AP Psychology Module 27
Operant Chamber (Skinner Box)
A chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking.
Reinforcement Schedule
A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced.
Conditioned Reinforce (secondary reinforcer)
A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as a secondary reinforcer.
Operant Conditioning
A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.
Punishment
An event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows.
Primary Reinforcer
An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.
Shaping
An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
Variable-Ratio Schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.
Variable-Interval Schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.
Fixed-Ratio Schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.
Fixed-Interval Schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.
Discriminative Stimulus
In operant conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement.
Reinforcement
In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior if follows.
Positive Reinforcement
Increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforces. A positive reinforcer in any stimulus that, when present after a response, strengthens the response.
Negative Reinforcement
Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response.
Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement
Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.
Continuous Reinforcement
Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.
Successive Approximations
Reward responses that are ever-closer to the final desired behavior.
Law of Effect
Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become ore likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.