How is selection involved in operant learning

Habituation occurs when we learn not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change. As the stimulus occurs over and over, we learn not to focus our attention on it. For example, imagine that your neighbor or roommate constantly has the television blaring. However, over time, you become accustomed to the stimulus of the television noise, and eventually you hardly notice it any longer. John B. Watson , shown in Figure , is considered the founder of behaviorism.

In stark contrast with Freud, who considered the reasons for behavior to be hidden in the unconscious, Watson championed the idea that all behavior can be studied as a simple stimulus-response reaction, without regard for internal processes. Watson argued that in order for psychology to become a legitimate science, it must shift its concern away from internal mental processes because mental processes cannot be seen or measured.

Instead, he asserted that psychology must focus on outward observable behavior that can be measured. According to Watson, human behavior, just like animal behavior, is primarily the result of conditioned responses.

Through their experiments with Little Albert, Watson and Rayner demonstrated how fears can be conditioned. In , Watson was the chair of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University.

Watson offered her a dollar to allow her son to be the subject of his experiments in classical conditioning. Through these experiments, Little Albert was exposed to and conditioned to fear certain things. Initially he was presented with various neutral stimuli, including a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton wool, and a white rat. He was not afraid of any of these things.

Then Watson, with the help of Rayner, conditioned Little Albert to associate these stimuli with an emotion—fear. Little Albert was frightened by the sound—demonstrating a reflexive fear of sudden loud noises—and began to cry. Watson repeatedly paired the loud sound with the white rat. Soon Little Albert became frightened by the white rat alone.

Days later, Little Albert demonstrated stimulus generalization—he became afraid of other furry things: a rabbit, a furry coat, and even a Santa Claus mask Figure. Watson had succeeded in conditioning a fear response in Little Albert, thus demonstrating that emotions could become conditioned responses.

However, there is no evidence that Little Albert experienced phobias in later years. Based on what you see, would you come to the same conclusions as the researchers? Advertising executives are pros at applying the principles of associative learning. Think about the car commercials you have seen on television. Many of them feature an attractive model.

By associating the model with the car being advertised, you come to see the car as being desirable Cialdini, You may be asking yourself, does this advertising technique actually work? According to Cialdini , men who viewed a car commercial that included an attractive model later rated the car as being faster, more appealing, and better designed than did men who viewed an advertisement for the same car minus the model. Have you ever noticed how quickly advertisers cancel contracts with a famous athlete following a scandal?

As far as the advertiser is concerned, that athlete is no longer associated with positive feelings; therefore, the athlete cannot be used as an unconditioned stimulus to condition the public to associate positive feelings the unconditioned response with their product the conditioned stimulus. Now that you are aware of how associative learning works, see if you can find examples of these types of advertisements on television, in magazines, or on the Internet. His experiments explored the type of associative learning we now call classical conditioning.

In classical conditioning, organisms learn to associate events that repeatedly happen together, and researchers study how a reflexive response to a stimulus can be mapped to a different stimulus—by training an association between the two stimuli.

He tested humans by conditioning fear in an infant known as Little Albert. His findings suggest that classical conditioning can explain how some fears develop. Explain how the processes of stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination are considered opposites. Can you think of an example in your life of how classical conditioning has produced a positive emotional response, such as happiness or excitement?

How about a negative emotional response, such as fear, anxiety, or anger? The previous section 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 different stimulus.

Now we turn to the second type of associative learning, operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, organisms learn to associate a behavior and its consequence Table. A pleasant consequence makes that behavior more 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.

Psychologist B. 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 law of effect, which was first proposed by psychologist Edward Thorndike. According to the law of effect , 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 likely to be repeated Thorndike, Essentially, if an organism does something that brings about a desired result, the organism is more likely to do it again.

If an organism does something that does not bring about a desired result, the organism is less likely to do it again. An example of the law of effect is in employment. One of the reasons and often the main reason we show up for work is because we get paid to do so. If we stop getting paid, we will likely stop showing up—even if we love our job. A Skinner box contains a lever for rats or disk for pigeons that the animal can press or peck for a food reward via the dispenser.

Speakers and lights can be associated with certain behaviors. A recorder counts the number of responses made by the animal. Watch this brief video clip to learn more about operant conditioning: Skinner is interviewed, and operant conditioning of pigeons is demonstrated.

In discussing operant conditioning, we use several everyday words—positive, negative, reinforcement, and punishment—in a specialized manner. In operant conditioning, positive and negative do not mean good and bad. Instead, positive means you are adding something, and negative means you are taking something away. Reinforcement means you are increasing a behavior, and punishment means you are decreasing a behavior. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, and punishment can also be 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. The most effective way to teach a person or animal a new behavior is with positive reinforcement.

In positive reinforcement , a desirable stimulus is added to increase a behavior. For example, you tell your five-year-old son, Jerome, that if he cleans his room, he will get a toy.

Jerome quickly cleans his room because he wants a new art set. Our paychecks are rewards, as are high grades and acceptance into our preferred school. Positive reinforcement as a learning tool is extremely effective. It has been found that one of the most effective ways to increase achievement in school districts with below-average reading scores was to pay the children to read.

The result was a significant increase in reading comprehension Fryer, What do you think about this program? If Skinner were alive today, he would probably think this was a great idea. In fact, in addition to the Skinner box, he also invented what he called a teaching machine that was designed to reward small steps in learning Skinner, —an early forerunner of computer-assisted learning.

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 next time Skinner, In negative reinforcement , an undesirable stimulus is removed to increase a behavior. The annoying sound stops when you exhibit the desired behavior, increasing the likelihood that you will buckle up in the future.

Negative reinforcement is also used frequently in horse training. Riders apply pressure—by pulling the reins or squeezing their legs—and then remove the pressure when the horse performs the desired behavior, such as turning or speeding up. The pressure is the negative stimulus that the horse wants to remove. Many people confuse negative reinforcement with punishment in operant conditioning, but they are two very different mechanisms.

Remember that reinforcement, even when it is negative, always increases a behavior. In contrast, punishment always decreases a behavior.

In positive punishment , you add an undesirable stimulus to decrease a behavior. An example of positive punishment is scolding a student to get the student to stop texting in class.

In this case, a stimulus the reprimand is added in order to decrease the behavior texting in class. In negative punishment , you remove a pleasant stimulus to decrease a behavior. For example, a driver might blast her horn when a light turns green, and continue blasting the horn until the car in front moves.

Punishment, especially when it is immediate, is one way to decrease undesirable behavior. For example, imagine your four-year-old son, Brandon, runs into the busy street to get his ball.

You give him a time-out positive punishment and tell him never to go into the street again. While strategies like time-outs are common today, in the past children were often subject to physical punishment, such as spanking.

First, punishment may teach fear. Brandon may become fearful of the street, but he also may become fearful of the person who delivered the punishment—you, his parent. Similarly, children who are punished by teachers may come to fear the teacher and try to avoid school Gershoff et al.

Consequently, most schools in the United States have banned corporal punishment. Second, punishment may cause children to become more aggressive and prone to antisocial behavior and delinquency Gershoff, 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 angry and frustrated. While positive punishment can be effective in some cases, Skinner suggested that the use of punishment should be weighed against the possible negative effects.

In his operant conditioning experiments, Skinner often 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? Remember that in order for reinforcement to work, the organism must first display 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:. Shaping is often used in teaching a complex behavior or chain of behaviors. Skinner used shaping to teach pigeons not only such relatively simple behaviors as pecking a disk in a Skinner box, but also many unusual and entertaining behaviors, such as turning in circles, walking in figure eights, and even playing ping pong; the technique is commonly used by animal trainers today.

An important part of shaping is stimulus discrimination. This discrimination is also important in operant conditioning and in shaping behavior. They use shaping to help him master steps toward the goal. Instead of performing the entire task, they set up these steps and reinforce each step. First, he cleans up one toy. Second, he cleans up five toys. Third, he chooses whether to pick up ten toys or put his books and clothes away.

Fourth, he cleans up everything except two toys. Finally, he cleans his entire room. Rewards such as stickers, praise, money, toys, and more can be used to reinforce learning. 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, food would be an obvious reinforcer. What would be a good reinforce for humans? For your daughter Sydney, it was the promise of a toy if she cleaned her room. How about Joaquin, the soccer player? If you gave Joaquin a piece of candy every time he made a goal, you would be using a primary reinforcer. Primary reinforcers are reinforcers that have innate reinforcing qualities. These kinds of reinforcers are not learned.

Water, food, sleep, shelter, sex, and touch, among others, are primary reinforcers. Skinner showed how negative reinforcement worked by placing a rat in his Skinner box and then subjecting it to an unpleasant electric current which caused it some discomfort.

As the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so the electric current would be switched off.

The consequence of escaping the electric current ensured that they would repeat the action again and again. In fact Skinner even taught the rats to avoid the electric current by turning on a light just before the electric current came on.

The rats soon learned to press the lever when the light came on because they knew that this would stop the electric current being switched on.

These two learned responses are known as Escape Learning and Avoidance Learning. Punishment is defined as the opposite of reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase it. It is an aversive event that decreases the behavior that it follows. The behavior has been extinguished. Behaviorists discovered that different patterns or schedules of reinforcement had different effects on the speed of learning and extinction.

Ferster and Skinner devised different ways of delivering reinforcement and found that this had effects on. The Response Rate - The rate at which the rat pressed the lever i. The Extinction Rate - The rate at which lever pressing dies out i. Skinner found that the type of reinforcement which produces the slowest rate of extinction i.

The type of reinforcement which has the quickest rate of extinction is continuous reinforcement. Behavior is reinforced only after the behavior occurs a specified number of times.

For example, a child receives a star for every five words spelled correctly. One reinforcement is given after a fixed time interval providing at least one correct response has been made.

An example is being paid by the hour. Another example would be every 15 minutes half hour, hour, etc. For examples gambling or fishing.

Providing one correct response has been made, reinforcement is given after an unpredictable amount of time has passed, e. An example is a self-employed person being paid at unpredictable times.

The main principle comprises changing environmental events that are related to a person's behavior. For example, the reinforcement of desired behaviors and ignoring or punishing undesired ones. This is not as simple as it sounds — always reinforcing desired behavior, for example, is basically bribery. There are different types of positive reinforcements. Primary reinforcement is when a reward strengths a behavior by itself.

Secondary reinforcement is when something strengthens a behavior because it leads to a primary reinforcer. Token economy is a system in which targeted behaviors are reinforced with tokens secondary reinforcers and later exchanged for rewards primary reinforcers. Tokens can be in the form of fake money, buttons, poker chips, stickers, etc. While the rewards can range anywhere from snacks to privileges or activities. For example, teachers use token economy at primary school by giving young children stickers to reward good behavior.

Token economy has been found to be very effective in managing psychiatric patients. However, the patients can become over reliant on the tokens, making it difficult for them to adjust to society once they leave prison, hospital, etc. Staff implementing a token economy programme have a lot of power. It is important that staff do not favor or ignore certain individuals if the programme is to work.

Therefore, staff need to be trained to give tokens fairly and consistently even when there are shift changes such as in prisons or in a psychiatric hospital. A further important contribution made by Skinner is the notion of behavior shaping through successive approximation. Skinner argues that the principles of operant conditioning can be used to produce extremely complex behavior if rewards and punishments are delivered in such a way as to encourage move an organism closer and closer to the desired behavior each time.

To do this, the conditions or contingencies required to receive the reward should shift each time the organism moves a step closer to the desired behavior. According to Skinner, most animal and human behavior including language can be explained as a product of this type of successive approximation. In the conventional learning situation, operant conditioning applies largely to issues of class and student management, rather than to learning content.

It is very relevant to shaping skill performance. A simple way to shape behavior is to provide feedback on learner performance, e. A variable-ratio produces the highest response rate for students learning a new task, whereby initially reinforcement e. The misbehavior of organisms. THERE seems to be a continuing realization by psychologists that perhaps the white rat cannot reveal everything there is to know about behavior. Among the voices raised on this topic, Beach … Expand.

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Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals. II T his monograph is an attempt at an explanation of the nature of the process of association in the animal mind. Inasmuch as there have been no extended researches of a character similar to the … Expand.