What experiment did BF Skinner do? Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by
placing a hungry rat in his Skinner box
. The box contained a lever on the side, and as the rat moved about the box, it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so a food pellet would drop into a container next to the lever.
What is Skinner known for?
Skinner was an American psychologist best-known for
his influence on behaviorism
. Skinner referred to his own philosophy as ‘radical behaviorism’ and suggested that the concept of free will was simply an illusion. All human action, he instead believed, was the direct result of conditioning.
Was the Skinner box experiment ethical?
Skinner boxes have also been criticized by various animal welfare organizations as cruel
, both because they tend to be small and because they often deprive the animal of all other stimuli, including species-appropriate social interaction.
Which experiment involves the use of classical conditioning?
What was the main point of
Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs
? Behavior is motivated by the consequences we receive for the behavior: reinforcements and punishments. Fear is a conditioned response. Learning can occur when a conditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
When did Skinner discover operant conditioning?
The term operant conditioning
1
was coined by B. F. Skinner in
1937
in the context of reflex physiology, to differentiate what he was interested in—behavior that affects the environment—from the reflex-related subject matter of the Pavlovians. The term was novel, but its referent was not entirely new.
B.F Skinner (1904-1990) proposed that
children learn from consequences of behaviour
. In other words if children experience pleasantness as a result of their behaviour, then they are likely to repeat that behaviour.
“Behavioral sink” is a term invented by ethologist
John B. Calhoun
to describe a collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on Norway rats between 1958 and 1962.
Pavlov showed that
dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time that they were given food
. First the dogs were presented with the food, they salivated. The food was the unconditioned stimulus and salivation was an unconditioned (innate) response.
Classical conditioning was stumbled upon
by accident
. Pavlov was conducting research on the digestion of dogs when he noticed that the dogs’ physical reactions to food subtly changed over time.
He believed that
looking at the causes of an action and its consequences was the best way to understand behaviour
. He termed this approach, which looked at the effects of the behaviour, operant conditioning.
Mice and rats are mammals with nervous systems similar to our own. It’s no secret that
they feel pain, fear, loneliness, and joy just as we do
. These highly social animals communicate with each other using high-frequency sounds that are inaudible to the human ear.
Pavlov
noticed that sight alone of the dog’s handler was enough to make the dog salivate. To establish if there can be salivation with the pairing of a stimulus, Pavlov decided to use the bell as the Conditioned Stimulus, so-called because it was being paired with Food (US) to elicit salivation.
In a series of experiments, he set out
to provoke a conditioned response to a previously neutral stimulus
. He opted to use food as the unconditioned stimulus, or the stimulus that evokes a response naturally and automatically.
Psychologist Burrhus Skinner (called “B.F.” by his BFF’s) says the remarkable feat was accomplished in just 3 steps:
He rewarded the pigeons when they were near the ball
. rewarded them when they pecked the ball. rewarded them when they pecked the ball to the other side of the table.
Skinner’s Pigeon Experiment revealed that even pigeons can be conditioned to develop superstitious behaviours in belief that they will be fed. But superstition is more obvious in everyday human behavior; for example,
avoiding 3 consecutive grates in a street, or walking under ladders
.
Getting to work,
Skinner
decided on pigeons because of both their vision and unflappable behavior in chaotic conditions. He built a nose cone for a missile fitted with three small electronic screens and three tiny pigeon cockpits. Onto the screens was projected an image of the ground in front of the rocket.
