PSYCO104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Autonomic Nervous System, Reinforcement, Operant Conditioning

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Eric Legge

Document Summary

Psych 104 lecture #24 learning and adaptation pt. Operant conditioning: learning controlled by consequences of organisms" behaviour. Aka instrumental conditioning: operant vs classical. Association between behaviour and its consequences (with behaviour changing after) also physical control. Law of effect (thorndike: response followed by satisfying consequence will become more likely to occur and response followed by unsatisfying outcome will become less likely to occur. Where s = stimulus and r = response. Almost everything we do voluntarily is buildup of s-r bonds: puzzle boxes. Hungry cat is inside and box can be opened when cat pulls string or steps on a lever. Observed that cat took long time to find solution at first but through trial and error and eliminating responses that did not work, its performance increased and time it took decreased. Learning did not depend on reasoning but was incremental. Process is instrumental learning: this is because organism"s behavior is instrumental in bringing.