Learning: Thorndike and Skinner

Law of Effect- Part I

A connection between stimulus and the response is strengthened if the consequence of such a connection is satisfying state of affairs.

Law of Effect- Part II

A connection between stimulus and the response is weakened if the consequence of such a connection is an annoying state of affairs (does not like consequences.)

Chaining

A discriminative stimulus initiates a response which serves as a stimulus for the next response and so on till the final response is followed by primary reinforcement. Movement induced

Belongingness

All those S-R connections strengthened if the elements of association somehow belonged together.

B

Behavior

Radical Behaviorism

Behavior cannot be explained on the basis of drive, motivation and purpose. All of these take psychology back to its mentalistic nature. Behavior has to be explained on the basis of consequences (reinforcements, punishments) and environmental factors. This, Skinner proposed, was the back bone of all scientific psychology

Shaping

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.

A

Antecedent

Secondary Reinforcement

Any neutral stimulus paired with a primary reinforcer takes on reinforcing properties of its own and is called a secondary stimulus. Thus all discriminative stimuli are secondary reinforcers.

Law of Exercise-Part II- (Law of Disuse)

Connections between stimulus and response are weakened when practice is discontinued, or if the neural bond is not used.

C

Consequence

Prepotency of Elements

During learning the animal pays attention to the significant stimulus element.

Formal Discipline

Faculty psychologists argued that if a mental faculty was trained on a task, it transferred to other tasks. If one disciplines reasoning (faculty) by practicing math, one becomes a better logician. So transfer of training, for formal discipline was based on exercising a "mental muscle".

Washburn

First woman to have a PhD. In psychology. Started conducting laboratory experiments with animals but no controls.

Identical elements theory

Elements in familiar and unfamiliar situations can be stimuli or procedures. Learning to ride a motorcycle after a bicycle has many common procedural elements. Thus learning to ride a motorcycle becomes and easy task.

Simple Choice behavior

Gratification from rewards can be immediate or delayed. Our simple choice behaviors are dictated by these reinforcements accordingly.

Punishment

Had little or no effect on weakening the S-R bond.

Repetition

Has little effect on learning

Reinforcement

If response is followed by a reinforcer than response increases. However, if it is followed by punisher then the response decreases.

Programmed Learning

Skinner was interested in applying theory of learning to education, therefore introduced teaching machines. Electromechanical devices that promoted teaching and learning.

Darwin

Initiated animal research suggesting that humans and animals had similar anatomy, emotions and cognitions

Consequences & Contingencies

Like Thorndike, Skinner believed that positive reinforcement strengthened behavior but punishment did not weaken behavior.

Associative Shifting

Portrays response by analogy in a classical study by Terace. Study shows that pigeons continue to peck for food while the stimulus pattern changes

Extinction

Remove reinforcement and the lever pressing behavior is extinguished

Educational practices

Should be studied scientifically. Scientific knowledge about learning should be applied to these practices

Herrnstein Matching Law

Showed with mathematical equation that relative reinforcement equals relative response. B1/ B1+B2 = R1/ R1+R2

Romanes

Supported the idea of continuity of intelligence, emotional behavior anecdotally among species, antecdotally among species, anthromorphizing human traits in animals.

Multiple Responses

first steps in all learning. These responses that do not usually solve the problem and are discarded. In trial-and-error learning when a response solves the problem it is stamped in (kept), others are stamped out (discarded).

Discrimination Learning

The organism can be conditioned to discriminate between two or more stimuli. A discriminative operant is a response that is emitted specifically to one stimulus but not the other.

Trial-and-error learning

Thorndike early learning experiments involved training cats to escape a puzzle box. The puzzle box consisted of pole or a chain hanging from the top. The cat would push the pole or pull the chain to escape out of the box. Results of the puzzle box experiment suggests that time to solve problem decreased as a function of traits.

Connectionism

Thorndike's theory of learning. He described it as the association between sense impressions and impulses to action.Functional analysis of responses (R) in the context of stimuli (S) lead Thorndike to propose that S-R connection was neural in nature. First formal theory of learning.

Law of Readiness

When a conduction unit (animal) is ready to conduct (respond), conduction by it is satisfying not to conduct is annoying... when NOT ready to conduct and is forced to conduct it is annoying. Animal has to be ready.

continuous reinforcement

When a response is always followed by reinforcement it is

fixed interval

When reinforcement occurs after a specified interval of time is

variable interval

When reinforcement occurs after an average interval of time is called

Spread effect

When the participant was reinforced by experimenter, recall increased. However when the experiment punished the participant recall was not weakened. The likelihood of all those responsed increased if they were close to the reinforced response suggesting a spread of effect.

Mand

a listening or talking behavior. The individual behaves appropriately to the command given by another and is reinforced. The child may also request something to relieve a need.

Spontaneous Recovery

a restful period after extinction initiates lever-pressing response in the animal.

Tact

a talking behavior. A verbal behavior in which individuals correctly names or identifies objects and other individuals reinforce them for a correct match.

Echoic

a talking behavior. A word of a sentence repeated verbatim. Can be loud or silent as in reading. The adult says "cookies" the child echoes the word and gets a smile.

Autoclitic

a talking behavior. This behavior occurs when a question is posed. The answer to the question is followed by reinforcement. Also called intraverbal behavior.

Confirming Reactions

according to Thorndike ________was triggered in the nervous system if a response was followed by a satisfying state of affairs.

Set or attitude

are subject variables and are as important in a learning situation as important in a learning situation as any other variable. So what the learner brings to the learning situation is his set temporary condition (drive fatigue) and permanent condition (heredity intelligence and previous experiences).

Thorndike

brought methodological innovations in animal and human experimentation. Carefully described behavior with proper experimental and control conditions.

Law of Exercise- Part I (Law of Use)

connections between stimulus and a response are strengthened as they are used. Repeating it will get associated

Transfer of Training

consists of two phases, a training phase and a testing phase. In the testing phase (task 2) the individual can show improvement (+), no change (0), or deterioration (-). If we learn to use a dictionary and later with ease use a phonebook, transfer is positive. If we learn list of English words and then find it difficult to learn Spanish words the transfer becomes negative.

Cumulative Recording

every time the bar is pushed (response) the pen moves over Measure accumulation of responses over time.

Descartes

humans and non-human animals functioned similarly based on mechanical principles however this did not spark and behavioral studies in animals.

Instrumental Learning

instrumental (useful) in bring about reinforcement. Pole (S) > Food (S)>Salivation (R).

Variable ratio

occurs after an average of N responses

Concurrent Chain schedule

produce complex choice behaviors so under one condition pigeons preferred small sooner reinforcer. And in the other condition, pigeons preferred large delayed reinforcers.

Concurrent Schedules

provide two simultaneous schedules of reinforcements, organisms, (pigeons) will distribute their responses according to these schedules.

fixed ratio

reinforcement that occurs after every nth response

Morgan

we should not attribute behavior to complex cognitive processes when it can be explained with one that is less complex.

Generalized Reinforcers

• A secondary reinforcer can become a generalized reinforcer when paired with a number of primary reinforcers. Money then is a generalized reinforcer for it is associated with primary reinforcers like food, drink and mates. • Secondary reinforcer is similar to Allport's idea of functional autonomy. First there is activity for reinforcement, but then the activity by itself becomes reinforcing e.g., joined merchant navy for money but now enjoys sailing for its own sake.

Magazine Training

• At the beginning of this training the rat is deprived (a procedure) of food for 23 hours, and placed in the operant chamber. • The experimenter presses a hand held switch which makes a clicking sound (secondary reinforcer) and a food pellet (primary reinforcer) drops in the food magazine. • The rat learns to associate the clicking sound with the food pellet. • To train the rat to come to the food magazine and eat food, the experimenter presses the switch when the rat is near the food magazine. After a few trials the rat associates clicking sound with coming of the food, and stays close. To the magazine to eat food.

Respondent Conditioning

• Behavior is already present in subject • Type S conditioning reinforcing stimulus is contingent upon a stimulus. • Responses are elicited to a known stimulus • Conditioning strength= Response magnitude

Operant Conditioning

• Behavior is not present in subject (training an artificial behavior) • Type R conditioning reinforcing stimulus is contingent upon a response • Responses are emitted to a known reinforcer. • Conditioning response= Rate of response

Alternatives to Punishment

• Do not reinforce the unwanted behavior • Let the individual engage in the undesirable behavior for long till he is sick of it. • Wait for the unwanted behavior to dissolve over development.

Functionalist

• Edward Thorndike and Burrhus Skinner • Concentrated on responses as they brought about consequences

Associationists

• Ivan Pavlov and Edwin Guthrie • Concentrated on stimuli as they brought responses

Operant Chambers

• Skinner devised ___________for rats and pigeons to study behavior in a controlled environment. ____________ opportunities to control reinforcements and other stimuli.

Punishment

• Unwanted emotional byproducts (generalized fears) • Conveys no information to the organism. • Justifies pain to others. • Unwanted behaviors reappear in its absence. • Aggression toward the agent. • One unwanted behavior appears in place of another.

Principles of Operant Learning

• We need to know what is reinforcing for the organism. How can we find a reinforcer? It is merely a process of selection, which is difficult to determine. Reinforcers related to bodily conditions are easy to determine, like food and water. • This reinforcement will predict response • Reinforcement increases rate of responding.