Page 4 - LN 1_Learning

▪ The term operant is used because the organism operates on the environment.
▪ Conditioning of operant behaviour is called operant conditioning.
▪ Skinner conducted his studies on rats and pigeons in specially made boxes,

called the Skinner Box.
▪ A hungry rat (one at a time) is placed in the chamber, which was so built that
the rat could move inside but could not come out.
▪ In the chamber there was a lever, which was connected to a food container kept
on the top of the chamber.
▪ When the lever is pressed, a food pellet drops on the plate placed close to the
lever. While moving around and pawing the walls (exploratory behaviour), the
hungry rat accidentally presses the lever and a food pellet drops on the plate.

▪ The hungry rat eats it. In the next trial, after a while the exploratory behaviour
again starts.
▪ As the number of trials increases, the rat takes lesser and lesser time to press
the lever for food.
▪ Conditioning is complete when the rat presses the lever immediately after it is
placed in the chamber.

▪ It is obvious that lever pressing is an operant response and getting food is its
consequence.
▪ In the above situation the response is instrumental in getting the food.
▪ That is why, this type of learning is also called instrumental conditioning.

DETERMINANTS OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

▪ Operant or instrumental conditioning is a form of learning in which behaviour is
learned, maintained or changed through its consequences.
▪ Such consequences are called reinforcers.

▪ Reinforcers are defined as “any stimulus or event, which increases the probability of
the occurrence of a (desired) response”.

▪ A reinforcer has numerous features, which affect the course and strength of a
responses. They include its types –
1. positive or negative,

2. number or frequency,
3. quality –superior or inferior, and
4. schedule – continuous or intermittent (partial).

▪ Another factor that influences this type of learning is
1. the nature of the response or behaviour that is to be conditioned.