What is Classical Conditioning?
Learning via association between stimuli, producing involuntary, reflexive responses
Example: Dog salivating when it hears a bell associated with food.
What is Operant Conditioning?
Learning via consequences of voluntary behaviour, where behaviours are strengthened by reinforcement and weakened by punishment
Example: A rat pressing a lever to receive food
What is the key difference between Classical and Operant Conditioning?
Classical = reflexes, associations, involuntary; Operant = decisions, consequences, voluntary.
What happens to a behaviour followed by a reward according to operant conditioning?
It is repeated/increases in frequency.
What happens to a behaviour followed by a punishment according to operant conditioning?
It is avoided/decreases in frequency.
What is the Law of Effect?
Responses followed by satisfaction are more likely to recur, while those without satisfaction are weakened.
Who expanded Thorndike’s ideas in operant conditioning?
B.F. Skinner.
- saw operant conditioning as a “theory of everything” for behaviour (though later shown to be incomplete)
What is the Skinner Box?
An automated chamber for observing and measuring behaviour with levers, lights, speakers, and food dispensers.
- allowed continuous obervation and measurement of behaviour
What is shaping in operant conditioning?
Reinforcing behaviours progressively closer to the target behaviour.
Rats don’t naturally press levers; how do we train such novel behaviour?
What is an example of shaping?
Rewarding a rat for moving towards the lever, then only for touching it, and finally for pressing it.
What is the significance of Skinner’s experiment with pigeons spinning?
Demonstrated that complex behaviours can be broken into simple reinforced steps.
* Pigeon Spin: By reinforcing partial turns, Skinner taught pigeons to spin in circles.
* Pigeon Ping Pong: Two pigeons pecked a ball back and forth, shaped through reinforcement.
What do operant principles explain in real-world learning?
- Animals forage where food is plentiful and avoid barren areas.
- Learning is adaptive: instincts cover predictable environments, but learning is needed for variable environments
What is superstitious behaviour?
Give an example.
Behaviour developed from random reinforcement, leading to illusory cause-effect beliefs.
* Skinner (1948): Randomly dispensed food to pigeons every 15 seconds.
* Pigeons developed arbitrary rituals (wing flapping, spinning, pecking), mistakenly believing these behaviours caused food.
What is an example of superstitious behaviour in humans?
Athletes’ pre-game rituals or pressing pedestrian crossing buttons repeatedly.
What are the techniques for teaching behaviour?
- Shaping (Scan and Capture): Reinforce approximations of target behaviour.
- Baiting: Use food or objects to lure behaviour (e.g., tapping, treats).
- Mimicry: Reward imitative actions (e.g., parrots copying human sounds).
- Sculpting: Physically guide an animal into the desired posture/behaviour, then reinforce.
- Instruction/Language (humans): Verbal cues establish mental connections between actions and outcomes (e.g., “Eat veggies → get dessert”)
What is chaining in operant conditioning?
Training behaviours in sequence, either forward or backward.
What is the most effective method of chaining?
Backward chaining (most effective):
- Teach the last step first so learner experiences the end goal quickly.
- Example: Tying shoelaces – child first pulls final loop through, then earlier steps are added progressively
What is a reinforcer?
An outcome that increases the likelihood of behaviour.
What is a punisher?
An outcome that decreases the likelihood of behaviour.
What is the difference between positive and negative in operant conditioning?
- Positive: Adding something
- Negative: Removing something
Do NOT confuse positive/negative with good/bad:
Positive = addition; Negative = subtraction
What is the Operant Conditioning Contingency Square?
- Positive Reinforcement: Increases behaviour (e.g., dog gets treat for sitting)
- Negative Reinforcement: Increases behaviour (e.g., car buzzer stops when seatbelt is fastened)
- Positive Punishment: Decreases behaviour (e.g., barking dog gets spray collar)
- Negative Punishment: Decreases behaviour (e.g., child loses iPad privileges)
What is bridging in operant conditioning?
- Combines classical and operant conditioning.
- Pairing: The bridge is first paired with the actual reward (like a treat) until the learner associates the signal with the good outcome.
- Marking the behavior: When the learner performs the correct behavior, the trainer immediately uses the bridge signal. This tells the learner exactly what they did right.
- Bridging the delay: Since it’s not always possible to deliver the primary reward at the precise moment, the bridge provides the feedback that the reward is on its way.
What is Continuous Reinforcement?
Schedules of Reinforcement
Reinforcing every response, good for learning new behaviours.
What is Partial Reinforcement?
Schedules of Reinforcement
Reinforcing only some responses, creating resistance to extinction.
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Week 2 - Pavlovian conditioning (basic principles)33
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Week 4 - Pavlovian conditioning (learning and application)21
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Week 5 - Operant Conditioning (Basic Principles)41
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Week 6 - Operant Conditioning (theory and application)25
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Week 7 - Cognitive 1: Attention26
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Week 8 - Attentional Control & Working Memory (Executive Function)33
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Week 9 - Introducing Long Term Memory31
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Week 10 - Long-term memory: Encoding & Retrieval24
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Week 11 - Imagery & Foresight51
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Week 12 - Comparative and Evolutionary Cognition41
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Week 13 - Language37
