Conditioned Reinforcement (Section 5)

Front 1

A stimulus that gets its reinforcing ability by virtue of being paire with an already effective reinforcer.

Back 1

Conditioned reinforcer

Front 2

Give two examples of a conditioned reinforcers

Back 2

Money- by itself is nothing it has been paired with purchasing virtually anything.

Clicking sound of a feeder or can opener to a hungry animal gives information about the upcomming reinforcer.

Front 3

Unconditional vs. Conditional reinforcer

Back 3

unconditional reinforcers are sometimes called primary reinforcers and include food and water.

Condtitioned reinforcers are those things or events that are reinforcing through learning (internet, friends, art, music)

Front 4

Generalized conditioned reinforcer and example

Back 4

reinforcer that acquires its reinforcing strengths through its relation to MULTIPLE reinforcers. (Money)

Front 5

The main advantage of a generalized reinforcer is

Back 5

it does not depend for its effectiveness on a particular state of deprivation

Front 6

Besides money give an example of a generalized reinforcer

Back 6

Attention; because no behavior can be reinforced if it has not been attended too.

Front 7

extended sequences of behavior organized around a particular outcome

Back 7

Behavior chains

Front 8

it is important to stress that in behavior chain each step serves as a reinforcer but THE reinforcer is...

Back 8

not given until ALL the behaviors in the chain have been fulfilled.

Front 9

The transitions between links in a behavior chain appear to serve two important functions

Back 9

conditioned reinforcer: they strengthen behavior which produces them.


discriminative stimulus: they set the occasion for behavior that occurs in their presence.

Front 10

a schedule in which two or more schedule components (links) are arranged successively with reinforcement provided upon completion of all schedule components in the sequence.

Back 10

chained schedule

Front 11

Example of Chained schedule

Back 11

in a chained FI 30 (red) FR 50 (green), the first response in red after 30 s would produce a green stimulus; 50 responses in the presence of the green stimulus would produce food.



The transition from red to green serves as a conditioned reinforcer (strengthens behavior that produces green) and a discriminative stimulus (sets the occasion for FR responses that produce food.

Front 12

To understand the effects of the added stimuli (change from red to green) in behavior chains what should be experimentally done.

Back 12

compare them to a comparable schedule without added stimuli (OR TANDEM SCHEDULE)

Front 13

a schedule just like a chained schedule except there are no added stimuli

Back 13

Tandem schedule

thus the two schedules occur one after another in succession without any stimuli (conditioned reinforcer) in between.

Front 14

behavior is more uniform across schedule components

Back 14

In tandem schedules

Front 15

Chained and tandem schedules are types of complex schedules known as

Back 15

sequential schedules

Front 16

two or more independent schedules alternate within a session each providing its own reinforcement and schedule components are signaled by distinct stimuli, we call the schedule a

Back 16

Multiple schedule

Front 17

Multiple schedules are useful in

Back 17

assessing the effects of some independent variable within a single session

Front 18

In a multiple schedule, behavior in one component is sometimes affected by the schedule in another component. This is called

Back 18

schedule interaction

Front 19

There are two main types of such schedule interactions

Back 19

behavioral contrast: behavior in the two components change in opposite directions.


induction: behavior in the two components change in the same direction.

Front 20

As with chained schedules, it is sometimes useful to know what role the stimuli in multiple schedules are serving. A multiple schedule without the added stimuli is called

Back 20

a mixed schedule

Front 21

in mixed schedule behavior is more

Back 21

uniform

Front 22

realize that in both cases where there is no distinctive stimuli (tandem and mixed)there is also more _____________. why?

Back 22

Behavior is more uniform across components.

That is, because there are no stimuli correlated with the different schedules.

Front 23

the most effective way to chain a behavior chain is...

Back 23

backwards... backward chaining

Front 24

When in the course of learning a new behavior shouls a cue be introduced to SIGNAL the behavior.

Back 24

At the end. Once the behavior is learned THEN a multitude of signals can be easily trained to SIGNAL the behavior.

Front 25

operant chain where the topography or form of response is similar in each component

Back 25

homogenous chain

Front 26

an operant chain where the topography or form of response is different for the links in the chain is known as

Back 26

Heterogenous chain

Front 27

What are the three determinants of conditioned reinforcement

Back 27

Frequency of U.C reinforcement

Variability of U.C reinforcement

Establishing operations

Front 28

The effect of frequency on strength of Unconditioned reinforcement

Back 28

the effectiveness of a reinforcer increases as presentation to it increases (eventually levels off).

Front 29

The effect of VARIABILITY on strength of Unconditioned reinforcement

Back 29

Variability of unconditioned reinforcement, increases its effectiveness as a conditioned reinforcer.

Front 30

The effect of establishing operations on strength of Unconditioned reinforcement

Back 30

The effectiveness of a cinditioned reinforcer is enhanced by events that ESTABLISH its reinforcement.

f.e: birds are more likely to correlate pecking on a stimuli, say red light giving food if they are hungry than when they are not hungry.

Front 31

The longer the delay between a discriminative stimulus and an unconditioned reinforcement...

Back 31

the less effective it will serve as a conditioned reinforcer.

Front 32

Observing-response procedure

Back 32

Procedures of reinforcement and extinction alternate WITHOUT A SIGNAL (Mixed schedule).

Then an observing response is added (like a stimulus) changing it from mixed to multiple schedule.

When observing repsonse was added birds had high rates of pecking in reinforcement phase and not in extinction suggesting that the birds correlated signal (conditional reinforcer) with reinforcement.

Front 33

what were the two conclusions drawn from the observing-response study?

Back 33

1.) Birds may have only responded to good news and not bad news (Red vs green)

2.) Birds responses are better correlated with positive or negative reinforcement.

Front 34

FINALLY WHAT DOES OBSERVING BEHAVIOR STUDIES PROVE.

Back 34

Stimuli correlated with positive and negative reinforcement mantain observing behavior while those merely informing of good news and bad news, do not.

Front 35

generalized social reinforcement

Back 35

approval, attention, praise