Edward Thorndike discovered operant conditioning
"As he conducted a series of experiments based around the test subject, a cat, learning how to traverse a puzzle box. The experiment was set up so that the hungry cat was locked in a cage while a dish of food waited just outside of it. There was a series of levers and mechanics the cat had to operate in order to unlock the cage and retrieve the food.
What Thorndike found as a result of these studies was that the cat slowly and over time learned the precise steps required in order to be released from the locked cage. This was a slow and gradual process which suggested that the cat did not suddenly and fully understand how to unlock the cage. Instead, the cat learned, through trial and error, the steps required for the cage to be unlocked.
From this famous experiment, Thorndike established the law of effect which defines the relationship between a behavior and a response. In essence, if a certain action or behavior had a positive effect on the test subject, there was more of a reason for the subject to perform it again. On the other hand, if a behavior had a negative effect, it was less likely to be performed in the future. This provided the basis for our modern understanding of operant condition which is learning based on the association of consequences with behavior.
Operant conditioning did not enter the popular stage of psychology and become fully detailed until the work of a famous psychologist named B.F. Skinner. His special contraption dubbed a Skinner box, embodies all of the basic elements of operant conditioning, basically, it was a box that held a lever that was pulled in order for the animal inside of it to get food. A reinforcer is any product or action that causes pleasure in the subject, while reinforcement is the process of the subject receiving the reinforcer. In the instance of a Skinner box, the food pellet acts as the reinforcer while the animals receiving the food is reinforcement. Reinforcement can further be split into positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.
Positive reinforcement is defined as any action which adds something pleasant to the environment of the subject, such as giving food or providing heat in a cold room. Negative reinforcement is the process of removing unpleasant conditions from the environment of the subject. An example of negative reinforcement is eliminating a loud noise that is constantly in the environment In addition to reinforcement, punishment is another process that can be used to shape the behavior of a test subject. Punishment, overall, is affecting behavior by using unpleasant consequences and like reinforcement; it can be split into two categories. Positive punishments is when unpleasant conditions are used on the subject.
For instance, if every time a mouse pulls a lever, it is given a small shock to discourage it from doing so, a positive punishment was used. Negative punishment is the removal of a pleasant condition already present, such as taking away food whenever the animal pushes a lever. In general, it is very easy to confuse the names of these different processes. A simple trick to remember them correctly is to remember that the first of the two terms refers to whether something is added or taken away from the subject. When the term begins with positive, something is added. When the term begins with negative, something is taken away. The second term defines whether the overall process is pleasant or unpleasant for the subject.
Reinforcement is positive while punishment is negative. Overall, Operant Condition is distinctly different from classical condition. while classical conditions involve shaping one's behaviors based on the responses provided by the system the subject is in. "
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