Lecture 8 - Operant Conditioning PDF

Operant Conditioning CHRISTOPHER GADE, PHD   In our previous class, we covered:  The goals and philosophical Operant stance of psychologists that call themselves behaviorist Conditioning  The concept of clas...

Operant Conditioning CHRISTOPHER GADE, PHD   In our previous class, we covered:  The goals and philosophical Operant stance of psychologists that call themselves behaviorist Conditioning  The concept of classical and conditioning and the Applications researchers that used it to better understand this type of learning Other Learning Research…  Research of Edward Thorndike (1874- 1949)  Work with cats in his “puzzle boxes”  Connectionism and laws of behavior  Law of recency - the most recent response is likely to reoccur  Restaurant choice example  Law of availability – certain behaviors are easier to evoke than others  Law of effect - Behaviors producing favorable consequences become more likely; ones that produce unfavorable consequences become less likely   Research of BF Skinner (1904-1990) Where  Worked with his pigeons and rats in “operant chambers” This  Attempted to expand on Thorndike’s original theories of learning Proposed that much learning is due to rewards and punishments Led Us   Called this stimulus response relationship “operant conditioning” The Basics of Operant Conditioning  Operant conditioning – the process of learning to associate a behavior with a consequence  A-B-C’s of learning – Antecedents - Behaviors - Consequences  Reinforcement: any outcome/response that increases the future probability of the most recent behavior  Punishment: any outcome/response that decreases the frequency of the preceding behavior   Positive reinforcement: an introduction of a pleasurable stimulus after a behavior, which will increase the likelihood of the future occurrence of the behavior (money for HW).  Negative reinforcement: a removal of (or the avoidance of) an aversive stimulus after a There’s behavior, which will increase the likelihood of the future occurrence of the behavior More…Positive (medicine to remove pain). and Negative  Positive punishment: an introduction of an aversive stimulus after a behavior, which will Nature of decrease the likelihood of the future Stimuli occurrence of the behavior (the shock from a bark collar).  Negative punishment: a removal of (or a threatening to remove) a pleasurable stimulus after a behavior, which will decrease the likelihood of the future occurrence of a behavior (a swear jar). What type of conditioning is this? Here? Other Operant Conditioning Terms  Extinction – a return of a behavior to baseline when conditioning stops  Response Generalization – increasing or decreasing similar responses due to punishment or reinforcement  Response Discrimination – only increasing or decreasing the specific response that was reinforced or punished Terms that Expand OC  Shaping – rewarding successive approximations of a behavior that’s being reinforces  Primary reinforcers – a reinforcer that automatically increases the likelihood of a response  Food or warmth  Secondary reinforcers – a reinforcer that has been learned through classical conditioning to increase the likelihood of a response  A clicker for dogs  Continuous reinforcement: reinforcement for A BIG Topic: every response Reinforcement Schedules Partial/intermittent reinforcement: occasional reinforcement for a response Fixed ratio: Reward for a behavior after “X” responses. Causes faster responders to get more rewards. Produces high rates of responding, but quick extinction when the reinforcement is removed. Variable ratio: Reward for a behavior after a variable and unpredictable numbers of responses. Gambling is a great example of this reward system. It is very hard to extinguish after the connection is made. Fixed interval: Reward for a behavior after “X” amount of time has passed. The responses are rather sparse in down time, but get more vigorous right before time X. Variable interval: Reward for a behavior after a variable and unpredictable amount of time. This causes slow, steady responding. Other Related Discoveries  All things being equal, most people learn fastest with immediate reinforcement or immediate punishment  In research, punishment has been found to be less effective than reinforcement, except when temporarily suppressing undesirable behavior  Frustration versus exploration theories  Vicarious conditioning can also be effective  Animal research on vicarious learning  Institutional instruction applications Have a good day!