Conditioning

• Law of Effect


  Behaviors that are rewarded increase in frequency
• Experiment


  Research that manipulates one or more variables (IVs) in order to observe the effects on some other variable or variables (DVs)
• Independent variable (IV)


  A variable under the control of researchers, which they are looking for an effect OF (cause)
• Dependent variable (DV)


  Objectively measured outcome (effect)
• Subject variable (SV)


  A variable that takes the place of an IV (cause), an inherent quality of the subject not under experimenter control
• Quasi Experiment


  Near-experiments, missing a critical feature, usually the IV
• Natural group design


  An SV substitutes for the IV
• Classical Conditioning


  Involves contingency between two stimuli. The new stimulus predicts the old one, and comes to evoke the same response.
• Operant Conditioning


  Involves contingency between behavior and reward or punishment. Context predicts effects of behavior. Behaviors (responses) operate on environment.
• Law of effect (Thorndyke's law)

  Behaviors which are rewarded increase in frequency. Behaviors which are not rewarded decrease in frequency.
• BF Skinner


  • Radical behaviorist
• Operant chambers / Skinner Boxes

  Give full control over context / environment. Allow automatic recording of target behavior.
• Reinforcer


  What is a reinforcer?
• Primary reinforcer


  What is the difference between a primary reinforcer and a secondary reinforcer?
• Secondary reinforcer


  What is the difference between a primary reinforcer and a secondary reinforcer?
• Punisher


  What is a punisher?
• Positive reinforcement


  What are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement?
• Negative reinforcement


  What are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement?
• Positive punishment


  What are positive punishment and negative punishment?
• Negative punishment


  What are positive punishment and negative punishment?
• Operant Conditioning terms


  1. Present Stimulus

  2. Remove Stimulus

  3. Behavior increases

  4. Behavior decreases
• Continuous reinforcement


  What is Continuous reinforcement?
• Partial/Intermittent reinforcement


  What is Partial/Intermittent reinforcement?
• Continuous and intermittent schedules

  Relative advantages in terms of speed of learning and speed of extinction
• Habituation


  Decreasing response to a repeated stimulus
• Discrimination


  Selective reinforcement (only the behavior you want, only in the context you want)
• Habituation


  • Avoids wasting energy on the familiar
  • When you change the stimulus, you get dishabituation
• Classical Conditioning


  What is learned
• Shaping / method of successive approximations

  Reinforcing a succession of behaviors to reach target behavior and context
• Neutral Stimulus (NS)


  What is it?
• Radical Behaviorism


  • All explanations should be on the basis of the observable. 2. Simple principles of learning govern behavior. 3. All behavior are a result of experience + current context.
• Initial response to a neutral stimulus


  What is it?
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)


  What is it?
• Watson and Skinner believed that all learning is based on the observable
• Unconditioned Response (UCR)


  What is it?
• Skinner's study on "superstitious" behaviors in pigeons
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS)


  What is it?
• Challenges to the principles of behaviorism: observational learning, latent learning, insight learning
• Conditioned Response (CR)


  How is it related to the response to the UCR?
• Key studies


  • Cats and puzzle boxes (Thorndyke ,1911)
  • Superstitious rats (Skinner, 1948)
  • Latent learning (Tolman & Honzik, 1930)