PSYCH Quiz 3

• Behaviour analysis


  The scientific study of behaviour
• Learning


  Long-lasting changes in behaviour caused by environmental events
• Behaviour analysts study learning by

  • Looking at how behaviour is affected by environment (everything that happens before and after and around the behaviour)
• Psychologists study learning by looking at how behaviour is affected by environment
• Working assumption: both human and animal behaviour is made up of same simple elements
• Animal behaviour is probably not affected by us observing it
• Thorndike's puzzle box experiment

  1. Cat in puzzle box

  2. Get fish from outside of puzzle box (motivator)

  3. Measure latency to escape

  4. Cat stands on lever by accident, gets out (learning curve - more likely to do again in future)
• Thorndike's Law of Effect


  If response is followed by favourable consequence, response will be more likely to occur again in future
• Operant/instrumental behaviour


  Behaviour subject to the Law of Effect (things done in order to produce consequence)
• Operant conditioning


  Process of animal learning an association between response and its consequences
• Reinforcer is most effective if it immediately follows the response
• Contingency


  Response causes the reinforcer to occur
• Shaping


  Reinforce closer and closer approximations to the response we want to produce
• Positive reinforcement


  Presenting a desired favourable event
• Negative reinforcement


  Withdrawing an aversive event
• Positive punishment


  Presenting an aversive event
• Negative punishment


  Withdrawing an appetitive event
• Primary reinforcers


  Can reinforce behaviour because of innate biological significance (e.g. food, warmth, escape from pain)
• Secondary reinforcers (Conditioned reinforcers)


  Previous neutral stimuli that get reinforcing properties by being paired with primary reinforcers in organism's history
• Continuous reinforcement


  Every response is reinforced
• Intermittent reinforcement


  Only some responses are reinforced, according to a schedule
• Responses maintained by intermittent reinforcement persist much longer during extinction than those maintained by continuous reinforcement
• Fixed ratio schedule


  Reinforcing every fifth response
• Fixed interval schedule


  A response is reinforced after a fixed amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcer
• Variable interval schedule


  A response is reinforced after a variable amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcer
• Differential reinforcement of other behaviour (DRO)


  Reinforcer is delivered when fixed amount of time has elapsed since last response (reinforces non-responding)
• Fixed time schedule


  A reinforcer is delivered when a fixed amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcer (non-contingent or response-independent reinforcement)
• Skinner found that fixed time schedules can produce idiosyncratic, superstitious responding in pigeons
• Superstitions in humans may be explained by the same process of adventitious (by chance) reinforcement of whatever behaviour was occurring just before the non-contingent reinforcement
• Stimulus control of operant behaviour

  The extent to which stimuli that precede or accompany operant behaviour come to affect the rate or probability of that behaviour
• The Law of Effect is a bit oversimplified
• When a response is reinforced


  • It becomes more likely to occur again in the same environment, or same stimulus context, in which it was reinforced
  • If we change the stimulus context, we can change the probability of response
  • Likely repeat reinforced behaviours when in same situation
• Stimulus control


  The extent to which stimuli that precede or accompany operant behaviour come to affect the rate or probability of that behaviour
• More stimulus


  More discrimination, less generalisation
• Generalisation gradient


  How much does original trained behaviour generalise to new stimuli
• S+ (positive discriminative stimulus)


  Signals what the consequences for responding are going to be, and that the consequences will be reinforcement
• Antecedents (stimuli), Behaviour (responses), Consequences (reinforcers)


  Antecedents set the occasion for Behaviour, which is followed by Consequences
• Respondent (classical, Pavlovian) conditioning


  Learning an association between two stimuli
• Operant conditioning


  Learning an association between a response and its consequence
• Respondent (classical) conditioning doesn't have to be trained, it is hardwired in the organism's brain