"The relation between the discriminative operant and its controlling stimulus is very different from elicitation. Stimulus and response occur in the same order as in the reflex, but this does…
"We use operant discrimination in two ways. In the first place, stimuli which have already become discriminative stimuli are manipulated in order to change probabilities . . . In the…
"The three-term contingency is evident in teaching a child to read, when a given response is reinforced with ”right or “wrong” according to the presence or absence of the appropriate…
"Verbal behavior fits the pattern of the three-term contingency and supplies many illuminating examples. We learn to name objects by acquiring an enormous repertoire of responses each of which is…
"It is obviously advantageous that a response occur only when it is likely to be reinforced . . . The social environment contains vast numbers of such contingencies. A smile…
"We describe the contingency by saying that a stimulus . . . is the occasion upon which a response . . . is followed by reinforcement . . . All…
"Most operant behavior, however, acquires important connections with the surrounding world . . . But the relation is fundamentally quite different [from the reflex]. It has a different history and…
"Stimuli are always acting upon an organism, but their functional connection with the operant behavior is not like that in the reflex. Operant behavior, in short, is emitted, rather than…
"Operant conditioning may be described without mentioning any stimulus which acts before the response is made. In reinforcing neck-stretching in the pigeon, it was necessary to wait for the stretching…
"Schedules of pay in industry, salesmanship, and the professions, and the use of bonuses, incentive wages, and so on, could also be improved from the point of view of generating…
"The long-term net gain or loss is almost irrelevant in accounting for the effectiveness of this [variable ratio] schedule." (p. 104) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"We get rid of the pauses after reinforcement on a fixed ratio schedule by adopting essentially the same practice as in variable-interval reinforcement: we simply vary the ratios over a…
"Under ratios of reinforcement which can be sustained, the behavior eventually shows a very low probability just after reinforcement, as it does in the case of fixed-interval reinforcement." (p. 103)…
"The high rate of responding and the long hours of work generated by this [fixed ratio] schedule can be dangerous to health. This is the main reason why piecework pay…
"Since [intermittent reinforcement] is a technique for “getting more responses out of an organism” in return for a given number of reinforcements, it is widely used." (pp 99-100) Subscribe to…
"A large part of behavior . . . is reinforced only intermittently. A given consequence may depend upon a series of events which are not easily predicted. We do not…
"In general, behavior which acts upon the immediate physical environment is consistently reinforced." (p. 99) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"One reason the term “learning” is not equivalent to “operant conditioning” is that traditionally it has been confined to the process of learning how to do something . . .…
The Analysis of Behavior: A Program for Self-Instruction by James G. Holland and B. F. Skinner introduced behavior analysis to thousands of students. The program produced a superior level of…
"The reinforcement which develops skill must be immediate. Otherwise, the precision of the differential effect is lost." (p. 96) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"The contingency which improves skill is the differential reinforcement of responses possessing special properties." (p. 95) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"Verbal behavior supplies especially good examples of the need to consider these atoms . . . A rigorous analysis shows that the word is by no means the functional unit.…
"The traditional explanation of transfer asserts that the second response is strengthened only insofar as the responses "possess identical elements." This is an effort to maintain the notion of a…
"But if we are to account for many of its quantitative properties, the ultimately continuous nature of behavior must not be forgotten. Neglect of this characteristic has been responsible for…
"When we survey behavior in . . . later stages, we find it convenient to distinguish between various operants which differ from each other in topography and produce different consequences.…
"Operant conditioning shapes behavior as a sculptor shapes a lump of clay. Although at some point the sculptor seems to have produced an entirely novel object, we can always follow…
"Reflexes and other innate patterns of behavior evolve because they increase the chances of survival of the species. Operants grow strong because they are followed by important consequences in the…
"The fact that operant behavior seems to be “directed toward the future” is misleading. Consider, for example, the case of “looking for something.” In what sense is the ”something” which…
"Purpose is not a property of the behavior itself; it is a way of referring to controlling variables . . . The subject himself, of course, may be in an…
"Instead of saying that a man behaves because of the consequences which are to follow his behavior, we simply say that he behaves because of the consequences which have followed…
"It is not correct to say that operant reinforcement "strengthens the response which precedes it." The response has already occurred and cannot be changed. What is changed is the future…
"Several important generalized reinforcers arise when behavior is reinforced by other people. A simple case is attention [Others are approval, affection and submissiveness.]" (p. 78) Subscribe to RSS feed here
"It is possible, however, that some of the reinforcing effect of "sensory feed-back" is unconditioned. A baby appears to be reinforced by stimulation from the environment which has not been…
"One form of precurrent behavior may precede different kinds of reinforcers upon different occasions. The immediate stimulation from such behavior will thus become a generalized reinforcer. We are automatically reinforced,…
"Although it is characteristic of human behavior that primary reinforcers may be effective after long delay, this is presumably only because intervening events become conditioned reinforcers." (p. 76) Subscribe to…
"We cannot dispense with this survey [of reinforcers] simply by asking a man what reinforces him. His reply may be of some value, but it is by no means necessarily…
"The difference between the two cases will be clearer when we consider the presentation of a negative reinforcer or the removal of a positive. These are the consequences which we…
"Events which are found to be reinforcing are of two sorts. Some reinforcements consist of presenting stimuli, of adding something— for example, food, water, or sexual contact—to the situation. These…
"There is nothing circular about classifying events in terms of their effects; the criterion is both empirical and objective. It would be circular, however, if we then went on to…
"The only way to tell whether or not a given event is reinforcing to a given organism under given conditions is to make a direct test. We observe the frequency…
"The condition of low operant strength resulting from extinction often requires treatment. Some forms of psychotherapy are systems of reinforcement designed to reinstate behavior which has been lost through extinction."…
"The failure of a response to be reinforced leads not only to operant extinction but also to a reaction commonly spoken of as frustration or rage. A pigeon which has…
"A single reinforcement may have a considerable effect. Under good conditions the frequency of a response shifts from a prevailing low value to a stable high value in a single…
David C. Palmer has replaced Brenda Terzich-Garland as a member of the Board of Directors of the B. F. Skinner Foundation. We thank Brenda for her service and look forward…
"While we are awake, we act upon the environment constantly, and many of the consequences of our actions are reinforcing. Through operant conditioning the environment builds the basic repertoire with…
"In operant conditioning we "strengthen" an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent. In Pavlovian or "respondent" conditioning we simply increase…
"A response which has already occurred cannot, of course, be predicted or controlled. We can only predict that similar responses will occur in the future. The unit of a predictive…
"It is customary to refer to any movement of the organism as a "response." The word is borrowed from the field of reflex action and implies an act which, so…
"Learning curves do not, however, describe the basic process of stamping in. Thorndike's measure—the time taken to escape— involved the elimination of other behavior, and his curve depended upon the…
"[Respondent] conditioning adds new controlling stimuli, but not new responses. In using the principle, therefore, we are not subscribing to a “conditioned reflex theory” of all behavior. (p. 56) Subscribe…