instrumental conditioning
| Noun | 1. | instrumental conditioning - operant conditioning that pairs a response with a reinforcement in discrete trials; reinforcement occurs only after the response is given |
| 单词 | instrumental conditioning | |||
| 释义 | instrumental conditioning
instrumental conditioningInstrumental conditioningLearning based upon the consequences of behavior. For example, a rat may learn to press a lever when this action produces food. Instrumental or operant behavior is the behavior by which an organism changes its environment. The particular instances of behavior that produce consequences are called responses. Classes of responses having characteristic consequences are called operant classes; responses in an operant class operate on (act upon) the environment. For example, a rat's lever-press responses may include pressing with the left paw or with the right paw, sitting on the lever, or other activities, but all of these taken together constitute the operant class called lever pressing. Consequences of responding that produce increases in behavior are called reinforcers. For example, if an animal has not eaten recently, food is likely to reinforce many of its responses. Whether a particular event will reinforce a response or not depends on the relation between the response and the behavior for which its consequences provide an opportunity. Some consequences of responding called punishers produce decreases in behavior. The properties of punishment are similar to those of reinforcement, except for the difference in direction. The consequences of its behavior are perhaps the most important properties of the world about which an organism can learn, but few consequences are independent of other circumstances. Organisms learn that their responses have one consequence in one setting and different consequences in another. Stimuli that set the occasion on which responses have different consequences are called discriminative stimuli (these stimuli do not elicit responses; their functions are different from those that are simply followed by other stimuli). When organisms learn that responses have consequences in the presence of one but not another stimulus, their responses are said to be under stimulus control. For example, if a rat's lever presses produce food when a light is on but not when it is off and the rat comes to press only when the light is on, the rat's presses are said to be under the stimulus control of the light. See Conditioned reflex instrumental conditioningSee CONDITIONING.instrumental conditioning[‚in·strə′ment·əl kən′dish·ə·niŋ]instrumental conditioningconditioning[kon-dish´un-ing]The concept had its beginnings in experimental techniques for the study of reflexes. The traditional procedure is based on the work of Ivan P. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist. In this technique the experimental subject is a dog that is harnessed in a sound-shielded room. The neutral stimulus is the sound of a metronome or bell which occurs each time the dog is presented with food, and the response is the production of saliva by the dog. Eventually the sound of the bell or metronome produces salivation, even though the stimulus that originally elicited the response (the food) is no longer presented. In the technique just described, the conditioned stimulus is the sound of the bell or metronome, and the conditioned response is the salivation that occurs when the sound is heard. The food, which was the original stimulus to salivation, is the unconditioned stimulus and the salivation that occurred when food was presented is the unconditioned response. Reinforcement is said to take place when the conditioned stimulus is appropriately followed by the unconditioned stimulus. If the unconditioned stimulus is withheld during a series of trials, the procedure is called extinction because the frequency of the conditioned response will gradually decrease when the stimulus producing the response is no longer present. The process of extinction eventually results in a return of the preconditioning level of behavior. The traditional example of instrumental conditioning uses the Skinner box, named after B. F. Skinner, an American behavioral psychologist. The subject, a rat, is kept in the box and becomes conditioned to press a bar by being rewarded with food pellets each time its early random movements caused it to press against the bar. The principles and techniques related to instrumental conditioning are used clinically in behavior therapy to help patients eliminate undesirable behavior and substitute for it newly learned behavior that is more appropriate and acceptable. in·stru·men·tal con·di·tion·inginstrumental conditioning
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