1. Operant Conditioning

2. What is it?  Learning from the consequences of behavior  Depending on the consequences the learner will learn to repeat or eliminate the behavior

3. Law of Effect  Responses are selected if they are followed by positive consequences.  Thorndike argued this was similar to a process of natural selection.

4. B.F. Skinner

6. Reinforcement  Stimulus/event that affects the likelihood that a preceding behavior will be repeated  Skinner used shaping - reinforcers to guide an animal’s action toward a desired behavior. Immediate reinforcement is best.

7. Dolphins working for the military?

8. Positive v. Negative Reinforcement  Adding something good as a consequence  Examples: chimps and food; person working hard for a bonus  Removing something negative  Examples: students who complain about grades receive higher grade; daydreaming during a boring lecture  2 types (escaping something bad, or avoiding it)

9. Aversive Conditioning  Punishment - Adding something negative  Where reinforcement increases behavior, punishment will decrease a behavior.  But: fails to provide an alternative and has potentially negative by- products

10. Other Principles Feedback:  Essential to learning is that you need to find out the response/results to your action  Reinforcement is a type of feedback from your actions Extinction:  Forget the learning if there is no longer a response – it is distinct from punishment.

11. Contingency of Reinforcement  A description of the relationship between a response and a reinforcer  Example of scolding a child for undesired behavior, but the behavior remains…what’s happening?  Omission – reduce the probability of a response by giving positive reinforcement when the behavior does not occur…keep it REAL!

12. SHAPING  Behaviorists view reinforcement as the underlying principle of all behavior – but how do we explain complex behavior?  Baby steps  Skinner argued that new behavior came from random “behavioral drift.” Desired behaviors are developed through shaping.  Shaping – guiding acquisition of a response by providing successive reinforcement.

13. Reinforcement Schedules  Continuous Reinforcement - desired response is reinforced everytime it occurs.  Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement  Fixed Ratio/Interval - reinforce after a set number of responses/set amount of time.  Variable Ratio/Interval - reinforcement at unpredictable response numbers/unpredictable amount of time

14.  Discriminative Stimuli – being able to determine which specific stimulus will bring a consequence.  Non-contingent Reinforcement – when a reinforcer is not related to a response.  Consequences that seem to come from random events.  We develop responses to these reinforcers - superstitious

15. Issues with Punishment  Depends on contiguity – need to be sure that the consequence is associated with the undesired behavior.  Avoidance – are you changing the behavior, or learning to avoid the consequence?  Escape and Avoidance learning – learn new behaviors to avoid something negative...how does this complicate behaviorism?

16. Other Issues  Biofeedback – Autonomic conditioning  Biological constraints on learning  Critical Periods and Preparedness  Lorenz and the ducks  Garcia et al. and “bait shyness” – essentially taste aversion

17. So why does any of this matter?  Animal training  Child raising  Reinforce good behavior.  Ignore whining.  No harsh punishment, explain misbehavior.  Or YOU…. (token economies)

18. LEARNED HELPLESSNESS  What if you keep trying to do something and just can’t get it?  What if the reinforcement just doesn’t matter that much to you?  Would you just give up?

19. Behavioral Neuroscience  Combining the behaviorist and biological perspectives.  Learning is a process that involves changes in neural activity.  Neural Plasticity – ability of the neural system to change in response to experience

20. Non-Associative Learning  Habituation - behavioral response that decreases over successive presentations of the stimulus.  Sensitization – behavioral response increases during presentations of the stimulus.

21. Associative Learning  Eye Blink  Learning resides in the cerebellum  Cerebellum normally inhibits the eye blink, but is conditioned to “synaptically” not respond.  Fear  Learning resides in the amygdala.  Long Term Potentiation – persistent increase in synaptic transmission

22. Long Term Potentiation  Increased ability of a neuron to receive a message.  Involves activity of NMDA receptors on neurons.

23. Social Learning Theory  Social Learning Theory – focuses on learning within a social context, that people learn from one another. Includes the concepts of observational learning, imitation, and modeling.

24. An observer sees a model – and repeats the behavior of the model.

26. General Principles:  People learn by observing behavior of others, and the outcomes of that behavior.  Learning can occur without a change in behavior – just through observation.  Cognition (thinking) plays a role in learning. Awareness of events and future thinking determine what we learn.  Social Learning is a bridge between behavioral learning and cognitive learning.

28.  Role of the Environment in Reinforcing Learning:  Observer can be reinforced by the model.  Observer reinforced by 3 rd person.  Imitated behavior leads to reinforcing consequences.  Consequences of the model’s behavior affect the observer’s behavior vicariously.