Increases the Likelihood of a Behavior Occurring Again by Taking Away Something Negative

April 24, 2022 Post a Comment

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Define operant conditioning
Explicate the deviation betwixt reinforcement and punishment
Distinguish between reinforcement schedules

The previous department of this chapter focused on the type of associative learning known as classical conditioning. Remember that in classical conditioning, something in the environment triggers a reflex automatically, and researchers train the organism to react to a unlike stimulus. Now we turn to the second blazon of associative learning, operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, organisms learn to associate a behavior and its consequence ([link]). A pleasant consequence makes that beliefs more likely to be repeated in the futurity. For example, Spirit, a dolphin at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, does a flip in the air when her trainer blows a whistle. The consequence is that she gets a fish.

Classical and Operant Conditioning Compared
	Classical Conditioning	Operant Workout
Workout approach	An unconditioned stimulus (such as food) is paired with a neutral stimulus (such as a bong). The neutral stimulus eventually becomes the conditioned stimulus, which brings near the conditioned response (salivation).	The target behavior is followed by reinforcement or punishment to either strengthen or weaken it, and so that the learner is more probable to exhibit the desired beliefs in the future.
Stimulus timing	The stimulus occurs immediately earlier the response.	The stimulus (either reinforcement or punishment) occurs soon after the response.

Psychologist B. F. Skinner saw that classical conditioning is express to existing behaviors that are reflexively elicited, and it doesn't account for new behaviors such as riding a bike. He proposed a theory about how such behaviors come well-nigh. Skinner believed that behavior is motivated by the consequences we receive for the behavior: the reinforcements and punishments. His idea that learning is the result of consequences is based on the police of consequence, which was first proposed by psychologist Edward Thorndike. Co-ordinate to the law of upshot, behaviors that are followed by consequences that are satisfying to the organism are more likely to be repeated, and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less probable to be repeated (Thorndike, 1911). Substantially, if an organism does something that brings about a desired result, the organism is more likely to exercise it again. If an organism does something that does not bring about a desired result, the organism is less probable to do it over again. An example of the law of effect is in employment. One of the reasons (and frequently the main reason) we evidence up for work is because we get paid to practise then. If nosotros stop getting paid, we will likely stop showing up—even if we love our chore.

Working with Thorndike'south law of outcome as his foundation, Skinner began conducting scientific experiments on animals (mainly rats and pigeons) to determine how organisms learn through operant workout (Skinner, 1938). He placed these animals inside an operant conditioning chamber, which has come to be known equally a "Skinner box" ([link]). A Skinner box contains a lever (for rats) or disk (for pigeons) that the animal tin press or peck for a food reward via the dispenser. Speakers and lights tin can be associated with certain behaviors. A recorder counts the number of responses made by the animal.

A photograph shows B.F. Skinner. An illustration shows a rat in a Skinner box: a chamber with a speaker, lights, a lever, and a food dispenser.

Link to Learning

Watch this cursory video prune to learn more almost operant conditioning: Skinner is interviewed, and operant workout of pigeons is demonstrated.

In discussing operant workout, nosotros utilise several everyday words—positive, negative, reinforcement, and punishment—in a specialized manner. In operant conditioning, positive and negative do non mean adept and bad. Instead, positive means yous are adding something, and negative means you are taking something away. Reinforcement means you are increasing a behavior, and penalization means y'all are decreasing a behavior. Reinforcement tin exist positive or negative, and punishment can also exist positive or negative. All reinforcers (positive or negative) increase the likelihood of a behavioral response. All punishers (positive or negative) decrease the likelihood of a behavioral response. Now let's combine these iv terms: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive penalisation, and negative punishment ([link]).

Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Penalization
	Reinforcement	Punishment
Positive	Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior.	Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a beliefs.
Negative	Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior.	Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

REINFORCEMENT

The near constructive way to teach a person or animate being a new behavior is with positive reinforcement. In positive reinforcement, a desirable stimulus is added to increment a beliefs.

For case, you tell your five-year-former son, Jerome, that if he cleans his room, he volition become a toy. Jerome rapidly cleans his room because he wants a new art prepare. Let's pause for a moment. Some people might say, "Why should I reward my child for doing what is expected?" Simply in fact nosotros are constantly and consistently rewarded in our lives. Our paychecks are rewards, as are high grades and acceptance into our preferred school. Beingness praised for doing a good job and for passing a commuter's test is also a reward. Positive reinforcement as a learning tool is extremely effective. It has been found that one of the well-nigh effective ways to increase achievement in school districts with beneath-average reading scores was to pay the children to read. Specifically, second-grade students in Dallas were paid $2 each fourth dimension they read a book and passed a short quiz almost the book. The result was a significant increase in reading comprehension (Fryer, 2010). What do you think well-nigh this program? If Skinner were alive today, he would probably think this was a great idea. He was a strong proponent of using operant conditioning principles to influence students' beliefs at school. In fact, in add-on to the Skinner box, he also invented what he chosen a teaching machine that was designed to advantage small steps in learning (Skinner, 1961)—an early on precursor of estimator-assisted learning. His teaching motorcar tested students' cognition every bit they worked through various school subjects. If students answered questions correctly, they received firsthand positive reinforcement and could continue; if they answered incorrectly, they did not receive any reinforcement. The idea was that students would spend boosted fourth dimension studying the material to increase their take chances of being reinforced the next time (Skinner, 1961).

In negative reinforcement, an undesirable stimulus is removed to increment a beliefs. For example, car manufacturers use the principles of negative reinforcement in their seatbelt systems, which go "beep, beep, beep" until you fasten your seatbelt. The annoying audio stops when you exhibit the desired beliefs, increasing the likelihood that you volition buckle upwardly in the future. Negative reinforcement is also used frequently in equus caballus grooming. Riders use pressure—by pulling the reins or squeezing their legs—and then remove the pressure when the equus caballus performs the desired behavior, such equally turning or speeding up. The force per unit area is the negative stimulus that the equus caballus wants to remove.

PUNISHMENT

Many people confuse negative reinforcement with punishment in operant workout, merely they are two very different mechanisms. Remember that reinforcement, fifty-fifty when it is negative, always increases a behavior. In contrast, penalisation always decreases a beliefs. In positive penalisation, you add an undesirable stimulus to decrease a behavior. An example of positive punishment is scolding a pupil to get the student to stop texting in class. In this case, a stimulus (the reprimand) is added in club to decrease the beliefs (texting in class). In negative penalty, you remove a pleasant stimulus to decrease a behavior. For instance, a driver might blast her horn when a light turns green, and continue blasting the horn until the automobile in front end moves.

Punishment, especially when it is immediate, is one style to decrease undesirable beliefs. For example, imagine your four-year-old son, Brandon, runs into the decorated street to get his brawl. Y'all give him a time-out (positive punishment) and tell him never to become into the street again. Chances are he won't repeat this behavior. While strategies like time-outs are common today, in the past children were often subject to physical penalty, such as spanking. Information technology's of import to be aware of some of the drawbacks in using physical penalisation on children. First, punishment may teach fear. Brandon may become fearful of the street, but he also may go fearful of the person who delivered the punishment—you, his parent. Similarly, children who are punished past teachers may come up to fear the teacher and try to avoid school (Gershoff et al., 2010). Consequently, nearly schools in the U.s. have banned corporal punishment. Second, punishment may cause children to become more aggressive and decumbent to antisocial beliefs and delinquency (Gershoff, 2002). They see their parents resort to spanking when they become angry and frustrated, so, in turn, they may act out this same behavior when they become aroused and frustrated. For example, because you spank Brenda when you are aroused with her for her misbehavior, she might start hitting her friends when they won't share their toys.

While positive penalization can be effective in some cases, Skinner suggested that the apply of punishment should exist weighed confronting the possible negative effects. Today's psychologists and parenting experts favor reinforcement over punishment—they recommend that you catch your child doing something good and reward her for it.

Shaping

In his operant conditioning experiments, Skinner oftentimes used an arroyo chosen shaping. Instead of rewarding simply the target behavior, in shaping, we reward successive approximations of a target beliefs. Why is shaping needed? Recollect that in gild for reinforcement to work, the organism must first brandish the behavior. Shaping is needed because it is extremely unlikely that an organism will display anything but the simplest of behaviors spontaneously. In shaping, behaviors are broken down into many small, achievable steps. The specific steps used in the process are the following:

Reinforce whatsoever response that resembles the desired behavior.
And so reinforce the response that more closely resembles the desired beliefs. Yous will no longer reinforce the previously reinforced response.
Side by side, begin to reinforce the response that fifty-fifty more closely resembles the desired behavior.
Go on to reinforce closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
Finally, only reinforce the desired behavior.

Shaping is often used in teaching a complex behavior or chain of behaviors. Skinner used shaping to teach pigeons not just such relatively elementary behaviors as pecking a deejay in a Skinner box, but likewise many unusual and entertaining behaviors, such as turning in circles, walking in figure eights, and even playing ping pong; the technique is commonly used past brute trainers today. An important office of shaping is stimulus discrimination. Call up Pavlov's dogs—he trained them to respond to the tone of a bell, and not to similar tones or sounds. This discrimination is also important in operant conditioning and in shaping beliefs.

Link to Learning

Hither is a cursory video of Skinner'southward pigeons playing ping pong.

It's easy to encounter how shaping is effective in teaching behaviors to animals, but how does shaping work with humans? Let's consider parents whose goal is to have their child learn to clean his room. They employ shaping to help him master steps toward the goal. Instead of performing the unabridged task, they set these steps and reinforce each step. First, he cleans up 1 toy. Second, he cleans upward five toys. Third, he chooses whether to pick up x toys or put his books and wearing apparel away. Fourth, he cleans upward everything except 2 toys. Finally, he cleans his entire room.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS

Rewards such as stickers, praise, money, toys, and more tin be used to reinforce learning. Let's get dorsum to Skinner'due south rats once more. How did the rats learn to press the lever in the Skinner box? They were rewarded with food each time they pressed the lever. For animals, nutrient would be an obvious reinforcer.

What would be a good reinforce for humans? For your daughter Sydney, information technology was the promise of a toy if she cleaned her room. How about Joaquin, the soccer histrion? If you gave Joaquin a slice of processed every time he made a goal, you would be using a main reinforcer. Primary reinforcers are reinforcers that have innate reinforcing qualities. These kinds of reinforcers are not learned. H2o, nutrient, sleep, shelter, sexual activity, and touch, amidst others, are chief reinforcers. Pleasance is also a primary reinforcer. Organisms do not lose their drive for these things. For near people, jumping in a cool lake on a very hot solar day would be reinforcing and the cool lake would be innately reinforcing—the h2o would absurd the person off (a concrete need), also as provide pleasure.

A secondary reinforcer has no inherent value and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with a primary reinforcer. Praise, linked to affection, is one example of a secondary reinforcer, as when you called out "Great shot!" every fourth dimension Joaquin made a goal. Another example, money, is only worth something when you can employ it to buy other things—either things that satisfy basic needs (food, water, shelter—all principal reinforcers) or other secondary reinforcers. If you were on a remote island in the centre of the Pacific Ocean and you had stacks of money, the money would not be useful if you could not spend it. What about the stickers on the behavior chart? They also are secondary reinforcers.

Sometimes, instead of stickers on a sticker chart, a token is used. Tokens, which are also secondary reinforcers, can then exist traded in for rewards and prizes. Unabridged beliefs direction systems, known as token economies, are built around the use of these kinds of token reinforcers. Token economies have been found to exist very effective at modifying behavior in a diverseness of settings such as schools, prisons, and mental hospitals. For example, a report by Cangi and Daly (2013) found that utilise of a token economy increased appropriate social behaviors and reduced inappropriate behaviors in a group of autistic school children. Autistic children tend to showroom confusing behaviors such every bit pinching and hit. When the children in the report exhibited advisable beliefs (not hit or pinching), they received a "quiet easily" token. When they hit or pinched, they lost a token. The children could then exchange specified amounts of tokens for minutes of playtime.

Everyday Connection: Behavior Modification in Children

Parents and teachers oftentimes apply behavior modification to change a child'southward beliefs. Behavior modification uses the principles of operant workout to accomplish beliefs change and then that undesirable behaviors are switched for more socially adequate ones. Some teachers and parents create a sticker chart, in which several behaviors are listed ([link]). Sticker charts are a class of token economies, as described in the text. Each time children perform the behavior, they get a sticker, and subsequently a sure number of stickers, they get a prize, or reinforcer. The goal is to increase acceptable behaviors and decrease misbehavior. Remember, it is best to reinforce desired behaviors, rather than to utilize punishment. In the classroom, the teacher tin can reinforce a broad range of behaviors, from students raising their easily, to walking quietly in the hall, to turning in their homework. At home, parents might create a behavior chart that rewards children for things such every bit putting away toys, brushing their teeth, and helping with dinner. In order for beliefs modification to be effective, the reinforcement needs to be continued with the behavior; the reinforcement must affair to the child and be done consistently.

A photograph shows a child placing stickers on a chart hanging on the wall.

Time-out is another popular technique used in beliefs modification with children. It operates on the principle of negative punishment. When a child demonstrates an undesirable beliefs, she is removed from the desirable activity at hand ([link]). For example, say that Sophia and her brother Mario are playing with edifice blocks. Sophia throws some blocks at her blood brother, so you give her a alert that she will become to time-out if she does information technology again. A few minutes later, she throws more blocks at Mario. You remove Sophia from the room for a few minutes. When she comes dorsum, she doesn't throw blocks.

There are several important points that yous should know if yous programme to implement fourth dimension-out as a behavior modification technique. Get-go, make sure the child is being removed from a desirable activeness and placed in a less desirable location. If the activity is something undesirable for the child, this technique will backfire because it is more enjoyable for the child to be removed from the activity. 2nd, the length of the time-out is important. The full general rule of pollex is one infinitesimal for each year of the child'due south age. Sophia is v; therefore, she sits in a time-out for 5 minutes. Setting a timer helps children know how long they have to sit in fourth dimension-out. Finally, as a caregiver, keep several guidelines in mind over the course of a time-out: remain at-home when directing your child to time-out; ignore your child during time-out (because caregiver attention may reinforce misbehavior); and give the child a hug or a kind word when fourth dimension-out is over.

Photograph A shows several children climbing on playground equipment. Photograph B shows a child sitting alone at a table looking at the playground.

REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES

Remember, the best way to teach a person or beast a beliefs is to use positive reinforcement. For example, Skinner used positive reinforcement to teach rats to press a lever in a Skinner box. At get-go, the rat might randomly hit the lever while exploring the box, and out would come a pellet of food. After eating the pellet, what practice you lot think the hungry rat did adjacent? It striking the lever again, and received another pellet of food. Each time the rat hit the lever, a pellet of food came out. When an organism receives a reinforcer each time it displays a behavior, it is chosen continuous reinforcement. This reinforcement schedule is the quickest manner to teach someone a behavior, and it is specially effective in training a new beliefs. Permit's look back at the dog that was learning to sit earlier in the chapter. Now, each time he sits, you give him a treat. Timing is important here: you volition be well-nigh successful if you present the reinforcer immediately later he sits, and so that he can make an clan between the target beliefs (sitting) and the consequence (getting a care for).

Link to Learning

Watch this video clip where veterinarian Dr. Sophia Yin shapes a dog's behavior using the steps outlined above.

Once a behavior is trained, researchers and trainers often plow to another blazon of reinforcement schedule—fractional reinforcement. In partial reinforcement, likewise referred to as intermittent reinforcement, the person or creature does not get reinforced every fourth dimension they perform the desired behavior. In that location are several different types of fractional reinforcement schedules ([link]). These schedules are described every bit either stock-still or variable, and as either interval or ratio. Fixed refers to the number of responses between reinforcements, or the corporeality of time between reinforcements, which is set and unchanging. Variable refers to the number of responses or corporeality of time betwixt reinforcements, which varies or changes. Interval ways the schedule is based on the time between reinforcements, and ratio ways the schedule is based on the number of responses between reinforcements.

Reinforcement Schedules
Reinforcement Schedule	Description	Result	Example
Fixed interval	Reinforcement is delivered at predictable time intervals (e.g., after 5, 10, xv, and 20 minutes).	Moderate response rate with pregnant pauses after reinforcement	Hospital patient uses patient-controlled, doctor-timed hurting relief
Variable interval	Reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable fourth dimension intervals (e.g., after five, 7, ten, and 20 minutes).	Moderate yet steady response charge per unit	Checking Facebook
Fixed ratio	Reinforcement is delivered later a predictable number of responses (eastward.g., after 2, 4, 6, and 8 responses).	High response rate with pauses after reinforcement	Piecework—manufactory worker getting paid for every x number of items manufactured
Variable ratio	Reinforcement is delivered after an unpredictable number of responses (e.m., after 1, 4, 5, and ix responses).	High and steady response rate	Gambling

At present permit's combine these four terms. A fixed interval reinforcement schedule is when behavior is rewarded after a set corporeality of time. For case, June undergoes major surgery in a hospital. During recovery, she is expected to feel pain and will require prescription medications for hurting relief. June is given an Four drip with a patient-controlled painkiller. Her doctor sets a limit: ane dose per hour. June pushes a button when pain becomes difficult, and she receives a dose of medication. Since the reward (hurting relief) just occurs on a fixed interval, at that place is no point in exhibiting the behavior when it will non be rewarded.

With a variable interval reinforcement schedule, the person or animal gets the reinforcement based on varying amounts of time, which are unpredictable. Say that Manuel is the manager at a fast-food eating place. Every once in a while someone from the quality control division comes to Manuel's eating house. If the restaurant is clean and the service is fast, anybody on that shift earns a $twenty bonus. Manuel never knows when the quality control person volition testify up, and then he always tries to keep the eating place clean and ensures that his employees provide prompt and courteous service. His productivity regarding prompt service and keeping a clean eating house are steady considering he wants his crew to earn the bonus.

With a fixed ratio reinforcement schedule, there are a ready number of responses that must occur earlier the behavior is rewarded. Carla sells spectacles at an eyeglass shop, and she earns a commission every time she sells a pair of glasses. She always tries to sell people more than pairs of glasses, including prescription sunglasses or a fill-in pair, so she tin can increase her committee. She does not care if the person really needs the prescription sunglasses, Carla just wants her bonus. The quality of what Carla sells does not matter because her commission is not based on quality; it's only based on the number of pairs sold. This distinction in the quality of performance tin can assist decide which reinforcement method is most appropriate for a particular situation. Fixed ratios are better suited to optimize the quantity of output, whereas a fixed interval, in which the reward is not quantity based, can atomic number 82 to a higher quality of output.

In a variable ratio reinforcement schedule, the number of responses needed for a reward varies. This is the most powerful partial reinforcement schedule. An example of the variable ratio reinforcement schedule is gambling. Imagine that Sarah—mostly a smart, thrifty woman—visits Las Vegas for the beginning time. She is not a gambler, just out of curiosity she puts a quarter into the slot machine, and and then another, and some other. Nothing happens. Two dollars in quarters afterward, her curiosity is fading, and she is merely about to quit. But so, the machine lights upward, bells go off, and Sarah gets 50 quarters back. That's more like it! Sarah gets back to inserting quarters with renewed interest, and a few minutes later she has used up all her gains and is $10 in the hole. Now might be a sensible time to quit. And all the same, she keeps putting money into the slot machine because she never knows when the next reinforcement is coming. She keeps thinking that with the next quarter she could win $l, or $100, or even more. Considering the reinforcement schedule in about types of gambling has a variable ratio schedule, people proceed trying and hoping that the side by side time they will win big. This is one of the reasons that gambling is so addictive—and so resistant to extinction.

In operant conditioning, extinction of a reinforced beliefs occurs at some point later on reinforcement stops, and the speed at which this happens depends on the reinforcement schedule. In a variable ratio schedule, the point of extinction comes very slowly, as described above. Simply in the other reinforcement schedules, extinction may come quickly. For example, if June presses the push button for the pain relief medication before the allotted time her doctor has approved, no medication is administered. She is on a fixed interval reinforcement schedule (dosed hourly), so extinction occurs chop-chop when reinforcement doesn't come up at the expected fourth dimension. Among the reinforcement schedules, variable ratio is the most productive and the most resistant to extinction. Fixed interval is the least productive and the easiest to extinguish ([link]).

Connect the Concepts: Gambling and the Brain

Skinner (1953) stated, "If the gambling establishment cannot persuade a patron to turn over money with no render, it may achieve the aforementioned effect past returning role of the patron'southward coin on a variable-ratio schedule" (p. 397).

Skinner uses gambling as an example of the power and effectiveness of conditioning behavior based on a variable ratio reinforcement schedule. In fact, Skinner was so confident in his noesis of gambling addiction that he fifty-fifty claimed he could turn a pigeon into a pathological gambler ("Skinner'south Utopia," 1971). Beyond the ability of variable ratio reinforcement, gambling seems to work on the brain in the same way as some addictive drugs. The Illinois Institute for Habit Recovery (n.d.) reports evidence suggesting that pathological gambling is an addiction like to a chemical habit ([link]). Specifically, gambling may activate the reward centers of the brain, much like cocaine does. Research has shown that some pathological gamblers have lower levels of the neurotransmitter (encephalon chemical) known equally norepinephrine than do normal gamblers (Roy, et al., 1988). Co-ordinate to a written report conducted by Alec Roy and colleagues, norepinephrine is secreted when a person feels stress, arousal, or thrill; pathological gamblers utilise gambling to increase their levels of this neurotransmitter. Another researcher, neuroscientist Hans Breiter, has done extensive research on gambling and its furnishings on the brain. Breiter (equally cited in Franzen, 2001) reports that "Monetary advantage in a gambling-similar experiment produces brain activation very similar to that observed in a cocaine addict receiving an infusion of cocaine" (para. 1). Deficiencies in serotonin (some other neurotransmitter) might also contribute to compulsive beliefs, including a gambling addiction.

It may be that pathological gamblers' brains are dissimilar than those of other people, and perhaps this difference may somehow have led to their gambling addiction, as these studies seem to suggest. However, it is very hard to ascertain the cause because it is impossible to carry a truthful experiment (information technology would exist unethical to try to turn randomly assigned participants into problem gamblers). Therefore, it may exist that causation really moves in the opposite management—possibly the act of gambling somehow changes neurotransmitter levels in some gamblers' brains. It also is possible that some overlooked factor, or confounding variable, played a role in both the gambling habit and the differences in brain chemistry.

A photograph shows four digital gaming machines.

Cognition AND LATENT LEARNING

Although strict behaviorists such as Skinner and Watson refused to believe that cognition (such every bit thoughts and expectations) plays a office in learning, another behaviorist, Edward C. Tolman, had a different opinion. Tolman'south experiments with rats demonstrated that organisms can learn even if they do not receive immediate reinforcement (Tolman & Honzik, 1930; Tolman, Ritchie, & Kalish, 1946). This finding was in conflict with the prevailing idea at the time that reinforcement must be immediate in order for learning to occur, thus suggesting a cerebral aspect to learning.

In the experiments, Tolman placed hungry rats in a maze with no reward for finding their way through information technology. He as well studied a comparison group that was rewarded with food at the finish of the maze. As the unreinforced rats explored the maze, they developed a cognitive map: a mental motion picture of the layout of the maze ([link]). Afterwards 10 sessions in the maze without reinforcement, nutrient was placed in a goal box at the terminate of the maze. As soon as the rats became aware of the food, they were able to find their style through the maze quickly, just as quickly as the comparison group, which had been rewarded with nutrient all along. This is known as latent learning: learning that occurs but is not observable in behavior until at that place is a reason to demonstrate it.

An illustration shows three rats in a maze, with a starting point and food at the end.

Latent learning also occurs in humans. Children may learn by watching the actions of their parents but simply demonstrate it at a afterward date, when the learned cloth is needed. For example, suppose that Ravi'due south dad drives him to school every day. In this way, Ravi learns the road from his firm to his school, but he'south never driven there himself, and then he has not had a chance to demonstrate that he'due south learned the style. One morning Ravi'due south dad has to leave early for a coming together, and then he can't bulldoze Ravi to school. Instead, Ravi follows the same route on his cycle that his dad would have taken in the car. This demonstrates latent learning. Ravi had learned the route to school, but had no demand to demonstrate this cognition earlier.

Everyday Connection: This Place Is Similar a Maze

Have you lot ever gotten lost in a building and couldn't find your way back out? While that can be frustrating, you lot're not alone. At i time or another we've all gotten lost in places like a museum, infirmary, or university library. Whenever we go someplace new, nosotros build a mental representation—or cognitive map—of the location, as Tolman'south rats built a cognitive map of their maze. Nonetheless, some buildings are confusing because they include many areas that look akin or take short lines of sight. Considering of this, information technology'southward frequently difficult to predict what's around a corner or decide whether to plough left or right to exit of a building. Psychologist Laura Carlson (2010) suggests that what we place in our cognitive map can impact our success in navigating through the surround. She suggests that paying attention to specific features upon entering a building, such as a motion picture on the wall, a fountain, a statue, or an escalator, adds information to our cognitive map that can be used later to assist observe our style out of the building.

Link to Learning

Watch this video to learn more near Carlson's studies on cognitive maps and navigation in buildings.

Summary

Operant conditioning is based on the piece of work of B. F. Skinner. Operant conditioning is a grade of learning in which the motivation for a behavior happens after the behavior is demonstrated. An creature or a human receives a consequence afterwards performing a specific behavior. The event is either a reinforcer or a punisher. All reinforcement (positive or negative) increases the likelihood of a behavioral response. All punishment (positive or negative) decreases the likelihood of a behavioral response. Several types of reinforcement schedules are used to reward behavior depending on either a set or variable menstruum of fourth dimension.

Self Check Questions

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What is a Skinner box and what is its purpose?

2. What is the divergence betwixt negative reinforcement and penalization?

3. What is shaping and how would you use shaping to teach a dog to roll over?

Personal Application Questions

4. Explicate the difference betwixt negative reinforcement and penalisation, and provide several examples of each based on your ain experiences.

5. Retrieve of a beliefs that y'all have that yous would like to modify. How could you lot use beliefs modification, specifically positive reinforcement, to change your behavior? What is your positive reinforcer?

Answers

ane. A Skinner box is an operant conditioning bedroom used to train animals such every bit rats and pigeons to perform certain behaviors, like pressing a lever. When the animals perform the desired behavior, they receive a advantage: nutrient or h2o.

2. In negative reinforcement you lot are taking away an undesirable stimulus in order to increase the frequency of a certain beliefs (due east.g., buckling your seat belt stops the annoying beeping sound in your car and increases the likelihood that y'all will article of clothing your seatbelt). Penalty is designed to reduce a behavior (eastward.chiliad., you scold your child for running into the street in order to decrease the unsafe behavior.)

3. Shaping is an operant workout method in which you reward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. If you desire to teach your dog to ringlet over, you might reward him get-go when he sits, then when he lies down, and and then when he lies down and rolls onto his back. Finally, you would reward him just when he completes the unabridged sequence: lying downward, rolling onto his back, and then continuing to roll over to his other side.

Glossary

cognitive map mental motion-picture show of the layout of the environment

continuous reinforcement rewarding a behavior every fourth dimension information technology occurs

fixed interval reinforcement schedule behavior is rewarded after a set amount of time

fixed ratio reinforcement schedule set number of responses must occur before a behavior is rewarded

latent learning learning that occurs, but it may not be axiomatic until there is a reason to demonstrate information technology

law of effect behavior that is followed by consequences satisfying to the organism will be repeated and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences will be discouraged

negative penalty taking abroad a pleasant stimulus to decrease or stop a beliefs

negative reinforcement taking away an undesirable stimulus to increase a behavior

operant workout form of learning in which the stimulus/feel happens after the behavior is demonstrated

fractional reinforcement rewarding beliefs only some of the fourth dimension

positive punishment calculation an undesirable stimulus to finish or decrease a behavior

positive reinforcement calculation a desirable stimulus to increase a behavior

primary reinforcer has innate reinforcing qualities (due east.g., nutrient, water, shelter, sex)

punishment implementation of a effect in order to decrease a behavior

reinforcement implementation of a consequence in order to increase a behavior

secondary reinforcer has no inherent value unto itself and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with something else (e.g., money, gold stars, poker chips)

shaping rewarding successive approximations toward a target behavior

variable interval reinforcement schedule behavior is rewarded after unpredictable amounts of fourth dimension have passed

variable ratio reinforcement schedule number of responses differ before a behavior is rewarded

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wsu-sandbox/chapter/operant-conditioning/

Payne Ounkentoot1954

Increases the Likelihood of a Behavior Occurring Again by Taking Away Something Negative

Learning Objectives

REINFORCEMENT

PUNISHMENT

Shaping

Link to Learning

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS

REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES

Cognition AND LATENT LEARNING

Everyday Connection: This Place Is Similar a Maze

Summary

Self Check Questions

Critical Thinking Questions

Answers

Glossary

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