PSYCO282 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Reinforcement

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO282
• Professor: Karsten Loepelmann

Document Summary

Extinction burst: behaviour may brie y increase in frequency, duration, or intensity after the reinforcement is eliminated. Extinction-induced aggression: novel behaviours, often emotional or aggressive, may be exhibited. Spontaneous recovery: after a period of extinction, a behaviour may reappear, despite the lack of reinforcement. The textbook considers novel behaviours to be part of extinction burst. Continuous schedule leads to faster decrease in behaviour (lower resistance to extinction or rte). Intermittent schedule leads to slower decrease in behaviour. ( greater rte). Magnitude of previous reinforcement: larger reinforcer produces greater rte. Inadvertent reinforcement that occurs during the extinction phase --> behaviour increases. Combine extinction of unwanted behaviour with reinforcement of alternative behaviour. The reappearance of an extinguished behaviour is spontaneous recovery. At the start of an extinction procedure, the behaviour will most likely increase. Previous intermittent schedule of reinforcement will increase the resistance to extinction. Punishment: the process in which the consequence of a behaviour weakens the behaviour.