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Operant Conditioning – Ch. 9 October 26, 2005 Class #27

Operant Conditioning – Ch. 9 October 26, 2005 Class #27. Analyzing Mild Punishment…. Skinner (1938) Trained rats to barpress for food Extinction: One group of rats were punished Paw was slapped by experimenters (ouch!) Results: Behavior was suppressed…

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Operant Conditioning – Ch. 9 October 26, 2005 Class #27

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  1. Operant Conditioning – Ch. 9 October 26, 2005 Class #27

  2. Analyzing Mild Punishment… • Skinner (1938) • Trained rats to barpress for food • Extinction: One group of rats were punished • Paw was slapped by experimenters (ouch!) • Results: • Behavior was suppressed… • But, later that same day the punished rats caught up to the unpunished group • Skinner’s conclusion: • Punishment was not effect

  3. Boe and Church (1967) • Replicated Skinner’s experiment but used varying levels of punishment… • Results: • Mild shocks to cats resembled Skinner’s • But, intense shocks produced much different results • Boe and Church’s conclusion: • Punishment was effective if done with sufficient severity

  4. Real World problems with this… • Mild or ineffective punishment is then switched to stronger punishment… • Be careful…

  5. Does punishment work??? • Martin (1977) • Procedures: • Boys worked on series of tasks • Depending on type of task the boys were either praised, reprimanded, or ignored • Results: • Later, boys worked harder on which task??? • In presence of instructor? • In absence of instructor?

  6. Experimental Neurosis • Masserman (1943) • Procedure: • Cats given unpredictable electric shocks or blasts of air while eating • Results: • Quiet cats became agitated • Conditioned phobia

  7. Applications… • Generalized Anxiety Disorder • PTSD

  8. Preparedness & Operant Conditioning • Evidence for biological constraints in operant conditioning • Bolles (1970) • Animals cannot be trained to give any behaviour for any reward • Rats can easily be trained to lever-press to receive food rewards (they have evolved high level use of their paws to forage for food) • Rats cannot easily be trained to lever-press to escape shock (natural reaction to fear is run or freeze) • Training difficulties can be explained by animal’s evolutionary history

  9. Preparedness & Operant Conditioning • Biological dispositions in pigeon avoidance responses • Pigeons can be easily trained to peck a disk for food • Pigeons cannot easily be trained to peck a disk to avoid shock • Pigeons can be easily trained to flap their wings to escape an electric shock • Pigeons can not easily be trained to flap their wings to get food • It seems that some behaviours are naturally associated with certain types of need

  10. Preparedness & Operant Conditioning • Bolles (1979) • Preparedness plays an important role in avoidance behaviour • Avoidance responses not operants (controlled by consequences) – seem to be elicited behaviours (controlled by stimuli that precede them) Example A rat’s natural reaction to fear is to freeze or to run and these behaviours are naturally elicited. In a Skinner box a rat will sometimes freeze when a shock is signalled (adaptive…ensures the rats receives the shock?). If a rat experiences fear in a confined space it cannot escape so its best defence is to freeze

  11. Operant-Pavlovian Interactions • Instinctive drift • Sign tracking

  12. Operant-Pavlovian Interactions • Instinctive drift • A classically conditioned fixed action pattern displaces an operant behaviour • Breland & Breland (1961) • Attempted to train a pig to drop a coin in a piggybank • Early conditioning was effective (eager pigs!!!) • BUT…pigs began to drop coin and push it with nose • Perhaps pig wasn’t hungry enough…food deprivation was increased  misbehaviour worsened • Pigs had associated the coin with food and began treating it as though it was food • Learned behaviour drifts towards instinctive behaviour

  13. Operant-Pavlovian Interactions Demonstration • Coin (SD) : Deposit Coin (R)  Food (SR) • Coin (CS) : Food (UCS)  Rooting (UCR) • Coin (CS)  Rooting (CR) • Pigs had associated the coin with food and began treating it as though it was food • Learned behaviour drifts towards instinctive behaviour

  14. Operant-Pavlovian Interactions • Sign tracking • The organism approaches a stimulus that signals the likelihood of an appetitive event

  15. Food Dish Key Light Signalling Food Operant-Pavlovian Interactions • Light signals delivery of food • Pigeon should go to food dish & wait • Instead…pigeon approaches & pecks light!!! • Autoshaping (Brown & Jenkins, 1968) • Pigeons - light key (8s) + non-contingent food delivery • No need to peck at key but do anyway • Key Light : Food  Peck • Key Light  Peck (Pavlovian response) • Associate key with food • Key Light : Peck  Food (operant response)

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