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Exam Information

  • Exams have been scored, with grades posted temporarily.

  • Class average is a C-.

  • Future plan: Grades will be reposted visibly to students.

  • Invitation for students to review their exams, including right and wrong answers.

Operant Conditioning

  • Operant conditioning is positioning behaviors without biological links.

    • Examples of behaviors:

    • Requesting roommate to take out the trash.

    • Requesting children to pick up toys.

    • Requesting a dog to go outside.

  • Continuous reinforcement is expensive.

  • Introduction of partial reinforcement schedules:

    1. Fixed Ratio (FR)

      • Behavior reinforced after a specified number of responses.

      • Example: Press lever 5 times, receive reinforcement.

      • Graphical representation shows evenly spaced black tick marks.

    2. Variable Ratio (VR)

      • Behavior reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses.

      • Example: Reinforcement delivered after an average number of responses.

      • Graphical representation showing closeness of reinforcements but with unpredictability.

    3. Fixed Interval (FI)

      • Reinforcement available after a fixed duration.

      • Example: Lever press only rewarded after a specific time interval.

      • Observed behavior pattern known as "scallop effect":

        • Initially no pressing after receiving reinforcement, increasing responses as time for reinforcement approaches.

    4. Variable Interval (VI)

      • Reinforcement available after varied time intervals.

      • Steady pace of responses due to unpredictability of reinforcement timing.

Acquisition vs. Endurance

  • The trade-off is described as:

    • Easier behaviors to acquire may be easier to extinguish.

    • Harder behaviors to acquire may endure longer.

  • Predictable patterns of behavior emerge from different reinforcement schedules.

Behavior Patterns and Watch Checking Example

  • Students demonstrate watch checking similar to the scallop effect observed in animals on FI schedules.

  • Early in class duration, students do not check watches as they know it's not time to leave.

  • Closer to class end, watch checking behavior increases as they approach the reinforcement period (end of class).

Reinforcement Types

  • Two fundamental categories:

    • Positive Reinforcement: Adding a stimulus to increase behavior.

      • Example: Giving chocolates for courteous behavior.

    • Negative Reinforcement: Removing an aversive stimulus to increase behavior.

      • Example: Stopping a noise when the seatbelt is on.

    • Positive Punishment: Adding an unpleasant stimulus to decrease behavior.

      • Example: Writing on the chalkboard as a punishment.

    • Negative Punishment: Removing a pleasant stimulus to decrease behavior.

      • Example: Taking away a toy after misbehavior.

Role of Free Will in Behavior

  • Discussion of the complexity of behavior determination:

    • Can external influences control or simply influence behavior?

    • Biopsychosocial model must incorporate various influences on behavior.

  • Examples of social media influencers shaping desires and behaviors, raising questions about control over personal behavior.

Classical Conditioning vs. Operant Conditioning

  • Classical conditioning normally requires repetitive pairings with close timing.

  • Conditioned Taste Aversion (John Garcia's research):

    • Example: Rats conditioned to avoid saccharin water after exposure to radiation.

    • Demonstrates aversion can occur after a single pairing and with delayed reinforcement.

  • Implications for human treatments (like cancer) where food aversions may develop post-treatment if flavorful foods are linked to adverse conditions.

Instinctive Drift in Conditioning

  • Example of instinctive drift where trained behaviors revert to natural instincts.

    • Pigs trained to deposit coins eventually returned to rooting behavior.

    • Raccoons revert to nut-cracking behaviors over trained tasks.

  • Constraints of biology create limits on what behaviors can be learned.

Latent Learning

  • Definition: Learning without immediate reinforcement that becomes apparent once a reward is given.

  • Experiment with rats running through mazes:

    • Three groups:

      1. Always reinforced.

      2. Never reinforced.

      3. Initially not reinforced, later reinforced.

    • Last group displayed significant error reduction once reinforcement was introduced, showcasing cognitive mapping.

  • Implications for the debate on behaviorism and the importance of biology and cognition in behavior.

Language Development Challenging Behaviorism

  • Mention of Noam Chomsky’s critique of behaviorism in language acquisition.

    • Children create "over-regularization errors" (e.g., saying "goed" instead of "went").

    • Behaviorism fails to fully explain the complexities of language development, as no reinforcement conditioning accounts for errors in speech.