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Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition (or removal) of reward or aversive stimuli. The frequency or duration of the behavior may increase through reinforcement or decrease through punishment or extinction .
To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box), [8] and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement .
Central to operant conditioning is the use of a Three-Term Contingency (Discriminative Stimulus, Response, Reinforcing Stimulus) to describe functional relationships in the control of behavior. Discriminative stimulus (S D) is a cue or stimulus context that sets the occasion for a response. For example, food on a plate sets the occasion for eating.
In operant conditioning, if a piece of food is presented to a dog after the dog makes a particular motor response, the dog will come to make that motor response more frequently. For Staats, these two types of conditioning are not separate, they interact. A piece of food elicits an emotional response.
[1] Skinner would later use an updated version of Thorndike's puzzle box, called the operant chamber, or Skinner box, which has contributed immensely to our perception and understanding of the law of effect in modern society and how it relates to operant conditioning. It has allowed a researcher to study the behavior of small organisms in a ...
Shaping is a conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior. The method used is differential reinforcement of successive approximations. It was introduced by B. F. Skinner [1] with pigeons and extended to dogs, dolphins, humans and other species. In shaping, the form of an existing response is gradually changed ...
Behaviour therapy is based upon the principles of classical conditioning developed by Ivan Pavlov and operant conditioning developed by B.F. Skinner. Classical conditioning happens when a neutral stimulus comes right before another stimulus that triggers a reflexive response.
Skinner described operant conditioning as strengthening behaviour through reinforcement. Reinforcement can consist of positive reinforcement, in which a desirable stimulus is added; negative reinforcement, in which an undesirable stimulus is taken away; positive punishment, in which an undesirable stimulus is added; and negative punishment, in which a desirable stimulus is taken away. [7]