Is the Addition of Something That Increases the Likelihood of a Behavior Occuring Again

Learning Objectives

By the finish of this department, y'all volition be able to:

Ascertain operant conditioning
Explain the divergence between reinforcement and punishment
Distinguish betwixt reinforcement schedules

The previous department of this chapter focused on the blazon 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 dissimilar stimulus. At present we turn to the second blazon of associative learning, operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, organisms acquire to acquaintance a behavior and its consequence ([link]). A pleasant consequence makes that behavior more than likely to be repeated in the future. 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 Conditioning
Conditioning arroyo	An unconditioned stimulus (such every bit food) is paired with a neutral stimulus (such as a bong). The neutral stimulus somewhen becomes the conditioned stimulus, which brings about the conditioned response (salivation).	The target behavior is followed past reinforcement or penalization to either strengthen or weaken information technology, so that the learner is more likely to exhibit the desired behavior in the future.
Stimulus timing	The stimulus occurs immediately before the response.	The stimulus (either reinforcement or penalisation) occurs shortly after the response.

Psychologist B. F. Skinner saw that classical conditioning is limited to existing behaviors that are reflexively elicited, and it doesn't account for new behaviors such equally riding a bike. He proposed a theory about how such behaviors come about. 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 effect, which was first proposed by psychologist Edward Thorndike. According to the police force of effect, behaviors that are followed by consequences that are satisfying to the organism are more probable to exist repeated, and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to exist repeated (Thorndike, 1911). Substantially, if an organism does something that brings well-nigh a desired issue, the organism is more likely to do it again. If an organism does something that does not bring about a desired effect, the organism is less probable to do it once more. An case of the law of effect is in employment. I of the reasons (and often the primary reason) we show upwards for work is because we get paid to exercise so. If we stop getting paid, we will likely stop showing up—even if we love our job.

Working with Thorndike'southward law of effect as his foundation, Skinner began conducting scientific experiments on animals (mainly rats and pigeons) to determine how organisms learn through operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938). He placed these animals inside an operant workout bedchamber, which has come to be known as a "Skinner box" ([link]). A Skinner box contains a lever (for rats) or deejay (for pigeons) that the creature can press or peck for a food advantage via the dispenser. Speakers and lights tin 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 brief video clip to larn more about operant conditioning: Skinner is interviewed, and operant workout of pigeons is demonstrated.

In discussing operant conditioning, we apply several everyday words—positive, negative, reinforcement, and punishment—in a specialized manner. In operant conditioning, positive and negative exercise non mean proficient and bad. Instead, positive means you lot are adding something, and negative means y'all are taking something away. Reinforcement means yous are increasing a behavior, and punishment means you are decreasing a behavior. Reinforcement can exist positive or negative, and penalty can also be positive or negative. All reinforcers (positive or negative) increment the likelihood of a behavioral response. All punishers (positive or negative) subtract the likelihood of a behavioral response. At present let'southward combine these four terms: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment ([link]).

Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Penalty
	Reinforcement	Penalisation
Positive	Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior.	Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.
Negative	Something is removed to increment the likelihood of a beliefs.	Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

REINFORCEMENT

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

For example, you lot tell your five-twelvemonth-old son, Jerome, that if he cleans his room, he will go a toy. Jerome quickly cleans his room considering he wants a new art set up. Let'south intermission for a moment. Some people might say, "Why should I reward my child for doing what is expected?" But in fact we are constantly and consistently rewarded in our lives. Our paychecks are rewards, as are high grades and acceptance into our preferred school. Existence praised for doing a skillful job and for passing a driver'due south test is also a reward. Positive reinforcement as a learning tool is extremely effective. It has been found that 1 of the most effective means to increase accomplishment in schoolhouse districts with below-average reading scores was to pay the children to read. Specifically, 2d-grade students in Dallas were paid $2 each time they read a volume and passed a short quiz about the book. The effect was a pregnant increment in reading comprehension (Fryer, 2010). What do you remember about this plan? If Skinner were alive today, he would probably think this was a smashing idea. He was a strong proponent of using operant conditioning principles to influence students' behavior at school. In fact, in addition to the Skinner box, he too invented what he called a teaching machine that was designed to reward small steps in learning (Skinner, 1961)—an early forerunner of estimator-assisted learning. His educational activity machine tested students' knowledge as they worked through various schoolhouse subjects. If students answered questions correctly, they received immediate positive reinforcement and could continue; if they answered incorrectly, they did not receive any reinforcement. The idea was that students would spend additional time studying the material to increase their chance of being reinforced the adjacent time (Skinner, 1961).

In negative reinforcement, an undesirable stimulus is removed to increment a behavior. For example, car manufacturers use the principles of negative reinforcement in their seatbelt systems, which become "beep, beep, beep" until you spike your seatbelt. The annoying sound stops when you exhibit the desired behavior, increasing the likelihood that you will buckle upwards in the time to come. Negative reinforcement is also used often in horse grooming. Riders apply pressure—past pulling the reins or squeezing their legs—and then remove the pressure level when the horse performs the desired behavior, such equally turning or speeding up. The pressure is the negative stimulus that the horse wants to remove.

PUNISHMENT

Many people misfile negative reinforcement with punishment in operant conditioning, but they are two very dissimilar mechanisms. Remember that reinforcement, even when it is negative, ever increases a beliefs. In contrast, penalization always decreases a behavior. In positive punishment, yous add together an undesirable stimulus to decrease a behavior. An case of positive penalisation is scolding a student to get the pupil to stop texting in grade. In this case, a stimulus (the reprimand) is added in order to decrease the beliefs (texting in class). In negative penalisation, you lot remove a pleasant stimulus to decrease a behavior. For example, a driver might blast her horn when a light turns light-green, and go on blasting the horn until the machine in forepart moves.

Punishment, especially when it is immediate, is ane way to decrease undesirable behavior. For case, imagine your 4-year-old son, Brandon, runs into the busy street to get his brawl. You give him a time-out (positive punishment) and tell him never to go into the street over again. Chances are he won't repeat this behavior. While strategies like time-outs are common today, in the past children were often field of study to physical punishment, such as spanking. Information technology's important to be enlightened of some of the drawbacks in using physical punishment on children. First, penalization may teach fear. Brandon may become fearful of the street, but he also may become fearful of the person who delivered the penalization—y'all, his parent. Similarly, children who are punished past teachers may come to fear the teacher and try to avoid school (Gershoff et al., 2010). Consequently, most schools in the United States have banned corporal punishment. Second, penalization may cause children to become more than aggressive and prone to antisocial behavior and delinquency (Gershoff, 2002). They see their parents resort to spanking when they become aroused and frustrated, and then, in turn, they may human activity out this same behavior when they get angry and frustrated. For instance, because y'all spank Brenda when you lot are angry with her for her misbehavior, she might start striking her friends when they won't share their toys.

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

Shaping

In his operant workout experiments, Skinner oft used an approach called shaping. Instead of rewarding only the target behavior, in shaping, we reward successive approximations of a target behavior. Why is shaping needed? Call up that in gild for reinforcement to work, the organism must kickoff display the behavior. Shaping is needed because it is extremely unlikely that an organism will brandish anything simply the simplest of behaviors spontaneously. In shaping, behaviors are broken down into many small, doable steps. The specific steps used in the procedure are the following:

Reinforce any response that resembles the desired behavior.
So reinforce the response that more closely resembles the desired beliefs. You will no longer reinforce the previously reinforced response.
Next, begin to reinforce the response that even more than closely resembles the desired behavior.
Continue to reinforce closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
Finally, simply reinforce the desired behavior.

Shaping is often used in educational activity a circuitous behavior or chain of behaviors. Skinner used shaping to teach pigeons not only such relatively simple behaviors every bit pecking a disk in a Skinner box, simply also many unusual and entertaining behaviors, such every bit turning in circles, walking in figure eights, and even playing ping pong; the technique is commonly used by brute trainers today. An important function of shaping is stimulus discrimination. Think Pavlov's dogs—he trained them to answer to the tone of a bong, and not to similar tones or sounds. This discrimination is also of import in operant conditioning and in shaping behavior.

Link to Learning

Here is a brief video of Skinner's pigeons playing ping pong.

Information technology'south easy to encounter how shaping is effective in instruction behaviors to animals, simply how does shaping work with humans? Let's consider parents whose goal is to take their child learn to clean his room. They use shaping to help him principal steps toward the goal. Instead of performing the unabridged task, they prepare upward these steps and reinforce each footstep. Commencement, he cleans up ane toy. Second, he cleans up five toys. Third, he chooses whether to selection upwards ten toys or put his books and clothes abroad. Fourth, he cleans up everything except two toys. Finally, he cleans his entire room.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS

Rewards such equally stickers, praise, coin, toys, and more can be used to reinforce learning. Let's go back to Skinner'southward rats once again. How did the rats learn to printing the lever in the Skinner box? They were rewarded with food each time they pressed the lever. For animals, food would be an obvious reinforcer.

What would be a good reinforce for humans? For your daughter Sydney, it was the hope of a toy if she cleaned her room. How about Joaquin, the soccer actor? If you gave Joaquin a piece of candy every time he made a goal, y'all would be using a principal reinforcer. Primary reinforcers are reinforcers that take innate reinforcing qualities. These kinds of reinforcers are not learned. Water, food, sleep, shelter, sexual activity, and touch, amidst others, are primary reinforcers. Pleasure is too a master reinforcer. Organisms do not lose their drive for these things. For well-nigh people, jumping in a cool lake on a very hot day would be reinforcing and the cool lake would be innately reinforcing—the water would absurd the person off (a concrete need), likewise as provide pleasure.

A secondary reinforcer has no inherent value and but has reinforcing qualities when linked with a principal reinforcer. Praise, linked to affection, is one case of a secondary reinforcer, as when yous called out "Great shot!" every time Joaquin made a goal. Some other example, money, is only worth something when y'all can utilize it to buy other things—either things that satisfy basic needs (food, water, shelter—all chief reinforcers) or other secondary reinforcers. If you were on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and yous had stacks of coin, the money would non be useful if you could not spend information technology. 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, tin can and so be traded in for rewards and prizes. Entire behavior management systems, known as token economies, are built around the utilize of these kinds of token reinforcers. Token economies have been found to be very effective at modifying behavior in a diversity of settings such as schools, prisons, and mental hospitals. For instance, a study by Cangi and Daly (2013) establish that employ of a token economy increased appropriate social behaviors and reduced inappropriate behaviors in a group of autistic school children. Autistic children tend to exhibit disruptive behaviors such every bit pinching and hitting. When the children in the study exhibited appropriate behavior (not hitting or pinching), they received a "serenity hands" token. When they hit or pinched, they lost a token. The children could then commutation specified amounts of tokens for minutes of playtime.

Everyday Connection: Behavior Modification in Children

Parents and teachers often use beliefs modification to change a kid'southward behavior. Beliefs modification uses the principles of operant conditioning to achieve behavior change 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 course of token economies, as described in the text. Each fourth dimension children perform the behavior, they go a sticker, and after a sure number of stickers, they become a prize, or reinforcer. The goal is to increase adequate behaviors and decrease misbehavior. Call up, it is all-time to reinforce desired behaviors, rather than to use punishment. In the classroom, the teacher tin reinforce a wide range of behaviors, from students raising their hands, to walking quietly in the hall, to turning in their homework. At habitation, parents might create a behavior chart that rewards children for things such as putting away toys, brushing their teeth, and helping with dinner. In order for behavior modification to be effective, the reinforcement needs to be connected with the behavior; the reinforcement must matter to the child and be done consistently.

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

Fourth dimension-out is another popular technique used in beliefs modification with children. Information technology operates on the principle of negative penalty. When a child demonstrates an undesirable behavior, she is removed from the desirable activity at paw ([link]). For instance, say that Sophia and her brother Mario are playing with building blocks. Sophia throws some blocks at her brother, so you give her a alarm that she will go to time-out if she does it over again. A few minutes later, she throws more blocks at Mario. You lot remove Sophia from the room for a few minutes. When she comes back, she doesn't throw blocks.

In that location are several of import points that you lot should know if you programme to implement time-out as a behavior modification technique. First, brand sure the child is being removed from a desirable activity and placed in a less desirable location. If the action is something undesirable for the child, this technique will backfire considering it is more enjoyable for the child to be removed from the activeness. 2nd, the length of the fourth dimension-out is of import. The general dominion of pollex is i minute for each year of the child'south age. Sophia is five; therefore, she sits in a time-out for five minutes. Setting a timer helps children know how long they have to sit in time-out. Finally, as a caregiver, keep several guidelines in mind over the course of a time-out: remain calm when directing your child to time-out; ignore your child during fourth dimension-out (because caregiver attention may reinforce misbehavior); and give the child a hug or a kind word when time-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 behavior is to utilise positive reinforcement. For instance, Skinner used positive reinforcement to teach rats to printing a lever in a Skinner box. At first, the rat might randomly hit the lever while exploring the box, and out would come a pellet of food. Afterwards eating the pellet, what do yous think the hungry rat did side by side? It striking the lever again, and received another pellet of nutrient. Each fourth dimension the rat hit the lever, a pellet of food came out. When an organism receives a reinforcer each fourth dimension information technology displays a behavior, it is called continuous reinforcement. This reinforcement schedule is the quickest way to teach someone a beliefs, and it is specially effective in training a new beliefs. Let'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 will be most successful if y'all present the reinforcer immediately subsequently he sits, then that he can make an association betwixt the target behavior (sitting) and the event (getting a treat).

Link to Learning

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

One time a behavior is trained, researchers and trainers often turn to another blazon of reinforcement schedule—partial reinforcement. In partial reinforcement, also referred to as intermittent reinforcement, the person or animal does non become reinforced every time they perform the desired beliefs. There are several different types of partial reinforcement schedules ([link]). These schedules are described as either stock-still or variable, and as either interval or ratio. Fixed refers to the number of responses between reinforcements, or the amount of time between reinforcements, which is set up and unchanging. Variable refers to the number of responses or corporeality of time between reinforcements, which varies or changes. Interval means the schedule is based on the fourth dimension betwixt reinforcements, and ratio means the schedule is based on the number of responses between reinforcements.

Reinforcement Schedules
Reinforcement Schedule	Description	Event	Example
Fixed interval	Reinforcement is delivered at anticipated time intervals (e.g., after 5, 10, xv, and 20 minutes).	Moderate response rate with pregnant pauses afterward reinforcement	Hospital patient uses patient-controlled, doctor-timed pain relief
Variable interval	Reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable time intervals (e.thousand., later 5, 7, 10, and 20 minutes).	Moderate yet steady response charge per unit	Checking Facebook
Fixed ratio	Reinforcement is delivered afterward a predictable number of responses (e.m., after 2, 4, 6, and viii responses).	High response rate with pauses subsequently reinforcement	Piecework—factory worker getting paid for every x number of items manufactured
Variable ratio	Reinforcement is delivered subsequently an unpredictable number of responses (e.g., later i, 4, 5, and ix responses).	Loftier and steady response rate	Gambling

Now let'due south combine these four terms. A stock-still interval reinforcement schedule is when behavior is rewarded after a set amount of time. For example, June undergoes major surgery in a hospital. During recovery, she is expected to experience pain and volition crave prescription medications for pain relief. June is given an 4 drip with a patient-controlled painkiller. Her doctor sets a limit: one dose per hr. June pushes a push when pain becomes difficult, and she receives a dose of medication. Since the reward (hurting relief) merely occurs on a fixed interval, there is no point in exhibiting the behavior when it volition non exist rewarded.

With a variable interval reinforcement schedule, the person or animate being gets the reinforcement based on varying amounts of fourth dimension, which are unpredictable. Say that Manuel is the managing director at a fast-food restaurant. Every once in a while someone from the quality control segmentation comes to Manuel's eating place. If the eating place is make clean and the service is fast, everyone on that shift earns a $20 bonus. Manuel never knows when the quality control person will prove up, so he always tries to keep the eating place make clean and ensures that his employees provide prompt and courteous service. His productivity regarding prompt service and keeping a clean eating place are steady because he wants his crew to earn the bonus.

With a fixed ratio reinforcement schedule, at that place are a set number of responses that must occur earlier the behavior is rewarded. Carla sells glasses at an eyeglass store, and she earns a commission every time she sells a pair of spectacles. She always tries to sell people more pairs of glasses, including prescription sunglasses or a backup pair, so she tin increase her commission. She does not care if the person really needs the prescription sunglasses, Carla simply wants her bonus. The quality of what Carla sells does not matter because her commission is not based on quality; information technology'due south only based on the number of pairs sold. This stardom in the quality of operation can help determine which reinforcement method is most appropriate for a detail situation. Fixed ratios are better suited to optimize the quantity of output, whereas a fixed interval, in which the reward is non quantity based, can lead to a higher quality of output.

In a variable ratio reinforcement schedule, the number of responses needed for a advantage varies. This is the about powerful partial reinforcement schedule. An example of the variable ratio reinforcement schedule is gambling. Imagine that Sarah—generally a smart, thrifty woman—visits Las Vegas for the showtime time. She is non a gambler, but out of curiosity she puts a quarter into the slot machine, and then another, and some other. Nothing happens. 2 dollars in quarters later, her marvel is fading, and she is just virtually to quit. But then, the machine lights up, bells go off, and Sarah gets 50 quarters back. That's more than similar it! Sarah gets back to inserting quarters with renewed involvement, and a few minutes subsequently she has used upwards all her gains and is $10 in the pigsty. Now might be a sensible fourth dimension to quit. And even so, she keeps putting money into the slot machine considering she never knows when the next reinforcement is coming. She keeps thinking that with the adjacent quarter she could win $l, or $100, or fifty-fifty more than. Because the reinforcement schedule in well-nigh types of gambling has a variable ratio schedule, people keep trying and hoping that the next time they will win big. This is one of the reasons that gambling is and so addictive—and so resistant to extinction.

In operant conditioning, extinction of a reinforced behavior occurs at some betoken after 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, equally described above. But in the other reinforcement schedules, extinction may come up quickly. For example, if June presses the push for the pain relief medication before the allotted time her doctor has canonical, no medication is administered. She is on a fixed interval reinforcement schedule (dosed hourly), so extinction occurs rapidly when reinforcement doesn't come up at the expected time. Among the reinforcement schedules, variable ratio is the most productive and the most resistant to extinction. Fixed interval is the to the lowest degree 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 coin with no return, it may achieve the same result by returning function of the patron's money on a variable-ratio schedule" (p. 397).

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

It may be that pathological gamblers' brains are dissimilar than those of other people, and perhaps this difference may somehow take led to their gambling addiction, equally these studies seem to suggest. However, it is very hard to ascertain the cause considering it is incommunicable to behave a truthful experiment (it would be unethical to endeavor to turn randomly assigned participants into trouble gamblers). Therefore, it may be that causation actually moves in the opposite management—perhaps the act of gambling somehow changes neurotransmitter levels in some gamblers' brains. It besides is possible that some overlooked cistron, or confounding variable, played a office 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 equally Skinner and Watson refused to believe that cognition (such as thoughts and expectations) plays a role in learning, another behaviorist, Edward C. Tolman, had a different opinion. Tolman's experiments with rats demonstrated that organisms tin 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 thought 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 it. He also studied a comparison grouping that was rewarded with food at the stop of the maze. As the unreinforced rats explored the maze, they developed a cognitive map: a mental picture of the layout of the maze ([link]). Later on x sessions in the maze without reinforcement, food was placed in a goal box at the end of the maze. Every bit presently equally the rats became aware of the food, they were able to find their way through the maze quickly, just as quickly equally the comparison group, which had been rewarded with nutrient all along. This is known equally latent learning: learning that occurs but is non observable in behavior until there 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 merely demonstrate it at a subsequently engagement, when the learned fabric is needed. For instance, suppose that Ravi'due south dad drives him to school every day. In this way, Ravi learns the route from his house to his school, but he'south never driven there himself, so he has not had a take a chance to demonstrate that he's learned the way. One morn Ravi's dad has to get out early for a meeting, so he can't drive Ravi to schoolhouse. Instead, Ravi follows the same route on his bicycle that his dad would have taken in the car. This demonstrates latent learning. Ravi had learned the route to schoolhouse, merely had no need to demonstrate this knowledge earlier.

Everyday Connection: This Place Is Like a Maze

Have you lot ever gotten lost in a building and couldn't find your manner back out? While that tin exist frustrating, you're not lone. At one fourth dimension or some other we've all gotten lost in places like a museum, hospital, or university library. Whenever we get someplace new, nosotros build a mental representation—or cerebral map—of the location, every bit Tolman's rats built a cerebral map of their maze. Still, some buildings are disruptive considering they include many areas that await akin or have brusque lines of sight. Considering of this, it's often difficult to predict what's around a corner or decide whether to turn left or right to go out of a edifice. Psychologist Laura Carlson (2010) suggests that what nosotros place in our cognitive map tin can touch our success in navigating through the environment. She suggests that paying attention to specific features upon entering a building, such as a picture on the wall, a fountain, a statue, or an escalator, adds information to our cerebral map that tin be used later on to help find our mode out of the edifice.

Link to Learning

Watch this video to learn more than about Carlson'due south studies on cognitive maps and navigation in buildings.

Summary

Operant conditioning is based on the piece of work of B. F. Skinner. Operant workout is a form of learning in which the motivation for a beliefs happens afterwards the behavior is demonstrated. An beast or a human receives a consequence later performing a specific beliefs. The consequence 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 ready or variable period of time.

Self Bank check Questions

Disquisitional Thinking Questions

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

ii. What is the difference betwixt negative reinforcement and penalty?

3. What is shaping and how would you use shaping to teach a canis familiaris to scroll over?

Personal Application Questions

4. Explain the deviation between negative reinforcement and penalty, and provide several examples of each based on your ain experiences.

five. Think of a behavior that you have that yous would like to modify. How could y'all utilise behavior modification, specifically positive reinforcement, to modify your behavior? What is your positive reinforcer?

Answers

1. A Skinner box is an operant workout chamber used to railroad train animals such as rats and pigeons to perform certain behaviors, similar pressing a lever. When the animals perform the desired behavior, they receive a reward: nutrient or water.

2. In negative reinforcement you are taking abroad an undesirable stimulus in order to increase the frequency of a sure behavior (eastward.m., buckling your seat belt stops the abrasive beeping audio in your machine and increases the likelihood that y'all will wear your seatbelt). Punishment is designed to reduce a behavior (due east.yard., you scold your child for running into the street in order to decrease the unsafe behavior.)

3. Shaping is an operant conditioning method in which y'all reward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. If you lot want to teach your dog to curlicue over, you lot might reward him first when he sits, then when he lies downwards, and so when he lies down and rolls onto his back. Finally, you lot would advantage him merely when he completes the entire sequence: lying downwardly, rolling onto his back, and then continuing to curlicue over to his other side.

Glossary

cognitive map mental picture of the layout of the environment

continuous reinforcement rewarding a behavior every fourth dimension it occurs

fixed interval reinforcement schedule beliefs is rewarded after a prepare amount of fourth dimension

stock-still ratio reinforcement schedule set number of responses must occur earlier a beliefs is rewarded

latent learning learning that occurs, only information technology may not exist axiomatic until there is a reason to demonstrate information technology

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

negative penalization taking away a pleasant stimulus to decrease or stop a behavior

negative reinforcement taking abroad an undesirable stimulus to increment a behavior

operant conditioning course of learning in which the stimulus/experience happens later the behavior is demonstrated

partial reinforcement rewarding behavior only some of the time

positive penalization adding an undesirable stimulus to end or decrease a behavior

positive reinforcement adding a desirable stimulus to increase a behavior

master reinforcer has innate reinforcing qualities (e.yard., nutrient, water, shelter, sex)

punishment implementation of a result in lodge to decrease a beliefs

reinforcement implementation of a consequence in gild to increment a behavior

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

shaping rewarding successive approximations toward a target behavior

variable interval reinforcement schedule behavior is rewarded after unpredictable amounts of time accept passed

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

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

Is the Addition of Something That Increases the Likelihood of a Behavior Occuring Again

Learning Objectives

REINFORCEMENT

PUNISHMENT

Shaping

Link to Learning

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS

REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES

COGNITION AND LATENT LEARNING

Everyday Connection: This Place Is Like a Maze

Summary

Self Bank check Questions

Disquisitional Thinking Questions

Answers

Glossary

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