Partial Reinforcement:

Operant conditioning shows a high degree of orderliness or lawfulness. One illustration of orderliness is behaviour controlled by partial reinforcement-that is, behaviour taking place when the response is reinforced only a fraction of the time it occurs.

In the typical experiment, a pigeon learns to peck at a lighted disc mounted on the wall and gains access to a small quantity of grain as its reinforcement. Once this conditioned operant is Conclusive Facts on Learning Process established, the pigeon will continue to peck at a high and relatively uniform rate, even if it only receives occasional reinforcement.

The pigeon was reinforeed on the average of once every five minutes (12 time an hour), yet pecking occurred some 6000 times per hour.

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The practical significance of partial reinforcement is great. A child’s mother is not always present to reward him for looking both ways before crossing the street. But the influences of reinforcements are such that they persist against many no reinforcements. A long straight drive will keep a golfer at the game despite many balls lost in the rough.

Secondary Reinforcement:

Pavlov noted that once a dog and learned to respond to a conditioned stimulus in a highly dependable way, the conditioned stimulus could be used to reinforce a conditioned response to a new stimulus.

Suppose the animal has learned to salivate to a tone as a conditioned stimulus. This is a first-order conditioned response. If a flashing light is then presented along with only the tone, the flashing light when presented alone will come to elicit the conditioned response.

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Pavlov called this process second-order conditioning. The conditioned stimulus of first- order conditioned (tone) has become a secondary reinforcer. Although second-order conditioning can be established with classical conditioning, it is more easily demonstrated with operant conditioning.

1. Pavlov’s experiments on classical conditioning of the dog brought to light several principles useful in the understanding of habit formation. These include reinforcement, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination.

2. Skinner’s experiments on operant conditioning have extended conditioning principles to kinds of responses that cannot be elicited by recognized unconditioned stimuli. Operant behaviour acts upon the environment to produce or gain access to reinforcement and becomes strengthened by reinforcement.

3. Rate of responding is a useful measure of operant strength. Partial reinforcement illustrates the orderliness of operant behaviour, since long and regular runs of responses can be sustained by occasional reinforcement. Secondly reinforcement, the fact that a stimulus associated with a reinforcing stimulus acquires reinforcing properties, increases the possible range of conditioning and explains the reward value of such incentives as social approval and money.

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4. An animal trainer can shape behaviour by reinforcing those variations in the operant response that meet his specifications and by extinguishing those that do not. Thus operant conditioning can account for the learning of novel behaviour. Experiments have shown that some aspects of ordinary daily behaviour can be brought under control through operant conditioning.

5. Reinforcement refers to any event the occurrence of which increases the probability that a stimulus will, on subsequent occasions, evoke a response. Amount, delay, and rate of reinforcement are important variables that affect learning.

6. Conditioning is most directly applicable to single indentifiable responses, but much learning is more complex than this. These more complex instances are classified as multiple-response learning. Two examples are sensor motor skills (such as mirror drawing and pursuit learning) and rote memorization (including serial learning and paired-associate learning).

7. The experimenter plots the results of multiple-response learning in the form of learning curves, indicating changes in proficiency with practice. These curves usually show decreasing

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gains over trials. Shifts from lower-order to higher-order learning habits may result in a period of no improvement, called a plateau.

8. Emphasis within conditioning and multiple-response learning is upon the acquiring of specific responses for verbal habits. Some psychologists warn against an overemphasis upon the automatic nature of learning that comes from exclusive concern with stimulus-response associations. They stress instead situations in which understanding is prominent. Kohler’s insight experiments pointed out how the arrangements of the problem make the solution easy or hard, and how a solution once achieved with insight can be repeated or applied to hovel situations.

9. Tolman’s sign-learning experiments also emphasize the role of understanding and the development of cognitive schemata. Results from an experiment on latent learning provide opposing evidence to theories they lay stress upon the acquisition of particular response sequences without taking into account the subject’s congnitive representation of the relationships involved.

10. Something can be learned from each of these emphases. Learning goes on in part through associative processes, with little rational direction from the learner, and in art through cognitive processes, with which the learner perceives relationships and organized knowledge.