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Module 10
Operant & Cognitive Approaches
OPERANT CONDITIONING
• 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• Thorndike’s law of effect
– behaviors followed by positive consequences are
strengthened
– behaviors followed by negative consequences are
weakened
• Skinner’s operant conditioning
– 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• Examples of operant conditioning
– Toilet training
• target behavior
• preparation
• reinforcers
• shaping
– Food refusal
• target behavior
• preparation
• reinforcers
• shaping
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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 CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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 CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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 CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
• 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
REINFORCERS
• 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
REINFORCERS (CONT’D)
• 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 (CONT’D)
• 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
REINFORCERS (CONT’D)
• 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
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT
• 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
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT’D)
• 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
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT’D)
• 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
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS
• 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
OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS (CONT’D)
• 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
• 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
COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)
• 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
COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)
• 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
COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)
• 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
COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)
• Insight learning
– Insight
• a mental process marked by the sudden and
unexpected solution to a problem: a phenomenon
often called the “a ha!” experience
BIOLOGICAL FACTORS
• 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
APPLICATIONS
• 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
APPLICATIONS
– 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
APPLICATIONS