Alternative Approaches to Learning: Thorndike, Kohler, Skinner - University Lecture

University of Leicester Year 1 Psychology Learning and Memory Professor Graham Davies Lecture 2 Copies of overheads Operant Conditioning

Alternative approaches to Learning: Thorndike • Trial and error learning • The ‘Puzzle Box’ • ‘Law of effect’ (1913)

Alternative approaches to Learning: Kohler• Objections to Thorndike • ‘The Mentality of Apes’ (1925) • The role of insight

Alternative approaches to learning: Skinner• ‘Behaviour of Organisms’ (1938) • Skinner Box • Operant Conditioning

The ABC of operant conditioningA = antecedents = lever, or click: (or stimulus conditions) food dispenserB = behaviour = pressing lever C = consequences = food being (what happens as a dispensed result of behaviour) (reinforcement)

Fundamentals of Operant Conditioning• The role of reinforcement • Primary vs. secondary reinforcement (Wolfe, 1936) • Schedules of reinforcement • Shaping-successive approximations

Biological Constraints on Conditioning• Breland & Breland (1966) ‘Animal Behavioural Enterprises’ Clash between instinctive and learned behaviour

Applications of operant conditioning• Programmed learning (Holland & Skinner, 1964)• Token economies - behaviour which earns or loses points - points exchanged for reinforcer - uses in prisons -and supermarkets!

Similarities between classical and operant conditioning• Acquisition, extinction and recovery • Discrimination and generalisation

Differences between classical and operant conditioning• Autonomic vs. sympathetic • Class of response • Contingencies

Alternative Approaches to Learning: Thorndike, Kohler, Skinner - University Lecture