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Psychological Foundations of Mental Health > The heyday of behaviourism: operant learning > Flashcards

The heyday of behaviourism: operant learning Flashcards

1
Q

What did Edward L. Thorndike study?

A

‘Human-like’ attributes in animals, explained in terms of reflexes and connections

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2
Q

What was Thorndike’s idea on human psychology?

A

> In humans, ‘mental life’ requires the assumption of internal events
-> mediated the stimulus-response relationship

> Mediation = key to cognitive psychology
- cognitive processes are mediational

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3
Q

What does the behaviourism vs. cognitivism debate on?

A

> The nature of the mediating events between observable events (input, output)

> Wether they are necessary for a comprehensive model of the mind

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4
Q

What did Thorndike use as a measure of intelligence?

Is it contested?

A

Ability to learn as measure of intelligence

  • historically challenged by later behaviourists
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5
Q

What are Thorndike’s puzzle boxes?

How do they work?

A

Puzzle box to study learning:

  • hungry cat in cage has to escape to fet the food placed out of reach
  • > how long does it take the cat to do it?
  • at one point, the cat will push the lever that opens the cage door
  • with repeated trials, animal learns to push the lever to get the food
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6
Q

What is Thorndike’s process behind his puzzle boxes?

What is his subsequent learning theory?

A

Trial and error learning

-> Connectionism

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7
Q

What is the type of learning Thorndike set out, that differs from classical conditioning?

A

Operant / Contingency (SR) learning:
- association of stimulus-response- outcome
(rather than simple pairing)

  • when a specific response is made contingent to a specific stimulus being present
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8
Q

Was Thorndike’s operant learning in experiments with animals limited to simple behaviours?

A

No, experiments from Thorndike showed animals could learn complex behaviours with same operant learning

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9
Q

What did Thorndike emphasise, which represented a fundamental step in behaviourist thinking?

A

Importance of the Effect:
> Critical role of the consequences of the response for the organism and in future behaviour

> Dissatisfaction -> less likely to repeat behaviour
Satisfaction -> more likely to repeat behaviour

=> law of effect

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10
Q

What is Thorndike’s concept of 3-Term contingency?

A
  1. Situation (stimulus) - antecedent
  2. Response
  3. Effect - consequence
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11
Q

What was the work of BF Skinner on behaviourism?

A

Defined and codified behaviourism

  • standardised the tools
  • defined its language
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12
Q

Why was BF Skinner more than an experimental psychologist?

A

He applied principles of behaviourism:

  • to child development
  • inter-individual differences
  • education
  • the criminal justice system
  • and its wider impact in shaping society/culture
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13
Q

What is Skinner’s categorisation system?

A

Describes types of consequences:

  • increase of behaviour -> reinforcement
  • decrease of behaviour -> punishment
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14
Q

What is Skinner’s meaning of positive and negative in his categorisation system?

A

> Positive (reinforcement/punishment) = add, present, provide something

> Negative (reinforcement/punishment) = remove, take away something

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15
Q

What is a positive reinforcement (Skinner)?

A

Stimulus is added/provided contingent on the behaviour
- leading to an increase of behaviour in the future

-> add to increase

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16
Q

What is a negative reinforcement (Skinner)?

A

Stimulus is removed contingent on the behaviour
- leading to an increase of behaviour in the future

-> remove to increase

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17
Q

What is a positive punishment (Skinner)?

A

Stimulus is added/provided contingent on the behaviour
- leading to a decrease of behaviour in the future

-> add to decrease

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18
Q

What is a negative punishment (Skinner)?

A

Stimulus is removed contingent on the behaviour
- leading to a decrease of behaviour in the future

  • remove to decrease
19
Q

Why do we have to be careful about how we understand and use terms in psychology (e.g. “reinforcement”, “punishment”)?

A

They have precise technical meanings and similar but often different everyday usage

e.g. the act of fining as retribution for a crime is seen as punishment by behaviourists only if the fine lead to a reduction of the offending behaviour in the future

20
Q

What are primary reinforcers?

A

Natural, unconditioned reinforcers

- adding or taking away any of the primary reinforcers is a powerful determinant of learning and future behaviour

21
Q

What does the power of primary reinforcers rely on?

A

Context dependent
- on the state of the organism at a time

e.g. same food will influence behaviour more if animal deprived/hungry vs. satiated

22
Q

What are secondary reinforcers?

A

Conditioned reinforcers
- that have acquired reinforcing properties by association with another reinforcer (often primary)

e.g. ‘Little Albert’

23
Q

Do primary and secondary reinforcers provide different results in animal behaviour studies?

A

They have similar properties, and show the same effects of deprivation and satiety

24
Q

What is Skinner’s box?

A

Puzzle box - operant chamber

  • operant learning
  • reduces behaviour to simple parameters: speed, intensity, duration
25
Q

What are the common features of a Skinner box?

A

> Stimulus (e.g. light, speaker)
Response (e.g. lever)
Reinforcer or punisher (e.g. food, electric shock)
Controller

26
Q

What do reinforcement schedules refer to in behavioural psychology?

A

Relationship of contingency between behaviour and reinforcer/punisher, in term of how and when it is delivered

27
Q

What are the two types of reinforcement schedules?

A
  1. Continuous reinforcement schedule (CRF)
    - where reinforcement occurs every time a response is made
  2. Intermittent (partial) reinforcement schedule
    - reinforcement occurs only after some responses
28
Q

What are the parameters that define the main types of intermittent reinforcement schedules?

A

> Time/quantity: ratio or interval

> Certainty/predictability: fixed or variable

29
Q

What are the 4 types of intermittent reinforcement schedules?

A
  1. Fixed ratio (FR): every nth response exactly
  2. Variable ratio (VR): every nth response on average
  3. Fixed interval (FI): response every t minutes exactly
  4. Variable interval (VI): response every t minutes on average
30
Q

What does a reinforcement schedule influence?

A
  • Learning time
  • Intensity and pattern of responding
  • Persistence of learnt behaviour
31
Q

What is the shaping process in operant learning?

A

Early in learning, it is usually necessary to have a continuous reinforcement schedule or one with a high probability of reinforcement
-> the initial trial and error response is reinforced and likely to be repeated

  • once learned, the ratio can be slowly increased across trials so that reinforcement happens less and less while maintaining the responding
32
Q

What is the characteristic of the behaviour during fixed ratio reinforcement schedules?

A

‘Staircase pattern’:
- bursts of responding: steep part of the trace until reinforcement is obtained, at which point the response stops (trace shows horizontal line)

  • same pattern for all animals during fixed ratio schedules
33
Q

What is the characteristic of the behaviour during fixed interval reinforcement schedules?

A

‘Scallop shaped’:

  • once animal has learned the interval, they tend to stop or slow down the rate of responding after obtaining the predictably timed reward
  • start responding more quickly as duration increases towards the end of expected interval
34
Q

What characterises the behaviour during variable reinforcement schedules?

A
  • Continuous behaviour
  • Rate of responding gets slower as interval between reinforcements is larger, or the higher the number of responses needed on average to get a reward
35
Q

During variable reinforcement schedules, why is the behaviour continuous, even when animal has just obtained a reward?

A

Because of uncertainty

- it’s adaptive for the animal to keep responding just in case

36
Q

During variable reinforcement schedules, why is the rate of responding slower as the interval between reinforcements is larger, or the number of responses needed on average to get a reward is higher?

A

Adaptive logic:
- e.g. if the reward is food, animal adjusts the amount of energy it uses by varying the rate of responding

-> makes sure there is a gain in energy > to energy spent

(we don’t assume this process is conscious)

37
Q

What happens when the response stops being reinforced in reinforcement schedules?

A

Extinction process

38
Q

What is the pattern of extinction in fixed reinforcement schedules?

A

> We typically see a continuation in behaviour rather than an immediate stop
- even though it’s more obvious when expected reward is not delivered (than in variable schedules)

> Pre-extinction burst

> Fixed schedules and variable ratio schedules have similar extinction pattern

39
Q

What is a pre-extinction burst during reinforcement schedules?

A

Rate of responding increases before eventually stopping

40
Q

What is the pattern of extinction in variable reinforcement schedules?
Why?

A

> Behaviour continues much longer than in fixed schedules

  • because there’s the degree of uncertainty about when the next reward is expected
  • animal is less able to determine wether it’s an unusually large pause or wether behaviour is no longer reinforced

> The larger the mean time between responses, the larger the behaviour will continue before it starts to extinguish

41
Q

What is the intermittent/partial reinforcement extinction effect?

A

Intermittent (partial) reinforcement - on fixed or variable schedule - is more resistant to extinction then when the animal has been previously continuously reinforced at every response

42
Q

When the response stops being reinforced, why does the animal’s behaviour extinguishes?

A

It’s not useful or adaptive to respond to a stimulus that did not produce a reward (reinforcer)

43
Q

After a response that has stopped to be reinforced is reinforced once again, why does the animal’s previous behaviour is quickly reestablished and much quicker than it took to learn originally?

A

The learned association remained within the animal’s learned repertoire and was available to be used when the circumstances changed

  • similar to Ebbinghaus’ use of ‘saving’ scores, where participants had not forgotten the associations within informations and could recall even after a month

Psychological Foundations of Mental Health (18 decks)

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