Module 10

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Module 10

• Operant Cognitive Approaches

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OPERANT CONDITIONING

• Operant Conditioning
• also called instrumental conditioning
• kind of learning in which an animal or human
  performs some behavior
• following consequence (reward or punishment)
  increase or decrease the chance that an animal or
  human will again perform that same behavior

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• Thorndikes law of effect
• states that behaviors followed by positive
  consequences are strengthened, while behaviors
  followed by negative consequences are weakened
• Skinners operant conditioning
• focuses on how consequences (rewards or
  punishments) affect behaviors
• 1920s and 1930s gave learning a mighty jolt
  with the discovery of two general principles
• Pavlovs classical conditioning
• Skinners operant conditioning

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)
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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)
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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• Principles and procedures
• Skinner box
• automated to record the animals bar presses and
  deliver food pellets
• Skinner box is an efficient way to study how an
  animals ongoing behaviors may be modified by
  changing the consequences of what happens after a
  bar press
• 3 factors in operant conditioning of a rat
• a hungry rat will be more willing to eat the food
  reward
• operant response condition the rat to press the
  bar
• shaping procedure in which an experimenter
  successively reinforces behaviors that lead up to
  or approximate the desired behavior

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)
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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• Shaping
• Facing the bar
• rat is put in box
• when rat finally faces the bar, food pellet is
  released
• rat sniffs the food pellet
• Touching the bar
• rat faces and moves towards 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.

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• 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 now push bar then
  release pellet.
• Rat soon presses bar over and over again to get
  pellets.
• Rats behavior was reinforced as the rat leads up
  to, or approximates, the desired behavior of bar
  pressing

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• 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

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• Examples of operant conditioning
• Toilet training
• target behavior
• preparation
• reinforcers
• shaping
• Food refusal
• target behavior
• preparation
• reinforcers
• shaping

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• 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

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• 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)

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• Operant versus classical conditioning
• Classical conditioning
• goal create a new response to a neutral stimulus
• involuntary response physiological reflexes
  (salivation, eye blink)
• triggered or elicited by some stimulus and called
  involuntary responses
• elicited response unconditioned stimulus
  triggers or elicits an involuntary reflex
  response, salivation, which is called the
  unconditioned response

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OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT.)

• Operant versus classical conditioning
• Classical conditioning
• conditioned response neutral stimulus becomes
  the conditioned stimulus when alone before the
  occurrence of 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 the animal or
  human learning a predictable relationship between
  stimuli

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REINFORCERS

• Consequences
• consequences are contingent on behavior
• Reinforcement
• consequence that occurs after a behavior and
  increases the chance that the behavior will occur
  again
• Punishment
• consequence that occurs after a behavior and
  decreases the chance that the behavior will occur
  again

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REINFORCERS (CONT.)

• Reinforcement
• Positive reinforcement
• refers to the presentation of a stimulus that
  increases the probability that a behavior will
  occur again
• positive reinforcer is a stimulus that increases
  the likelihood that a response will occur again
• Negative reinforcement
• refers to an aversive stimulus whose removal
  increases the likelihood that the preceding
  response will occur again

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REINFORCERS (CONT.)

• Reinforcers
• Primary reinforcers
• stimulus such as food, water, or sex, that is
  innately satisfying and requires no learning on
  the part of the subject to become pleasurable
• Secondary reinforcers
• any 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

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REINFORCERS (CONT.)

• Punishment
• Positive punishment
• refers to presenting an aversive (unpleasant)
  stimulus after a response
• Negative punishment
• refers to removing a reinforcing stimulus after a
  response
• Self-injurious behavior
• refers to serious and sometimes life-threatening
  physical damage that a person inflicts on his or
  her own body
• includes, body or head banging, biting, kicking,
  poking ears or eyes, pulling hair, or intense
  scratching

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SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT

• Skinners 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

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SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT.)

• 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 following the first response
  that occurs after a fixed interval of time

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SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT.)

• Partial reinforcement schedules
• Variable-ratio schedule
• a reinforcer is delivered after an average number
  of correct responses has occurred
• Variable-interval schedule
• reinforcer occurs following the first correct
  response after an average amount of time has
  passed

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OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS

• Generalization
• an animal or a 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

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OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS (CONT.)

• Extinction and spontaneous recovery
• Extinction
• refers to a 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

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COGNITIVE LEARNING

• Three viewpoints of cognitive learning
• against B. F. Skinner
• Skinner said, As far as Im concerned, cognitive
  science is the creationism (downfall) of
  psychology.
• in favor Edward Tolman
• explored hidden mental processes
• cognitive map
• a mental representation in the brain of the
  layout of an environment and its features

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COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT.)

• Three viewpoints of cognitive learning
• in favor Albert Bandura
• Bandura
• focused on how humans learn through observing
  things
• Social cognitive learning
• results from watching, and modeling and does not
  require the observer to perform any observable
  behavior or receive any observable reward

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COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT.)

• Banduras 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 what the model
  says or does
• Memory
• observer must store or remember the information
  so that it can be retrieved and used later

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COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT.)

• Banduras social cognitive theory
• Four processes (cont.)
• Imitation
• observer must be able to use the remembered
  information to guide his or her own actions and
  thus imitate the models behavior
• Motivation
• observer must have some reason or incentive to
  imitate the models behavior

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COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT.)

• Insight learning
• Insight
• a mental process marked by the sudden and
  unexpected solution to a problem a phenomenon
  often called the ah-ha! experience.

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BIOLOGICAL FACTORS

• Definition
• Biological factors
• refer to innate tendencies or predispositions
  that may either facilitate or inhibit certain
  kinds of learning
• Imprinting
• refers to 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