which affect the course and strength of a Fig. . : Skinner Box hatred for the punishing agent or the person who administers the punishment. Number of Reinforcement and other Features It refers to the number of trials on which an organism has been reinforced or rewarded.
Amount of reinforcement means how much of reinforcing stimulus (food or water or intensity of pain causing agent) one receives on each trial. Quality of reinforcement refers to the kind of reinforcer. Chickpeas or pieces of bread are of inferior quality as compared with raisins or pieces of cake as reinforcer. The course of operant conditioning is usually accelerated to an extent as the number, amount, and quality of reinforcement increases.
Schedules of Reinforcement A reinforcement schedule is the arrangement of the delivery of reinforcement during conditioning trials. Each schedule of reinforcement influences the course of conditioning in its own way; and thus conditioned responses occur with differential characteristics. The organism being subjected to operant conditioning may be given reinforcement in every acquisition trial or in some trials it is given and in others it is omitted. Thus, the reinforcement may be continuous or intermittent .
When a desired response is reinforced every time it occurs we call it continuous reinforcement . In contrast, in intermittent schedules responses are sometimes reinforced, sometimes not. It is known as partial reinforcement and has been found to produce greater resistance to extinction – than is found with continuous reinforcement. Delayed Reinforcement The effectiveness of reinforcement is dramatically altered by delay in the occurrence of reinforcement.
It is found that delay in the delivery of reinforcement leads to poorer level of performance . It can be easily shown by asking children which reward they will prefer for doing some chore. Smaller rewards immediately after doing the chore will be preferred rather than a big one after a long gap. Key Learning Processes When learning takes place, be it classical or operant conditioning, it involves the occurrence of certain processes.
These include . In classical conditioning, the responses are under the control of some stimulus because they are