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An [[operant conditioning chamber]] (also known as a ''Skinner |
An [[operant conditioning chamber]] (also known as a ''Skinner Box'') is a device used to study animal behavior, especially [[operant conditioning]]. It was invented by Skinner while he was a graduate student at [[Harvard University]], where he received the doctorate in 1931. As used by Skinner, the box had a lever (for rats) or a disk in one wall (for pigeons). A press on this "manipulandum" could deliver food to the animal through an opening in the wall, and responses reinforced in this way increased in frequency. By controlling this reinforcement together with discriminative stimuli such as lights and tones, or punishments such as electric shocks, experimenters have used the operant box to study a wide variety of topics, including schedules of reinforcement, discriminative control, delayed response ("memory"), punishment, and so on. By channeling research in these directions, the operant conditioning chamber has had a huge influence on course of research in animal learning and its applications. It enabled great progress on problems that could be studied by the measuring the rate, probability, or force of a simple, repeatable response. However, it discouraged the study of behavioral processes not easily conceptualized in such terms - spatial learning, in particular, which is now studied in quite different ways, for example by the use of the [[Water maze|water maze]].<ref name="Jenkins"/>. |
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The nature of the operant conditioning chamber had major consequences for Skinner discovered that consequences for the organism played a large role in how the organism responded in certain situations.[39] For instance, when the rat would pull the lever it would receive food. Subsequently, the rat made frequent pulls on the lever.[40] Negative reinforcement was also exemplified by Skinner placing rats into an electrified chamber that delivered unpleasant shocks. Levers to cut the power were placed inside these boxes. By running a current through the “operant conditioning chamber,” Skinner noticed that the rats, after accidentally pressing the lever in a frantic bid to escape, quickly learned the effects of implementing the lever and consequently used this knowledge to stop the currents both during and prior to electrical shock. These two learned responses are known as Escape Learning and Avoidance Learning.[41] The operant chamber for pigeons involves a plastic disc in which the pigeon pecks in order to open a drawer filled with grains.[42] The Skinner box led to the principle of reinforcement, which is the probability of something occurring based on the consequences of a behavior.[43] |
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This device was an example of his lifelong ability to invent useful devices, which included whimsical devices in his childhood[44] to the cumulative recorder to measure the rate of response of organisms in an operant chamber. Even in old age, Skinner invented a Thinking Aid to assist in writing.[45] |
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Latest revision as of 14:41, 5 February 2015
An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a Skinner Box) is a device used to study animal behavior, especially operant conditioning. It was invented by Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University, where he received the doctorate in 1931. As used by Skinner, the box had a lever (for rats) or a disk in one wall (for pigeons). A press on this "manipulandum" could deliver food to the animal through an opening in the wall, and responses reinforced in this way increased in frequency. By controlling this reinforcement together with discriminative stimuli such as lights and tones, or punishments such as electric shocks, experimenters have used the operant box to study a wide variety of topics, including schedules of reinforcement, discriminative control, delayed response ("memory"), punishment, and so on. By channeling research in these directions, the operant conditioning chamber has had a huge influence on course of research in animal learning and its applications. It enabled great progress on problems that could be studied by the measuring the rate, probability, or force of a simple, repeatable response. However, it discouraged the study of behavioral processes not easily conceptualized in such terms - spatial learning, in particular, which is now studied in quite different ways, for example by the use of the water maze.[1].