Module 10

Operant & Cognitive Approaches

OPERANT CONDITIONING

• Operant conditioning

– Also called instrumental conditioning

– Kind of learning in which an animal or human performs some behavior

– Following consequences (reward or punishment) increases or decreases the chance that an animal or human will again perform that same behavior

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Thorndike’s law of effect– behaviors followed by positive consequences are

strengthened – behaviors followed by negative consequences are weakened

• Skinner’s operant conditioning– Operant response: can be modified by its consequences and

is a meaningful, easily measured unit of ongoing behavior– Focuses on how consequences (rewards or punishments)

affect behaviors– 1920s and 1930s discovery of two general principles

• Pavlov’s classical conditioning• Skinner’s operant conditioning

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Principles and procedures– Skinner box

• automatically records an animal’s bar presses and delivers food pellets

• efficient way to study how an animal’s ongoing behaviors may be modified by changing the consequences of what happens after a bar press

– Three factors in operant conditioning of a rat• a hungry rat is more willing to eat the food reward

• can thus condition the rat to press the bar

• successively reinforced behaviors lead up to or approximate the desired behavior

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Shaping– Facing the bar

• rat is put in box • when rat faces the bar, food pellet is released • rat sniffs the food pellet

– Touching the bar• rat faces and moves toward the bar• another pellet is released• rat eats then wanders; returning to sniff for a pellet,

another pellet is dropped into the cup; rat places a paw on the bar, and another pellet is released

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Shaping– Pressing the bar

• when rat touches bar, pellet is released; rat eats and then puts paws back on bar and gets another pellet; wait for rat to push bar then release pellet

• rat soon presses bar repeatedly to get pellets• rat’s behavior reinforced as it leads up to, or

approximates, the desired behavior of bar pressing

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Immediate reinforcement– Reinforcer should follow immediately after the desired

behavior– If reinforcer is delayed, the animal may be reinforced

for some undesired or superstitious behavior

• Superstitious behavior– Behavior that increases in frequency because its

occurrence is accidentally paired with the delivery of a reinforcer

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Examples of operant conditioning

– Toilet training

• target behavior

• preparation

• reinforcers

• shaping

– Food refusal

• target behavior

• preparation

• reinforcers

• shaping

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Operant versus classical conditioning

– Operant conditioning• goal: increase or decrease the rate of some

response– voluntary response: must perform voluntary

response before getting a reward– emitted response: animals or humans are

shaped to emit the desired responses

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Operant versus classical conditioning

– Operant conditioning• contingent on behavior: depends or is contingent

on the consequences or what happens next• reinforcer must occur immediately after the desired

response• consequences: animals or humans learn that

performing or emitting some behavior is followed by a consequence (reward or punishment)

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Operant versus classical conditioning

– Classical conditioning• goal: create a new response to a neutral stimulus• involuntary response: physiological reflexes

(salivation, eye blink)• elicited response: unconditioned stimulus triggers

or elicits an involuntary reflex response, salivation, which is called the unconditioned response

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

• Operant versus classical conditioning– Classical conditioning

• conditioned response: neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus if it occurs before the conditioned response

• expectancy: animals and humans learn a predictable relationship between, or develop an expectancy about, the neutral and unconditioned stimuli

– classical conditioning leads to learning a predictable relationship between stimuli

REINFORCERS

• Consequences– Consequences are contingent on behavior

• Reinforcement– Consequence that occurs after a behavior; increases

the chance that the behavior will occur again

• Punishment– Consequence that occurs after a behavior; decreases

the chance that the behavior will occur again

REINFORCERS (CONT’D)

• Reinforcement

– Positive reinforcement• refers to the presentation of a stimulus that

increases the probability a behavior will occur again

– Negative reinforcement• refers to an aversive stimulus whose removal

increases the likelihood that the preceding response will occur again

REINFORCERS (CONT’D)

• Reinforcers

– Primary reinforcers• stimulus such as food, water, or sex; innately

satisfying and requires no learning on the part of the subject to become pleasurable

– Secondary reinforcers• stimulus that has acquired its reinforcing power

through experience; secondary reinforcers are learned, such as by being paired with primary reinforcers or other secondary reinforcers

REINFORCERS (CONT’D)

• Punishment– Positive punishment

• presenting an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus after a response

– Negative punishment• removing a reinforcing stimulus after a response

• noncompliance: refers to a child refusing to obey a command/request given by a parent or caregiver

• time-out: removes reinforcing stimuli after an undesirable response

– removal decreases the chances that the undesired response will recur

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT

• Skinner’s contributions– Schedule of reinforcement

• refers to a program or rule that determines how and when the occurrence of a response will be followed by a reinforcer

– Continuous reinforcement• every occurrence of the operant response results

in delivery of the reinforcer– Partial reinforcement

• refers to a situation in which responding is reinforced only some of the time

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT’D)

• Partial reinforcement schedules

– Fixed-ratio schedule• a reinforcer occurs only after a fixed number of

responses are made by the subject

– Fixed-interval schedule• a reinforcer occurs after the first response that

occurs after a fixed interval of time

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT’D)

• Partial reinforcement schedules

– Variable-ratio schedule• a reinforcer is delivered after an average number

of correct responses has occurred

– Variable-interval schedule• reinforcer occurs after the first correct response

after an average amount of time has passed

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS

• Generalization– Animal or person emits the same response to similar

stimuli

– Tendency for a stimulus similar to the original conditioned stimulus to elicit a response similar to the conditioned response

• Discrimination– Occurs during classical conditioning when an organism

learns to make a particular response to some stimuli but not to others

– Discrimination stimulus; cue that a behavior will be reinforced

OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS (CONT’D)

• Extinction and spontaneous recovery– Extinction

• procedure in which a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus

• the conditioned stimulus tends to no longer elicit the conditioned response

– Spontaneous recovery• tendency for the conditioned response to reappear after

being extinguished, even though there have been no further conditioning trials

COGNITIVE LEARNING

• Cognitive learning: attention and memory– Says that learning can occur through observation or

imitation and may not involve external rewards or require a person to perform any observable behaviors

• Three viewpoints– Against: B. F. Skinner (“As far as I’m concerned, cognitive

science is the creationism (downfall) of psychology”)

– In favor: Edward Tolman

• explored hidden mental processes

• cognitive map; mental representation in the brain of the layout of an environment and its features

COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)

• Three viewpoints– Also in favor: Albert Bandura

• focused on how humans learn through observing things

• Social cognitive learning– Results from watching and modeling; doesn’t require

the observer to perform any observable behavior or receive any observable reward

COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)

• Learning-performance distinction– Learning may occur but may not always be measured

by, or immediately evident in, performance

• Bandura’s social cognitive theory– Emphasizes the importance of observation, imitation,

and self-reward in the development and learning of social skills, personal interactions, and many other behaviors

COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)

• Four processes– Attention

• observer must pay attention to the model

– Memory• observer must store or remember the information

– Imitation• observer must be able to use the remembered

information and imitate the model’s behavior

– Motivation• observer must have some reason or incentive to imitate

the model’s behavior

COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)

• Insight learning

– Insight• a mental process marked by the sudden and

unexpected solution to a problem: a phenomenon often called the “a ha!” experience

BIOLOGICAL FACTORS

• Definition– Biological factors

• innate tendencies or predispositions that may either facilitate or inhibit certain kinds of learning

– Imprinting• inherited tendencies or responses that are

displayed by newborn animals when they encounter certain stimuli in their environment

– Critical or sensitive period• a relatively brief time during which learning is most

likely to occur

APPLICATIONS

• Behavior modification– Treatment or therapy that changes or modifies undesirable

behaviors by using principles of learning based on operant conditioning, classical conditioning, and social cognitive learning

– Autism• marked by poor development in social relationships

• great difficulty developing language and communicating; very few activities and interests

• long periods of time spent repeating the same behaviors and following rituals that interfere with more normal functioning

APPLICATIONS

– Autism• symptoms range from mild to severe• usually appear when a child is 2 to 3 years old

– Biofeedback• training procedure through which a person is made

aware of his or her physiological responses, such as muscle activity, heart rate, blood pressure, or temperature

• after awareness of physiological responses, a person tries to control them to decrease psychosomatic problems

APPLICATIONS