1. Unit 8: Learning Day 6: Operant Conditioning
DAILY COMMENTARY (in a spiral notebook!):
What are the ethical implications of creating conditioned responses in people?
Essential Question
What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning?
Objectives (write this down!):
I can: Compare and contrast principles involved in classical and operant conditioning.

2. Unit 6: Learning Day 2: Operant Conditioning
For Tonight:
Read , RJ 6.5
Read Clara Kailin Article
Today: DC
Review Classical Conditioning
Shaping / Lecture
PsychSym5
Gambling & Reinforcement
Work Time

3. Review of Classical Conditioning
Take out handout(s) from yesterday

4. Acquisition example
Clip from the office:

5. Spontaneous Recovery
After a rest period, an extinguished CR (salivation) spontaneously recovers, but if the CS (tone) persists alone, the CR becomes extinct again.

6. Stimulus Generalization
Tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS is called generalization. Pavlov conditioned the dog’s salivation (CR) by using miniature vibrators (CS) on the thigh. When he subsequently stimulated other parts of the dog’s body, salivation dropped.

7. Stimulus Discrimination
Discrimination is the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.
OBJECTIVE 5| Discuss the survival value of extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization and discrimination.

8. Unit Encyclopedia Project

9. The Learner is NOT passive. Learning based on consequence!!!
Operant Conditioning
The Learner is NOT passive.
Learning based on consequence!!!

10. The Law of Effect Edward Thorndike Locked cats in a cage
Behavior changes because of its consequences.
Rewards strengthen behavior.
If consequences are unpleasant, the Stimulus-Reward connection will weaken.
Called the whole process instrumental learning.
Click picture to see a better explanation of the Law of Effect.

11. Skinner’s Experiments
Skinner’s experiments extend Thorndike’s thinking, especially his law of effect. This law states that rewarded behavior is likely to occur again.
OBJECTIVE 11| State Thorndike’s law of effect, and explain its connection to Skinner’s research on operant conditioning.
Yale University Library

12. B.F. Skinner The Mac Daddy of Operant Conditioning.
Nurture guy through and through.
Used a Skinner Box (Operant Conditioning Chamber) to prove his concepts.

13. Operant & Classical Conditioning
1. Classical conditioning forms associations between stimuli (CS and US). Operant conditioning, on the other hand, forms an association between behaviors and the resulting events.
OBJECTIVE 10| Identify the two major characteristics that distinguish classical conditioning from operant conditioning.

14. Operant & Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning involves respondent behavior that occurs as an automatic response to a certain stimulus. Operant conditioning involves operant behavior, a behavior that operates on the environment, producing rewarding or punishing stimuli.

15. Operant Chamber
Using Thorndike's law of effect as a starting point, Skinner developed the Operant chamber, or the Skinner box, to study operant conditioning.
Edition by Michael P. Domjan, Used with permission
From The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning, 3rd
by Thomson Learning, Wadsworth Division
Walter Dawn/ Photo Researchers, Inc.

16. Operant Chamber
The operant chamber, or Skinner box, comes with a bar or key that an animal manipulates to obtain a reinforcer like food or water. The bar or key is connected to devices that record the animal’s response.

17. Shaping
Shaping is the operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior towards the desired target behavior through successive approximations.
OBJECTIVE 12| Describe the shaping procedure, and how it can increase our understanding of what animals and babies can discriminate.
Khamis Ramadhan/ Panapress/ Getty Images
Fred Bavendam/ Peter Arnold, Inc.
A rat shaped to sniff mines. A manatee shaped to discriminate
objects of different shapes, colors and sizes.

18. Types of Reinforcers
Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows. A heat lamp positively reinforces a meerkat’s behavior in the cold.
OBJECTIVE 13| Compare positive and negative reinforcement, and give one example each of a primary reinforcer, a conditioned, an immediate, and a delayed reinforcer.
Reuters/ Corbis

19. Reinforces A reinforcer is anything the INCREASES a behavior.
Positive Reinforcement:
The addition of something pleasant.
Negative Reinforcement:
The removal of something unpleasant.
Two types of NR
Escape Learning
Avoidance Learning
(Getting kicked out of class versus cutting class)

20. Positive or Negative? Studying for a test. Putting your seatbelt on.
Having a headache and taking an aspirin.
Getting a kiss for doing the dishes.
Faking sick to avoid AP Psych class.
Breaking out of jail.

21. Primary & Secondary Reinforcers
Primary Reinforcer: An innately reinforcing stimulus like food or drink.
Conditioned Reinforcer: A learned reinforcer that gets its reinforcing power through association with the primary reinforcer.

22. Immediate & Delayed Reinforcers
Immediate Reinforcer: A reinforcer that occurs instantly after a behavior. A rat gets a food pellet for a bar press.
Delayed Reinforcer: A reinforcer that is delayed in time for a certain behavior. A paycheck that comes at the end of a week.
We may be inclined to engage in small immediate reinforcers (watching TV) rather than large delayed reinforcers (getting an A in a course) which require consistent study.

23. How do we actually use Operant Conditioning?
To train a dog to get your slippers, you would have to reinforce him in small steps. First, to find the slippers. Then to put them in his mouth. Then to bring them to you and so on…this is shaping behavior.
Do we wait for the subject to deliver the desired behavior?
Sometimes, we use a process called shaping.
Shaping is reinforcing small steps on the way to the desired behavior.
To get Barry to become a better student, you need to do more than give him a massage when he gets good grades. You have to give him massages when he studies for ten minutes, or for when he completes his homework. Small steps to get to the desired behavior.

24. Reinforcement Schedules
How often to you give the reinforcer?
Every time or just sometimes you see the behavior.

25. Reinforcement Schedules
Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforces the desired response each time it occurs.
Partial Reinforcement: Reinforces a response only part of the time. Though this results in slower acquisition in the beginning, it shows greater resistance to extinction later on.
OBJECTIVE 14| Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of continuous and partial reinforcement schedules, and identify four schedules of partial reinforcements.

26. Ratio Schedules
Fixed-ratio schedule: Reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses. e.g., piecework pay.
Variable-ratio schedule: Reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses. This is hard to extinguish because of the unpredictability. (e.g., behaviors like gambling, fishing.)

27. Interval Schedules
Fixed-interval schedule: Reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed. (e.g., preparing for an exam only when the exam draws close.)
Variable-interval schedule: Reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals, which produces slow, steady responses. (e.g., pop quiz.)

28. Schedules of Reinforcement

29. Punishment Meant to decrease a behavior. Positive Punishment
Addition of something unpleasant.
Negative Punishment (Omission Training)
Removal of something pleasant.
Punishment works best when it is immediately done after behavior and if it is harsh!

30. An aversive event that decreases the behavior it follows.
Punishment
An aversive event that decreases the behavior it follows.
OBJECTIVE 15| Discuss the ways negative punishment, positive punishment, and negative reinforcement differ, and list some drawbacks of punishment as a behavior-control technique.

31. Punishment
Although there may be some justification for occasional punishment (Larzelaere & Baumrind, 2002), it usually leads to negative effects.
Results in unwanted fears.
Conveys no information to the organism.
Justifies pain to others.
Causes unwanted behaviors to reappear in its absence.
Causes aggression towards the agent.
Causes one unwanted behavior to appear in place of another.

32. Extending Skinner’s Understanding
Skinner believed in inner thought processes and biological underpinnings, but many psychologists criticize him for discounting them.

33. Cognition & Operant Conditioning
Evidence of cognitive processes during operant learning comes from rats during a maze exploration in which they navigate the maze without an obvious reward. Rats seem to develop cognitive maps, or mental representations, of the layout of the maze (environment).
OBJECTIVE 16| Explain how latent learning and the effect of external rewards demonstrate that cognitive processing is an important part of learning

34. Latent Learning
Such cognitive maps are based on latent learning, which becomes apparent when an incentive is given (Tolman & Honzik, 1930).

35. Motivation
Intrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a behavior for its own sake.
Extrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishments.

36. Biological Predisposition
Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive.
Breland and Breland (1961) showed that animals drift towards their biologically predisposed instinctive behaviors.
OBJECTIVE 17| Explain how biological predisposition place limits on what can be achieved through operant conditioning.
Photo: Bob Bailey
Marian Breland Bailey

37. Skinner’s Legacy
Skinner argued that behaviors were shaped by external influences instead of inner thoughts and feelings. Critics argued that Skinner dehumanized people by neglecting their free will.
OBJECTIVE 18| Describe the controversy over Skinner’s views of human behavior.
Falk/ Photo Researchers, Inc.

38. Applications of Operant Conditioning
Skinner introduced the concept of teaching machines that shape learning in small steps and provide reinforcements for correct rewards.
OBJECTIVE 19| Describe some ways to apply operant conditioning principles at school, at work and at home.
LWA-JDL/ Corbis
In School

39. Applications of Operant Conditioning
Reinforcement principles can enhance athletic performance.
In Sports

40. Applications of Operant Conditioning
Reinforcers affect productivity. Many companies now allow employees to share profits and participate in company ownership.
At work

41. Applications of Operant Conditioning
In children, reinforcing good behavior increases the occurrence of these behaviors. Ignoring unwanted behavior decreases their occurrence.

42. Operant vs. Classical Conditioning
OBJECTIVE 20| Identify the major similarities and differences between classical and operant conditioning.