PSY 101 1st Edition Lecture 11 Outline of Last Lecture I. Classical ConditioningOutline of Current Lecture II. Operant ConditioningIII. Problems for BehaviorismIV. Observational LearningCurrent Lecture-early operant conditioning-Thorndike’s law of effect: the tendency to perform a given response is strengthened or weakened by the effect that the response brings about-B.F. Skinner: radical behaviorism; made behaviorism into a hard science; to understand behavior we should focus on punishers and reinforces; banishes cognition-reinforcement: an environmental consequence of a response that makes the response more likely to recur-punishment: an environmental consequence of a response that makes the response less likely to recur-reinforcement and punishment can have positive and negative forms-every reinforcement makes the behavior more likely to recur (whether positive or negative)-reinforcer: an environmental consequence of a response that makes the response more likely to occur-Skinner box: reward is distributed if the animal can complete the task-Shaping of behavior by successive approximation; used to trains animals; videos of squirrels doing obstacle courses to get to food-Schedules of reinforcement: same response without reward every time-interval schedule: amount of time elapsed-ratio schedule: number of behaviors exhibited-fixed: a set time/number of behaviors-variable: varying time/number of behaviors-variable ratio schedule works the best: the faster you work the more you get rewarded; difficultto extinguish behaviors using it; compare to slot machines (it could be the next pull)-Problems with behaviorism-equipotentiality: any response has equal potential to get hooked up to any stimulus-preparedness: animals are prepared (by evolution) to learn some connections easily, sometimes in one trial-the omnivore’s dilemma: we are attracted to new foods and afraid of them-solution: nibble and wait: one trial learning-similar for historic predators-phobias are NOT proportional to learning history-another problem: animals build cognitive maps-animal acquires an S-R association-latent learning: (Tolman) -animals develop cognitive maps (information)-orthodox behaviorism says they will only learn if they are rewarded, but this is wrong-homo sapiens and apes show clear evidence of insight, not just the law of effect (Wolfgang Kohler)-observational learning: learning by observing and imitating
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