Behaviour Modification - Part B

Question 1

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 1

A process whereby a particular class of response is shown to be more frequent as a function of the consequences it produces.

Question 2

What did Skinner call behaviours that are elicited by specific stimuli?

Answer 2

respondents

Question 3

What are the effects of consequence?

Answer 3

Positive punishment
Negative punishment
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement

Question 4

What is behaviour influenced by? How can we influence the rate of occurrence of such behaviours?

Answer 4

The consequences it produces
- we can influence the rate of occurrence of such behaviours by manipulating such consequences
- works as long as orderly changes occur as we vary the consequences of behaviour

Question 5

What is the paradigm for operant conditioning?

Answer 5

Antecedent - cue to the animal
Behaviour
Consequence - feedback given to the animal

Question 6

What is shaping behaviour?

Answer 6

Using instrumental (operant) learning, you can string together responses in order to teach an animal to do more complex behaviours

Question 7

What do reinforces always do to the frequency of behaviour? What do punishers do?

Answer 7

Reinforcers always increase the frequency of behaviour

Punishers always decrease the frequency of behaviour

Question 8

What is a bridging stimulus?

Answer 8

Used in positive reinforcement to signal reinforcement is coming because there is often a delay between the response and delivery of the reinforcement.
- anticipatory; using a trace temporal paradigm

Question 9

What happens to the bridging stimulus through repeated pairings?

Answer 9

Takes on the properties of the reinforcing treat by virtue of classical conditioning (then referred to as a secondary reinforcer)

Question 10

What are positive reinforcers?

Answer 10

Reinforcers that produce an increase in the frequency of a desired behaviour
ex. food for bar pressing

Question 11

What are negative reinforcers?

Answer 11

Reinforces that strengthen a behaviour by removing what is aversive. Reinforcers that are negative are aversive stimuli which, when removed, increase the probability of the response.
-ex. A rat’s bar press is reinforced because it turns off an electric shock

Question 12

What is punishment?

Answer 12

Punishment is the presentation of an aversive stimulus or removal of a pleasurable stimulus after an undesirable behaviour has occurred. It tends to stop or reduce the likelihood of the behaviour occurring in the future.

Question 13

Why did Skinner say that the effects of punishment are temporary?

Answer 13

He found that any behaviour that was suppressed during punishment was “saved up”, only to reappear once punishment ended.

Skinner felt that punishers do not directly affect behaviour in the way reinforcers do.

Question 14

What is interactive punishment?

Answer 14

The animal associates the unpleasant stimulus with the person.
- not recommended clinically for resolving problem behaviour
- animal behaves differently when person is present vs not present
- may evoke aggression

Question 15

What is remote punishment?

Answer 15

The connection between the punishing stimulus and the person responsible for the punishment is removed.

Question 16

What is social punishment?

Answer 16

Negative punishment!
- principle of removing a rewarding stimulus (eg. removing or terminating social interaction)

Question 17

What can scheduling of reinforcers produce aka why are they important?

Answer 17

Can produce extremely reliable patterns of behaviour that can be maintained as long as desired

Question 18

What do the simplest of schedules provide reinforcement based on?

Answer 18

Either on the passage of time (interval) or on the completion of a response (ratio) requirement

Question 19

What is a fixed interval schedule?

Answer 19

An FI schedule reinforces the 1st response that occurs after a set period of TIME has passed.
- ex. think of pay day; as the time nears the frequency (or buying) increases, then after the reinforcement there is a decrease for awhile

Question 20

What is a variable interval schedule?

Answer 20

Provides reinforcement for the 1st response occurring after some average period of time.
ex. on a VI 1 min schedule, reinforcement may come at 10 sec, then 5 min, then 30 sec (avg = 1 min)

Subjects on such schedules respond at moderate and fairly constant rates, even when the frequency of reinforcement varies quite widely

Question 21

What is a fixed ratio schedule?

Answer 21

Requires that a given # of responses be made before reinforcement is delivered.
- ex. an FR 20 schedule requires 20 responses for each reinforcement

Slightly higher maintained response rate than interval but when it is fixed you still get some scalloping.

Question 22

What is a variable ratio schedule?

Answer 22

Reinforcement is delivered after a varying # of responses, depending on the average requirement of the schedule.
ex. VR 25 requires an average of 25 responses per reinforcement; some with 2, then 100

Animals on VR schedules respond at fairly high constant rates.

Question 23

At what point is a behaviour considered ‘established’?

Answer 23

After a conditioned operant response has been learned, it is generally maintained as long as reinforcement is at least occasionally presented (otherwise, extinction occurs (active process) which is different from forgetting with is a passive process).

Behaviours are best maintained by reinforcement on a variable (usually VR) schedule.