Principles of Operant Conditioning

Question 1

While classical conditioning is useful for understanding how certain stimuli ____ ____ ___ and other ____ ____ ____, Operant Conditioning identifies the factors responsible for the ____ and ____ of ____ ____ ____. For example, operant conditioning explains how a child learns to ride a bicycle and why a student is willing to spend many hours studying for an important exam.

Answer 1

Automatically Evoke Reflexes; Relatively Simple Responses; Aquisition and Maintenance of Complex Voluntary Bheviors

Question 2

The basic principles of operant conditioning were first described by ________ and were subsequently expanded upon by ________.

Answer 2

Edward Thorndike ; B.F. Skinner.

Question 3

____ believed that the study of learning in lower animals would reveal important information about human learning; his best known studies involved ____ ____ ____ in “____ ____” that required them to make a ____ ____ (e.g., pulling a loop of string) to escape from the box and obtain food.

Answer 3

Thorndike; Placing Hungry Cats in “Puzzle Boxes”; Particular Response

Question 4

Thorndike noticed that during early trails, the cats engaged in ____ ____ ____ before making the response that ____ ____. However, as the number of trials increased the cats made the correct response ____ and ____ after being placed in the box.

Answer 4

Numerous Unproductive Activities; Permitted Escape; Sooner and Sooner

Question 5

Thorndike was particularly interested in the ____, ____-and-____nature of the cats’ learning, and he noted that the animals did not display behavior suggesting that they suddenly “____” the ____. He concluded that learning is not due to mental events, or thinking about a problem, but, instead, to ____, or the ____ that ____ ____ ____ and ____ as the ____ of ____-and-____.

Answer 5

Slow, Trial-and-Error; “Understood” the Problem; Connectionism; Connections that Develop Between Responses and Stimuli as the Result of Trial-and-Error

Question 6

Because the behaviors he studied were instrumental in helping the animals achieve a goal, Thorndike referred to this phenomenon as _________.

Answer 6

instrumental learning

Question 7

Thorndike developed several basic laws of learning, the most important of which is the ____ of ____. According to the original version of this law, any response that is followed by “a ____ ____ of ____” is likely to be ____, while any act that results in an “____ ____ of ____” is less likely to recur.

Answer 7

Law of Effect; “A Satisfying State of Affairs”; Repeated; “Annoying State of Affairs”

Question 8

Thorndike later eliminated the second part of his law of effect based on subsequent research which suggested that while positive consequences increase behavior, negative ones often have ____ or ____ ____.

Answer 8

Little or No Effect.

Question 9

____ considered Pavlov’s model of classical conditioning adequate for explaining the acquisition of respondent behaviors that are automatically elicited by certain stimuli. However, he believed that most ____ ____ are voluntarily emitted or not emitted as the result of the way they “____” on the environment (i.e., as the result of the consequences that follow them), and he referred to this type of learning as ____ ____.

Answer 9

Skinner; Complex Behaviors; “Operate”; Operant Conditioning

Question 10

____ and ____: According to Skinner, the environment provides organisms with a variety of ____ and ____ ____ that cause them to either ____ or ____ the ____ that preceded them. Skinner referred to the consequences as ____ and ____he distinguished between ____ and ____ ____ and ____ and ____ ____.

Answer 10

Reinforcement and Punishment; Positive and Negative Consequences; Display or Withhold the Behaviors; Reinforcement and Punishment; Reinforcement and Punishment; Positive and Negative Reinforcement; Positive and Negative Punishment

Question 11

The terms “positive” and “negative” (as used by Skinner) are not synonymous for good and bad or pleasant and unpleasant. Instead, ____ refers to the application of a stimulus, while ____ means withholding or removing a stimulus. Stimulus Applied

Answer 11

Positive; Negative

Question 12

By definition, ____ increases the behavior it follows. With ____ ____, performance of a behavior increases as the result of the application of a stimulus (reinforcer) following the behavior.

Answer 12

Reinforcement; Positive Reinforcement

Question 13

In Thorndike’s experiment, a cat’s “pulling-on-the-sting” behavior increased because it led too the attainment of food. With __________, a behavior increases as the result of the withdrawal or termination of a stimulus (reinforcer) following the behavior. When pressing a lever stops and electric shock, lever-pressing increases because it is being negatively reinforced.

Answer 13

Negative Reinforcement

Question 14

____ can also be either positive or negative but, unlike reinforcement, punishment decreases the behavior it follows.

Answer 14

Punishment

Question 15

__________ occurs when the application of a stimulus following a response decreases that response. Slapping a dog with a rolled-up newspaper after he chews your favorite shoes to stop the dog’s chewing behavior is an example of positive punishment.

Answer 15

Positive Punishment

Question 16

__________ occurs when removal or termination of a stimulus following a behavior decreases that behavior. Taking away a child’s allowance whenever they act aggressively toward their younger siblings to decrease their aggression is an example of negative punishment.

Answer 16

Negative Punishment

Question 17

For the sake of convenience, Skinner usually looked at such behaviors as bar-pressing and key-pecking in rats and pigeons within the confines of box-like “____ ____,” which was sometimes referred to as a “____ ____.” In a typical positive reinforcement experiment, water or food was delivered into the box via a ____ ____ whenever the animal pressed the bar or pecked the key.

Answer 17

Operant Chamber; Skinner Box; Delivery Tube

Question 18

Skinner evaluated the effectiveness of operant conditioning by measuring ____ ____, which entailed determining a) the ____ of ____ during acquisition trials and/or b) the total number of ____ made during ____ ____ (the period when no reinforcement is provided). During his experiments, information on operant strength was recorded using a ____ ____, which provides a graphic representation of the total number of responses made over time.

Answer 18

Operant Strength; Rate of Responding; Responses; Extinction Trials; Cumulative Recorder

Question 19

____ always involves an increase in behavior while ____ always involves a decrease in behavior and positive means “____” while negative means “____.” If you encounter a vignette-type question on the exam that requires you to identify whether the situation described is an example of positive or negative reinforcement or punishment, first identify the target behavior and determine if that behavior is ____ or ____ ____ to ____ - which will indicate if the behavior is being ____ or ____. Then determine if the ____ following the behavior is being ____ or ____ - which will indicate if the reinforcement or punishment is ____ or ____.

Answer 19

Reinforcement; Punishment; Apply; Withdraw; More or Less Likely to Occur; Reinforced or Punished; Stimulus; Applied or Withdrawn; Positive or Negative

Question 20

____ _____ occurs when reinforcement is consistently withheld from a previously reinforced behavior to decrease or eliminate that behavior.

Answer 20

Operant Extinction

Question 21

Experiments on operant extinction have demonstrated that withdrawal of a reinforcer does not usually cause an ____ ____ of the ____. Instead, the response disappears ____ after an initial phase in which responding is more ____ and ____.

Answer 21

Immediate Cessation of the Response; Gradually; Variable and Forceful

Question 22

If a rat has been reinforced for bar-pressing, sudden withdrawal of reinforcement will initially cause the rat to bar-press more than usual before bar-pressing begins to decline. This temporary increase in responding during extinction trials is called an ____ (____) ____.

Answer 22

Extinction (Response) Burst

Question 23

When a subject has been reinforced for two different behaviors and reinforcement for one behavior is withdrawn to extinguish it, the other behavior is likely to ____, this is referred to as ____ ____.

Answer 23

Increase; Behavioral Contrast

Question 24

If a rat has been reinforced for pressing both a round button and a square button and reinforcement for pressing the round button is stopped, round-button pressing will ____(as expected) and square-button pressing will ____.

Answer 24

Decrease; Increase

Question 25

____ (____) ____ are inherently describable and do not depend on experience to acquire their reinforcing value; food and water are examples.

Answer 25

Primary (Unconditioned) Reinforcers

Question 26

____ (____) ____ acquire their value only through repeated association with primary reinforcers; tokens, applause, and gold stars are all examples.

Answer 26

Secondary (Conditioned) Reinforcers

Question 27

When a secondary reinforcer is paired with several different primary reinforcers, it’s called a _________. Money is a generalized secondary reinforcer because it can be exchanged for a variety of primary reinforcers.

Answer 27

Generalized Secondary Reinforcer

Question 28

____ of ____: The effectiveness of positive reinforcement is impacted by the ____ on which it is delivered.

Answer 28

Schedules of Reinforcement; Schedule

Question 29

In general, the rate of acquisition of a behavior is fastest when the behavior is reinforced on a ____ ____; when reinforcement is presented after each response. Because ____ and ____ of ____ are also touch for a continuous schedule, once an operant behavior has been ____ (i.e., once adequate operant strength has been achieved), the best way to maintain the behavior is to switch to an ____ (____) ____.

Answer 29

Continuous Schedule; Satiation and Rate of Extinction; Acquired; Intermittent (Partial) Schedule

Question 30

Skinner distinguished between four intermittent schedules -

Answer 30

Fixed Interval, Variable Interval, Fixed Ratio, and Variable Ratio.

Question 31

When using a __________, reinforcement is delivered after a fixed period of time regardless of the number of responses made. A rat on an FI-30 schedule receives reinforcement every 20 seconds whether it makes only one response of 50 responses during the 30-second period.

Answer 31

Fixed Interval (FI) Schedule; Fixed Period of Time

Question 32

Fixed Interval schedules tend to produce ____ ____ of ____ since the number of responses is unrelated to the delivery of reinforcement. Subjects on an FI schedule typically ____ ____ after a reinforcer is delivered and then begin responding again toward the end of the reinforcement interval, which produces a “____” in the cumulative recording of the number of responses made. In a work environment, an FI schedule (hourly or weekly wage) tends to produce minimal levels of work.

Answer 32

Low Rates of Responding; Stop Responding; “Scallop”

Question 33

With a _________, the interval of time between delivery of reinforcers varies in an unpredictable manner from interval to interval. Under a VI-30 schedule, a rat might be reinforced after 15, 40, 30, 20, and 45 seconds as long as it presses the lever at least once during each interval.

Answer 33

Variable Interval (VI) Schedule

Question 34

A VI schedule produces a steady but ____ ____ ____ of ____. This schedule is being used when a specific number of “pop” quizzes will be given during a semester, but the exact amount of time between quizzes varies.

Answer 34

Relatively Low Rate of Response

Question 35

On a __________, a reinforcer is delivered each time the subject makes a specific number of responses. A pigeon on an FR-6 schedule would be reinforced with a food pellet after every sixth key-peck.

Answer 35

Fixed Ratio (FR) Schedule

Question 36

Because the relationship between responding and reinforcement is explicit, an FR schedule produces a ____ ____, ____ ____ of ____, usually with a ____ ____ following delivery of the reinforcer. Piecework, in which workers receive payment following completion of specific number of units, is an example of an FR schedule.

Answer 36

Relatively High, Steady Rate of Responding; Brief Pause

Question 37

With a _________, reinforcers are provided after variable number of responses. On a VR-20 schedule, the average number of responses receiving reinforcement will be 20 but the exact number will vary from reinforcer to reinforcer.

Answer 37

Variable Ratio (VR) Schedule

Question 38

On some trials, reinforcement will be delivered after 20 responses but on other trials after 15 responses, 25 responses, and so on. Because the relationship between responding and reinforcement is ____, VR schedules produce the ____ ____ of ____ as well as responses that are most ____ to ____. Gamblers playing slot machines are responding to a VR schedule of reinforcement.

Answer 38

Unpredictable; Highest Rate of Responding; Resistant to Extinction

Question 39

____ ____: In some situations, concurrent schedules of reinforcement are used, which involves providing two or more simultaneous and independent schedules of reinforcement, each for a different response. For example, a rat might be placed in a cage that has two levers, with lever #1 delivering reinforcement on a VI-30-second schedule and lever #2 delivering reinforcement on a VI-60-second schedule. In this situation, the rat will ____ the relative frequency of its lever presses to the relative frequency of reinforcement obtained with each lever, i.e., the rat will press the VI-30 lever twice as often as the VI-60 lever. (Or, put another way, 2/3 of the rat’s presses will be on the VI-30 lever and the remaining 1/3 will be on the VI-50 lever.)

Answer 39

Matching Law; Match

Question 40

The correspondence between responding to two or more alternatives and the frequency of reinforcement for responding is predicted by the ____ ____.

Answer 40

Matching Law

Question 41

Skinner found that accidental, noncontingent reinforcement can lead to _____ _______. In one series of experiments, he reinforced pigeons with food pellets every 15 seconds regardless of what they were doing. As a result, the pigeons began to display a variety of odd, ritualistic-like behaviors such as head-bobbing and turning counter-clockwise, which were the behaviors the pigeons were performing just prior to delivery of reinforcement.

Answer 41

Superstitious Behavior

Question 42

____ ____: Whether a response will be reinforced may be signaled by ____ in the ____. As an example, a pigeon might be reinforced for pecking a key when a green light is on but not when a red light is on. As a result, the pigeon will peck the key only in the presence of the green light. In this situation, the green light is ____ ____ ____ (___): It signals that reinforcement will occur as the consequence of a given response. In Contrast, the red light is a ____ ____ ____, or __-____ ____ (___): It signals that the response will not be reinforced.

Answer 42

Stimulus Control; Cues in the Environment; Positive Discriminative Stimulus (S^D); Negative Discriminative Stimulus; S-Delta Stimulus (S-)

Question 43

When the occurrence of a behavior is affected by the presence of discriminative stimuli, the behavior is said to be under ____ ____.

Answer 43

Stimulus Control

Question 44

Stimulus Control is also referred to as _________ and is another example of ____-____ ____. Performance of the target behavior is due to ____ ____: The organism performs the behavior because it has been ____ for doing so. Performance of the behavior in the presence of the positive discriminative stimulus but not in the presence of the negative discriminative stimulus is the result of ____ ____ (____ ____).

Answer 44

Stimulus Discrimination; Two-Factor Learning; Operant Conditioning; Reinforced; Discrimination Training (Classical Conditioning)

Question 45

_______ explains why a baby whines in the presence of their father (SD) who reinforces their behavior by picking the child up but not in the presence of their mother (S-) who leaves him alone in his crib whenever he whines.

Answer 45

Stimulus Control

Question 46

As in classical conditioning, ____ ____ in operant conditioning occurs when similar stimuli elicit the same response.

Answer 46

Stimulus Generalization

Question 47

In operant conditioning, the stimuli that evoke the response are ____ ____ ____. If a pigeon has learned that pecking a key in the presence of a green light results in reinforcement and then also pecks the key when a blue light is on, stimulus generalization has occurred.

Answer 47

Positive Discriminative StimulIi

Question 48

Often, reinforcement of a response not only increases the occurrence of that specific response but also the ____ of ____ ____. A child who has been reinforced with attention or praise for calling their father “dada” may be more likely to also say “baba,” “momma,” and “gaga” in presence of their father. This is called ____ ____.

Answer 48

Frequency of Similar Responses; Response Generalization

Question 49

____ and ____ ____ are behaviors that are maintained by negative reinforcement. Escape behavior is the result of ____ ____ in which a behavior increases because its performance allows the organism to escape an undesirable (aversive) stimulus.

Answer 49

Escape and Avoidance Behaviors; Escape Conditioning

Question 50

A rat might escape an electric shock being applied via a grid on the floor of its cage by pressing a lever that stops the shock. In this situation, the shock is the ____ ____, and it is referred to as a _________ because its termination increases the frequency or likelihood of lever pressing by the rat.

Answer 50

Undesirable Stimulus; Negative Reinforcer

Question 51

The establishment of an avoidance response is the result of ____-____ ____. In ____ ____, the onset of the negative reinforcer is preceded by a cue (positive discriminative stimulus) that signals that the negative reinforcer is about to be applied. The organism learns that, if it performs the target behavior in the presence of the cue, it can avoid the ____ ____ ____.

Answer 51

Two-Factor Learning; Avoidance Conditioning; Negative Reinforcer Altogether

Question 52

A rat might learn a) that a green light signals that electric shock is about to be delivered (____ ____) and b) that it can avoid the shock by jumping over a hurdle (____ ____). As a result, the rat jumps over the hurdle as soon as the green light is turned on and thereby avoids the shock.

Answer 52

Classical Conditioning; Negative Reinforcement

Question 53

Thorndike’s law of 1) ____ predicts that a response that is followed by a satisfying state of affairs is likely to be repeated. Skinner extended Thorndike’s work and distinguished between two types of consequences: 2) ____ increases the behavior it follows, while 3) ____ decreases the behavior that precedes it. As used by Skinner, the term 4) ____ refers to the application of stimulus following a behavior and the term 5) ____ refers to the withdrawal of a stimulus. For example, 6) ____ is occurring when the removal of a stimulus following a behavior increases that behavior.

Answer 53

1) effect; 2) Reinforcement; 3) punishment; 4) positive; 5) negative; 6) negative reinforcement

Question 54

Operant extinction occurs when reinforcement is withheld from a(n) 7) ____ response. When extinguishing a behavior, there’s often a temporary increase in the behavior, which is referred to as a(n) 8) ____.

Answer 54

7) previously reinforced; 8) extinction (response) burst

Question 55

In operant conditioning, the timing of the reinforcement is important. In general, the rate of acquisition of a behavior is fastest when a(n) 9) ____ schedule is used, while a(n) 10) ____ schedule is more effective for maintaining a behavior. Skinner distinguished between four intermittent schedules: A 11) ____ schedule is associated with a low rate or responding and “scallop” in the cumulative recording, while a 12) ____ schedule produces a fast, steady rate of responding and responses that are most resistant to extinction. The correspondence between the rate of responding to two or more alternatives and the frequency of reinforcement for responding is predicted by the 13) ____.

Answer 55

9) continuous; 10) intermittent (partial); 11) fixed interval; 12) variable ratio; 13) matching law

Question 56

A pigeon learns that it will be reinforced if it pecks a key in the presence of a green light but will not be reinforced in the presence of a red light. The pigeon’s key-pecking behavior is under 14) ____, with the green light acting as a 15) ____ stimulus and the red light serving as a 16) ____ stimulus.

Answer 56

14) stimulus control; 15) positive discriminative; 16) negative discriminative (S-delta)

Question 57

17) ____ generalization occurs when stimulus similar to the original discriminative stimulus elicit the same response, while 18) ____ generalization occurs when a discriminative stimulus elicits responses that re similar to the original response. Escape and avoidance behaviors are both maintained by 19) ____ reinforcement, but the establishment of avoidance behaviors also involves 20) ____ conditioning (discrimination training).

Answer 57

17) Stimulus; 18) response; 19) negative; 20) classical