Operant conditioning chamber

right|thumb|upright=1.2|Skinner box

An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a Skinner box) is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. The chamber can be used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

Skinner created the operant conditioning chamber as a variation of the puzzle box originally created by Edward Thorndike. While Skinner's early studies were done using rats, he later moved on to study pigeons. The operant conditioning chamber may be used to observe or manipulate behaviour. An animal is placed in the box where it must learn to activate levers or respond to light or sound stimuli for reward. The reward may be food or the removal of noxious stimuli such as a loud alarm. The chamber is used to test specific hypotheses in a controlled setting.

Name

250px|thumb|Students using a Skinner boxSkinner was noted to have expressed his distaste for becoming an eponym. It is believed that psychologist Clark Hull and his Yale students coined the expression "Skinner box". Skinner said that he did not use the term himself; he went so far as to ask Howard Hunt to use "lever box" instead of "Skinner box" in a published document.

History

alt=An old black and white drawing of a puzzle box used by Edward Thorndike. The box looks similar to a cage with an opening at the front. The front door is connected to wiring which connects to a lever.|thumb|Original puzzle box designed by [[Edward Thorndike]]

In 1898, American psychologist, Edward Thorndike proposed the 'law of effect', which formed the basis of operant conditioning. Thorndike conducted experiments to discover how cats learn new behaviors. His work involved monitoring cats as they attempted to escape from puzzle boxes. The puzzle box trapped the animals until they moved a lever or performed an action which triggered their release. Thorndike ran several trials and recorded the time it took for them to perform the actions necessary to escape. He discovered that the cats seemed to learn from a trial-and-error process rather than insightful inspections of their environment. The animals learned that their actions led to an effect, and the type of effect influenced whether the behavior would be repeated. Thorndike's 'law of effect' contained the core elements of what would become known as operant conditioning. B. F. Skinner expanded upon Thorndike's existing work. The box has two walls used for manipulation; one wall can undergo temperature change while the other cannot. As soon as the invertebrate crosses over to the side which can undergo temperature change, the researcher will increase the temperature. Eventually, the invertebrate will be conditioned to stay on the side that does not undergo a temperature change. After conditioning, even when the temperature is turned to its lowest setting, the invertebrate will avoid that side of the box. Typical mechanisms for pigeons and other birds are response keys with a switch that closes if the bird pecks at the key with sufficient force.

Some operant conditioning chambers can also have electrified nets or floors so that shocks can be given to the animals as a positive punishment or lights of different colors that give information about when the food is available as a positive reinforcement.

Research impact

Operant conditioning chambers have become common in a variety of research disciplines especially in animal learning. The chambers design allows for easy monitoring of the animal and provides a space to manipulate certain behaviours. This controlled environment may allow for research and experimentation which cannot be performed in the field.

There are a variety of applications for operant conditioning. For instance, shaping the behavior of a child is influenced by the compliments, comments, approval, and disapproval of one's behavior. An important factor of operant conditioning is its ability to explain learning in real-life situations. From an early age, parents nurture their children's behavior by using reward and praise following an achievement (crawling or taking a first step) which reinforces such behavior. When a child misbehaves, punishment in the form of verbal discouragement or the removal of privileges are used to discourage them from repeating their actions.

Skinner's studies on animals and their behavior laid the framework needed for similar studies on human subjects. Based on his work, developmental psychologists were able to study the effect of positive and negative reinforcement. Skinner found that the environment influenced behavior and when that environment is manipulated, behaviour will change. From this, developmental psychologists proposed theories on operant learning in children. That research was applied to education and the treatment of illness in young children. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning played a key role in helping psychologists understand how behavior is learned. It explains why reinforcement can be used so effectively in the learning process, and how schedules of reinforcement can affect the outcome of conditioning.

Commercial applications

Slot machines, online games, and dating apps are examples where sophisticated operant schedules of reinforcement are used to reinforce certain behaviors.

Gamification, the technique of using game design elements in non-game contexts, has also been described as using operant conditioning and other behaviorist techniques to encourage desired user behaviors.

References

External links

B.F. Skinner Foundation