PSYC 301L Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cognitive Map, Operant Conditioning, Classical Conditioning
Document Summary
William james was almost more of a philosopher than a scientist. John watson had 2 problems with analytic introspection. Unverifiable results: he came up with behaviorism as a solution. Focuses on what we can see (behavior) Focuses on stimuli-behavior relationship rather than what the behavior. Skinner came up with operant conditioning: pigeons learned how to do things to get food. Example: peck a button six times results in receiving food: thought this was the end-all-be-all solution to bad behavior. Doesn"t actually reinforce good behavior: attempted to use this to change prison behavior. Issues with this include the fact that the reinforcement would not continue after they left prison. Tolman discovered the cognitive map using rats in a maze. Skinner thought language acquisition occurs through operant conditioning: in experiment, it was found that younger children cannot imitate complex grammar structure as well as older children despite punishment/reward. Chomsky directly argued against skinner"s theory, ending skinner"s career: chomsky"s argument points:
