The Pros And Cons Of Operant Conditioning

(Iverson, 1992, P.1). Skinner studied this experiment and decided to come up with his own experiment through rats. Skinner took a different path than Thorndike did with his experiment. Skinner was mainly interested in how the rat behaved to finding food. Thorndike based his study on the object that was being experimented on and if it could escape by accomplishing the same task by learning to do it over and over again.

He picked a nine-month-old infant named Albert, to be the key learner in his experiment, which would be later called “The Little Albert Experiment” and be judged for ethical reasons. Initially, Watson showed Albert various stimuli –including but not limited to a white rat, a rabbit and a monkey- and tested his reactions, which were nothing but curiosity and happiness. For the second stage, he paired every stimulus he showed Albert with a loud hammer noise. Little Albert cried in response to the noise and paired the stimulus shown to him with the unpleasant noise in his unconscious mind. He created a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus, the rat.

These two facts are what make them the prime ingredients for luring and trapping mice. I have tried other methods over the years, but the rodent has always managed to cheat the jaws of death. He would snatch the bait and run before the trap even went off. After many futile attempts with the other ways of trapping, I'd always revert to that time proven method. My grandfather was the one who devised this two-bait method.

From the textbook, “Third Edition Psychology from Saundra K. Ciccarelli and J. Noland White, it is stated that Thorndike was one of the first researchers to explore and attempt to outline the laws of learning voluntary response, although the field was not yet called operant conditioning. He tested laws by using a hungry cat for an experiment. He placed this cat in a “puzzle box” where the only escape was the lever that was also within the box. Thorndike also placed food outside the box as motivation for the cat to escape the box. He observed how the cat explored around the box, pushing and rubbing up against the walls in an effort to escape.

He placed a hungry rat inside where the rat learned to press the levels for different responses. One level would give it a piece of food and the rat would not receive food when the light was off. This box demonstrated the shaping of behaviors through operant conditioning. The two articles chosen on Watson’s Classical Conditioning were “Priority in the Classical Conditioning of Children and Vicarious Classical Conditioning of Emotional Responses in Nursery School Children”. The study of... ... middle of paper ... ...opmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 10, 6, 697-705.

With this experiment, Ivan Pavlov was able to describe a non-conscious, instinctual type of learning. In 1920, John B. Watson, the father of Behaviorism, was also able to demonstrate this type of conditioning with is experiment deemed “Little Albert”. In this experiment with a small child named Albert, he introduced the child to a small white lab rat, in which the child was initially unafraid of. While conducting this experiment, every time the child was presented the white rat, a loud noise was paired, in which the child was naturally afraid of. Overtime, the child began to cry at the sight of the rat, even without the noise.

Part of the way a cat learns to understand a human is by humans understanding them and why they do what they do. Communication and understanding is the key to living in harmony with a house cat. When we think of a house cat, we think of a sweet, cuddly ball of fur curled up sleeping in someone’s lap, when in actuality these sweet creatures are not genetically far off from wild voracious hunters. According to Bradshaw (2013), over 10,000 years ago, humans began farming and building granaries to store grain, which triggered the self-domestication of the house mouse (granaries provided excellent shelter and food source). Feral cats naturally adapted to living close by human communities attracted to the increasing mouse population in the granaries.

When she first brought him home, she wasn’t sure whether it was a he or she. Her witty neighbour, Mrs S even searched on the internet, and asserted it was she, only later to find out how erroneous she was. The internet is not a good place to find the gender of a cat. Anyway, Mrs. R cleansed and christened him Puss like most other cats. Kittens would play with anything: ball of wool, a piece of paper, empty can, little insects, etc.

Paying closer attention, Pavlov noticed that the dogs would begin salivating when the research assistants entered the lab to feed the dogs (A). He noticed the dogs associating one stimulus with another and named this as classical conditioning. Years later Watson became curious whether or not the concept would be applicable to humans. For this, he began his study known as “Little Albert.” In Watson’s experiment, a young baby named Little Albert was presented with a with white rat. At the beginning of the experiment, Little Albert did not show fear towards the rat.

Max will pretend he does nothing wrong, and that really drives me crazy. It shows it is necessary to keep the shoes in a close cabinet and put expensive items away form the dogs. Like dogs, cats enjoy scratching the furniture. Owner of a cat can find their sofa with irreparable scratches. There has 3 tips can help the owner to save their furniture.