Understanding Behavior and its Consequences in Learning Theories

1. PSY 402 Theories of Learning Chapter 7 – Behavior & Its Consequences Instrumental & Operant Learning

2. Two Early Approaches • Reinforcement Theory • Thorndike’s “Law of Effect” for cats in the puzzle box. • Skinner boxes – rats pressing bars • Contiguity Theory • Guthrie – association is enough • Estes – Stimulus Sampling Theory

3. Problems with Contiguity Theory • Guthrie proposed that no reinforcement was needed – just contiguity (closeness) in time and place. • If learning is immediate and one-trial, why are learning curves gradual? • Only a few stimulus elements are associated on each trial, but more build up with each trial. • His view was wrong but influential (Estes).

4. Guthrie & Reinforcement • The reinforcer is salient, so it changes the stimulus (environmental situation). • Reward keeps competing responses from being associated with the initial stimulus. • Competing responses are instead associated with the presence of the reward. • Fixity of cat flank-rubbing supported Guthrie but was later shown to be related to the presence of the experimenter instead.

5. Tolman’s Operational Behaviorism • His theories relied on “intervening variables” not mechanistic S-R associations. • Behavior is motivated by goals. • Behavior is flexible, a means to an end. • Rats in mazes form cognitive maps of their environment. • Animals learn about stimuli, not just behavior.

6. Evidence of Cognitive Maps • Changing the maze layout resulted in running toward the same “goal.” • A light could have been used as a cue in both situations. • Using a “plus maze,” some rats were trained to always turn a certain direction, while others were trained to reach a consistent place. • The consistent place was easier to learn.

7. Latent Learning • Rats were given experience in a complex maze, without reward. • Later they were rewarded for finding the goal box. • Performance (number of errors) improved greatly with reward, even among previously unrewarded rats. • Reward motivates performance, not learning.

8. Skinner’s Contribution • Skinner was uninterested in theory – he wanted to see how learning works in practice. • Operant chambers permit behaviors to be repeated as often as desired – more voluntary. • Superstitious behavior – animals were rewarded at intervals without regard to their behaviors. • Animals related whatever they were doing to the reward, and wound up doing odd things.

9. Stimulus Control • Skinner discovered that stimuli (cues) provide information about the opportunity for reinforcement (reward). • The stimulus sets the occasion for the behavior. • Fading – gradually transferring stimulus control from a simple stimulus to a more complex one. • Operant behavior is controlled by both stimuli and reinforcers.

10. Discriminative Stimuli • Discriminative stimuli act as “occasion setters” (see Chap 5) in classical conditioning. • The stimulus that signals the opportunity for responding and gaining a reward is SD. • The stimulus that signals the absence of opportunity is SD.

11. Types of Reinforcers • Primary reinforcer – stimuli or events that reinforce because of their intrinsic properties: • Food, water, sex • Secondary reinforcer – stimuli or events that reinforce because of their association with a primary reinforcer: • Money, praise, grades, sounds (clicks) • Called conditioned reinforcers.

12. Behavior Chains • Secondary (conditioned) reinforcers reward intermediate steps in a chain of behavior leading to a primary reinforcer. • Secondary reinforcers can also be discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for more responding. • Classical conditioning is a glue that enables chains of behavior leading to a goal.