PSYC-3306EL Lecture 13: 13. Operant Conditioning
7 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
Since the response is instrumental in producing the outcome, it is instrumental behaviour. The consequence is referred to as the reinforcer/reward or punishment. Sometimes instrumental behaviour is called operant behaviour: this is defined in terms of a particular operation or manipulation of the environment. Free-operant method (skinner: skinner box, the rat presses a lever for food anytime, the rate of responding becomes the primary measure of behaviour in the free-operant method. Establishing an instrumental response: using an old response in a specific situation, learning a new response from old components, learning a totally new response (shaping) Variability of behaviour behaviours closer to the target behaviour should be reinforced. We get the new response to occur by reinforcing naturally occurring behaviours that are nearest to the final behaviour. Elements of shaping include: a goal behaviour, a starting criterion, a reinforcer, training steps breaking the task into manageable parts, target response for each training step.
