Operant Learning

Reinforcement

Instructor: Assistant Prof. Dr. Thseen Nazir

Email: [email protected]
Phone: - +905426830087
In discussing Operant
Conditioning,
We will use several everyday
words so let us first discuss them—
Reinforcement
Positive Reinforcement
Negative
Reinforcement,
Reinforcement include
anything that strengthens or increases a
behavior
According to B.F.Skinner there are
two kinds of reinforcement.
1. Positive Reinforcement
2. Negative Reinforcement
1.Positive
reinforcement, is the
process of encouraging or
establishing a pattern of
behavior by offering a
reward when the behavior is
exhibited. This stimulus,
called a positive
reinforcer, is
ordinarily something
 Because the consequences involved in
positive reinforcement are usually
things most people consider rewarding
positive reinforcement is sometimes
called
Reward learning.
 For example, success, improved
performance, praise, food, recognition,
approval, money, special privileges),
2. Negative
Reinforcement
In negative reinforcement, a behavior is
strengthened by the removal, or a decrease
in the intensity, of a stimulus. This stimulus,
called a negative reinforcer, is ordinarily
something the individual tries to escape or avoid.

 Negative reinforcement is sometimes

called escape learning or escape
avoidance learning.
Note that both Positive and Negative reinforcement
increase the strength of behavior.

 The terms positive and negative

do not describe the nature of
the consequence; they indicate
only that something has been
added or subtracted.
Kinds of Reinforcers

Primary Reinforcers
Secondary Reinforcers
  Primary reinforcers are those that appear to be
innately effective.
 The defining feature of primary reinforcers is
that they are not dependent on learning
Primary experiences.
Reinforcer  Since they are not the product of learning, they
s are often called unconditioned reinforcers. The
most obvious primary reinforcers, and the ones
most often used in research, are food, water,
and sexual stimulation.
  Secondary reinforcers are those that are
not innate but the result of learning
experiences.
 Everyday examples include praise,
Secondary recognition, smiles, and applause.
Reinforcers  Because secondary reinforcers normally
acquire their reinforcing power by being
paired with other reinforcers, including
secondary reinforcers, they are also
called conditioned reinforcers.
  Reinforcers that are paired with many
different kinds of reinforcers can be used
Generalized in a wide variety of situations. Such
reinforcers are called Generalized
Reinforcers Reinforcers (Skinner, 1953).
 The most obvious example of a
generalized reinforcer may be money.
Punishment
Many people confuse negative reinforcement with punishment
in operant conditioning.

Punishment always decreases behavior.

Punishment is of two types:-
Positive
Punishment
Negative
 In Positive Punishment, In Negative
you add an undesirable Punishment, you
remove a pleasant
stimulus to decrease a stimulus to decrease a
behavior. behavior.
 An example of positive For example, when a
punishment is scolding a child misbehaves, a
student to get the student parent can take away a
favorite toy.
to stop texting in class.
Edward Lee Ted Thorndike
 Edward Lee Ted Thorndike

 Edward Lee Ted Thorndike (31 August 1874 - 9 August

1949) was an American psychologist who developed
learning theory, which led to the development of
operant conditioning within behaviorism.
 Thorndike was an influential psychologist who is often
referred to as the founder of modern educational
psychology.
 Thorndike was a pioneer not only in behaviorism and
learning studies but also in using animals in
psychology experiments.
  Thorndike first stated the elements of his theory
of learning in 1913 that connections are formed
in the nervous system between stimuli and
response.
 These connections formed are illustrated by the
symbols S-R.
Connectionis  Another word used to describe these connections
is the word ‘bond’ and hence,’ this theory is
m sometimes called a ‘Bond Theory of learning’.
 The paradigm for S-R theory was trial and error
learning in which certain responses come to
dominate others due to rewards.
 Edward Thorndike (1898) is famous in psychology
for his work on learning theory, which led to the
development of operant
conditioning within behaviorism.
 Thorndike’s
theory consists
of three
primary laws
1. Law of readiness
 First primary law of learning, according to him, is the
‘Law of Readiness’ or the ‘Law of Action
Tendency’, which means that learning takes place
when an action tendency is aroused through
preparatory adjustment, set or attitude.
 Readiness means a preparation of action.
 If one is not prepared to learn, learning cannot be
automatically instilled in him, for example, unless the
typist, in order to learn typing prepares himself to start,
he would not make much progress in a lethargic &
unprepared manner.
2. Law of effect
A “Law of effect” which stated
that any behavior that is
followed by pleasant
consequences is likely to be
repeated, and any behavior
followed by unpleasant
consequences is likely to be
3. Law of
exercise
Connections become strengthened
with practice and weakened when
practice is discontinued.
 A corollary of the law of effect was
that responses that reduce the
likelihood of achieving a rewarding
state (i.e., punishments, failures)
will decrease in strength.
Building on Thorndike’s
foundation, Skinner
began a series of
studies in the 1930s
that greatly advanced
our understanding of
learning and behavior.
Skinner (1938) built an experimental chamber in which an
electrically operated food magazine dropped a few pellets
of food into a tray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6MamDfrH-I&ab_channel=Psyche-
ThePsychologyChannel
 Skinner called experiences whereby
behavior is strengthened or weakened
by its consequences operant learning.
 The behavior is typically instrumental in
producing the events that follow it, so
this type of learning is also called
instrumental learning.
 It goes by other names as well, including
response learning, consequence
learning, and R-S learning.
 Operant Conditioning
 Operant conditioning is a type of learning in
which the future probability of a behavior is
affected by its consequences.
 Operant responses are sometimes simply called
operants.
 Suppose, for example, that a rat presses a lever
and receives a food pellet, with a result that it is
more likely to press the lever in the future.
Lever press Food pellet
 The effect: The future probability of lever
pressing increases.
 Yasir might tell a joke and receive a frown from the
person he tells it to. He is now less likely to tell
that person a joke in the future.
Tell a joke Person frowns
 The effect: The future probability of telling a
joke decreases.
 In each case, the behavior in question (the lever
pressing or the joke telling) is an operant response
(or an “operant”) because its occurrence results in
a certain consequence, and that consequently
affects the future probability of the response.
Variables affecting operant learning
1. Contingency
 Contingency refers to the degree of
correlation between a behavior and its
consequence.
 The stronger this correlation is, the more
effective the reinforcer is likely to be.
 The more reliably a reinforcer follows a
behavior, the more it strengthens the
behavior.
2. Contiguity
Contiguity refers to the gap in
time between a behavior and its
reinforcing consequence.
In general, the shorter this
interval is, the faster learning
occurs.
 3. Motivating
Operations
A motivating operation is anything that changes
the effectiveness of a consequence.
 There are two kinds of motivating operations:
1.Those that increase the effectiveness of a
consequence, and 2.Those that decrease its
effectiveness.
 These two kinds of procedures are called
establishing operations and abolishing
operations, respectively
 A good example of an establishing operation is depriving
an animal of food; this makes food a more potent
reinforcer.
 For instance, E. C. Tolman and C. H. Honzik (1930) gave
rats food on reaching the end of a maze; some rats had
been deprived of food, others had not.
 In general, the greater the level of deprivation (e.g., the
longer the interval since eating), the more effective the
reinforcer (Cotton, 1953; Reynolds & Pavlik, 1960).
Deviating slightly from Thorndike,
Skinner identified four types of
operant procedures or
experiences: two that strengthen
behavior and two that weaken it.
Shaping
Shaping is the operant
conditioning procedure in which
reinforcers guide behavior towards
the desired target behavior through
successive approximations.