Learning - Department of Psychological Sciences

Operant & Classical Conditioning1. Classical conditioningforms associationsbetween stimuli (CSand US). Operantconditioning, on theother hand, forms anassociation betweenbehaviors and theresulting events.Operant & Classical ConditioningClassical conditioning involves respondentbehavior that occurs as an automaticresponse to a certain stimulus. Operantconditioning involves operant behavior, abehavior that operates on the environment,producing rewarding or punishing stimuli.3132Skinner’s ExperimentsSkinner’s experiments extend Thorndike’sthinking, especially his law of effect. This lawstates that rewarded behavior is likely to occuragain.33Yale University LibraryOperant ChamberUsing Thorndike's law of effect as a startingpoint, Skinner developed the Operant chamber,or the Skinner box, to study operantconditioning.Walter Dawn/ Photo Researchers, Inc.34From The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning, 3 rdEdition by Michael P. Domjan, 2005. Used with permissionby Thomson Learning, Wadsworth DivisionOperant ChamberShapingThe operant chamber,or Skinner box, comeswith a bar or key thatan animal manipulatesto obtain a reinforcerlike food or water. Thebar or key is connectedto devices that recordthe animal’s response.35Shaping is the operant conditioning procedurein which reinforcers guide behavior towards thedesired target behavior through successiveapproximations.Khamis Ramadhan/ Panapress/ Getty ImagesA rat shaped to sniff mines. A manatee shaped to discriminateobjects of different shapes, colors and sizes.Fred Bavendam/ Peter Arnold, Inc.366