Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning Operant conditioning is a type of leaning defined by the relation between behavior of an individual or animal and stimuli that accompanies the behavior. Therefore, consequences of this leaning theory may affect behavior by decreasing or increasing it. There are four types of operant conditioning, they are as follows; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction. Positive reinforcement is where a given behavior is enforced by showing positive consequences.

Negative reinforcement on the other hand, is a situation where a given behavior is enforced through the use of negative consequences. Punishment is also form of operant conditioning where a specific punishment is used to negate some behaviors, while Extinction entails the weakening of a particular behavior as a result of not experiencing a positive condition or stopping a negative condition.

Operant conditioning experiment can be conducted by using a mouse caged in an operant chamber, but in this case, a realistic digital rat was used to run several punishments, which show a, relation between reward/punishment with a specific behavior (Andrzejewski, 2011). The following experiments were done to justify the operant conditioning theory. Experiment. 1: Magazine training This is a food-sound operant conditioning training where sniffy is taught to identify the sound of the magazine with availability of food pellet in the hopper.

This is a positive reinforcement model of operant conditioning where the food pellets acts as the prize for responding to the magazine sound (Andrzejewski, 2011). The following are the steps carried out in this experiment; When this experiment starts, sniffy is observed to determine the basic behavior exhibited which was to be tested. One of Sniffy's behaviors is the desire to eat. Therefore, as sniffy wanders around the operant chamber it is observed and when it approaches a food hopper, a pellet is dropped for it to eat.

The process is repeated again, and this time, before it wanders off, sniffy is given more pellets from the hopper. Then, let him wonder away for a while then give him more pellets of food. During that duration of the experiment, a close observation is put on the Operant Association mind window so as to note the changes in Sniffy's behavior. In this experiment, sniffy was seen to be appropriately magazine trained when the vertical bar seen in the Operant Association Window, for the sound-food relationship reached its maximum level.

At this stage, he could now respond to the food on hearing the sound of the magazine. Experiment 2: Shaping: Teaching Sniffy to Press the Bar This is the next step after attaining impressive results in the first experiment (magazine training). This is a negative reinforcement experiment where sniffy is trained to press the bar in order to get food. Though this investigation is challenging and time consuming because it deals with shaping of behavior, here are the steps involved in the experiment.

First, you reinforce sniffy to press the bar when he rears up anywhere in the chamber, in this case the bar can be located anywhere around the chamber that sniffy is likely to rear up against. Then, on seeing that the rearing has become a little bit familiar to him, sniffy is therefore, reinforced when he rears at a point with the bar. After several attempts of the previous steps, sniffy was encouraged to rear up nearer to the bar as possible.

During the regular training observation, incase sniffy rears so close to the bar this increases the likelihood that sniffy will press on the bar. Immediately, sniffy presses the bar, a magazine sound will be heard and he will identify the sound with the food pellets which he will rush to eat. At this stage, the Bar-Sound relationship begins to develop. This association can be further confirmed in Operant Association Window by observing the red bar shown in it. This experiment is repeated severally until he learns that if the bar.

During the observation, he started by pressing the bar once or twice also after rearing up near the bar. After thorough training by reinforcement wherever he rears up without pressing the bar, with time sniffy consistently learned to press the bar three or four times in rapid succession (Andrzejewski, 2011). At this stage, shaping was stopped so as to observe the behavioral effect of the shaping process. Sniffy could now be seen to press the bar more often as time goes.

In this experiment, our achievement are observed on the Operant Association mind window, where the bar level of the Bar-Sound association rose gradually to the maximum level. Response to the experiments The previous analysis gives us a clear picture of how organisms learn. Operant conditioning uses.