It is fascinating that also animals posses the ability to remember and learn from things that have happened to them. This process of learning is called instrumental conditioning (operant conditioning) because it deals with rewards (reinforcers) and punishments. In an experiment there is a rat who is in a maze and has a choice of going either right or left. Lets say it chose right and a bit further down it found rat pellets. If presented with the same situation twice the rat will go right because it remembers right = food (reward). Now if it went right but got shocked instead, the rat will remember that right = pain so it will avoid the right and head left instead.
Conditioning is a simple concept but its hard to carry out because you need to be attentive to when someone/thing does something you want them to do and it has to been right when they do that thing. If you're off then the chain is broken. However if done right it can be the most amazing thing ever.
Oh my goodness I love that video. I love it when I see a concept in shows that I am learning about.
ReplyDeleteI find it really cool how you can condition an animal to do a chain of responses to get to a reward. I have learned that the chain can be infinite. So to me that is really amazing.
I remember this episode, that's what I love about The Big Bang Theory; surprisingly you can learn a lot from this show. Any who, this topic is true. As a matter of fact, did you know that elementary and maybe even middle school teachers use operant conditioning as a learning method, probably till this day? I don't know if you ever had a teacher like that, but I remember I used to have a teacher that kept a jar of candy on top of her desk, so every time she asked a question on a topic, we would always get excited because we knew that if we got it right, we would be rewarded with a piece of candy of our choice. Because of that, not only did it encourage us to learn, but also improved on our memory, which is the idea of coarse.
ReplyDeletei had a teacher like that when i was like in 2nd grade his name was Mr. Adams.It's what i do with my son whenever i want him to do something i condition him to do it. but then again i think we all go through it in our life like rubi mentioned we need some type of reward in order to do something. OUTSTANDING!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI love the big bang theory. Sheldon is by fare my favorite character in the show. He is just so awkward, I love it. Like what Rubi mention about teacher using operant conditioning as a learning method, I had an elementary teacher that would reward us with prizes from her treasure chest if we would get a 100 on our spelling tests. Also, it's not just rewards we could get. Teachers use punishment too. Probably shouldn't say this but I had a teacher that would throw easer's at her student if the missed behavior and also taped your chair if you couldn't stay still in class. She was a little psycho and old. Good thing she retired.
ReplyDeleteReinforcement and punishment is very interesting, but did you know that punishment is only temporary as reinforcement if done properly should last forever, one of the reasons is that usually who ever applies the punishment is associated with it, so the subject then may realize that they can perform the behavior when the provider of the punishment is not there.
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