
reinforced for some undesired or superstitious
behavior

Superstitious behavior
◦ Behavior that increases in frequency because its
occurrence is accidentally paired with the delivery
of a reinforcer

Examples of operant conditioning
◦ Toilet training




target behavior
preparation
reinforcers
shaping
◦ Food refusal




target behavior
preparation
reinforcers
shaping

Operant versus classical conditioning
◦ Operant conditioning
 goal: increase or decrease the rate of some response
 voluntary response: must perform voluntary response
before getting a reward
 emitted response: animals or humans are shaped to emit
the desired responses

Operant versus classical conditioning
◦ Operant conditioning
 contingent on behavior: depends or is contingent on
the consequences or what happens next
 reinforcer must occur immediately after the desired
response
 consequences: animals or humans learn that
performing or emitting some behavior is followed by a
consequence (reward or punishment)

Operant versus classical conditioning
◦ Classical conditioning
 goal: create a new response to a neutral stimulus
 involuntary response: physiological reflexes (salivation,
eye blink)
 elicited response: unconditioned stimulus triggers or
elicits an involuntary reflex response, salivation, which
is called the unconditioned response

Operant versus classical conditioning
◦ Classical conditioning
 conditioned response: neutral stimulus becomes the
conditioned stimulus if it occurs before the
conditioned response
 expectancy: animals and humans learn a predictable
relationship between, or develop an expectancy about,
the neutral and unconditioned stimuli
 classical conditioning leads to learning a predictable
relationship between stimuli

Consequences
◦ Consequences are contingent on behavior

Reinforcement
◦ Consequence that occurs after a behavior; increases
the chance that the behavior will occur again

Punishment
◦ Consequence that occurs after a behavior;
decreases the chance that the behavior will occur
again

Reinforcement
◦ Positive reinforcement
 refers to the presentation of a stimulus that increases
the probability a behavior will occur again
◦ Negative reinforcement
 refers to an aversive stimulus whose removal increases
the likelihood that the preceding response will occur
again

Reinforcers
◦ Primary reinforcers
 stimulus such as food, water, or sex; innately
satisfying and requires no learning on the part of the
subject to become pleasurable
◦ Secondary reinforcers
 stimulus that has acquired its reinforcing power
through experience; secondary reinforcers are learned,
such as by being paired with primary reinforcers or
other secondary reinforcers

Punishment
◦ Positive punishment
 presenting an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus after a
response
◦ Negative punishment
 removing a reinforcing stimulus after a response
 noncompliance: refers to a child refusing to obey a
command/request given by a parent or caregiver
 time-out: removes reinforcing stimuli after an
undesirable response
 removal decreases the chances that the undesired
response will recur

Skinner’s contributions
◦ Schedule of reinforcement
 refers to a program or rule that determines how and
when the occurrence of a response will be followed by
a reinforcer
◦ Continuous reinforcement
 every occurrence of the operant response results in
delivery of the reinforcer
◦ Partial reinforcement
 refers to a situation in which responding is reinforced
only some of the time

Partial reinforcement schedules
◦ Fixed-ratio schedule
 a reinforcer occurs only after a fixed number of
responses are made by the subject
◦ Fixed-interval schedule
 a reinforcer occurs after the first response that occurs
after a fixed interval of time

Partial reinforcement schedules
◦ Variable-ratio schedule
 a reinforcer is delivered after an average number of
correct responses has occurred
◦ Variable-interval schedule
 reinforcer occurs after the first correct response after
an average amount of time has passed

Generalization
◦ Animal or person emits the same response to similar
stimuli
◦ Tendency for a stimulus similar to the original
conditioned stimulus to elicit a response similar to the
conditioned response

Discrimination
◦ Occurs during classical conditioning when an
organism learns to make a particular response to
some stimuli but not to others
◦ Discrimination stimulus; cue that a behavior will be
reinforced

Extinction and spontaneous recovery
◦ Extinction
 procedure in which a conditioned stimulus is
repeatedly presented without the unconditioned
stimulus
 the conditioned stimulus tends to no longer elicit
the conditioned response
◦ Spontaneous recovery
 tendency for the conditioned response to reappear
after being extinguished, even though there have
been no further conditioning trials

Cognitive learning: attention and memory
◦ Says that learning can occur through observation or
imitation and may not involve external rewards or
require a person to perform any observable behaviors

Three viewpoints
◦ Against: B. F. Skinner (“As far as I’m concerned,
cognitive science is the creationism (downfall) of
psychology”)
◦ In favor: Edward Tolman
 explored hidden mental processes
 cognitive map; mental representation in the brain of
the layout of an environment and its features

Three viewpoints
◦ Also in favor: Albert Bandura
 focused on how humans learn through observing
things

Social cognitive learning
◦ Results from watching and modeling; doesn’t
require the observer to perform any observable
behavior or receive any observable reward

Learning-performance distinction
◦ Learning may occur but may not always be
measured by, or immediately evident in,
performance

Bandura’s social cognitive theory
◦ Emphasizes the importance of observation,
imitation, and self-reward in the development and
learning of social skills, personal interactions, and
many other behaviors

Four processes
◦ Attention
 observer must pay attention to the model
◦ Memory
 observer must store or remember the information
◦ Imitation
 observer must be able to use the remembered
information and imitate the model’s behavior
◦ Motivation
 observer must have some reason or incentive to
imitate the model’s behavior

Insight learning
◦ Insight
 a mental process marked by the sudden and
unexpected solution to a problem: a phenomenon
often called the “a ha!” experience

Definition
◦ Biological factors
 innate tendencies or predispositions that may either
facilitate or inhibit certain kinds of learning
◦ Imprinting
 inherited tendencies or responses that are displayed
by newborn animals when they encounter certain
stimuli in their environment
◦ Critical or sensitive period
 a relatively brief time during which learning is most
likely to occur

Behavior modification
◦ Treatment or therapy that changes or modifies
undesirable behaviors by using principles of learning
based on operant conditioning, classical conditioning,
and social cognitive learning
◦ Autism
 marked by poor development in social relationships
 great difficulty developing language and
communicating; very few activities and interests
 long periods of time spent repeating the same
behaviors and following rituals that interfere with
more normal functioning
◦ Autism
 symptoms range from mild to severe
 usually appear when a child is 2 to 3 years old
◦ Biofeedback
 training procedure through which a person is made
aware of his or her physiological responses, such as
muscle activity, heart rate, blood pressure, or
temperature
 after awareness of physiological responses, a person
tries to control them to decrease psychosomatic
problems