Animal Behavior

[drgreen]

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Whats the difference between operant vs. classical conditioning.

 

[whoaaitzkyle]

Whats the difference between operant vs. classical conditioning.

operant = reward/punishment system

classical = associating some kind of unrelated action with another. For example, the classic example of when you ring a bell, the dog gets fed. So the dog now associates the bell with food so the dog will begin to salivate.

 

[DRHOYA]

I'll try to explain the best I can. In classical conditioning, you are training the organism to show a fixed response for a stimulus that you trained it, rather than the normal stimulus. Ex: In Pavlov's dogs, dogs salivate when they see t-bone steak (so do I lol). Now, the salivate is the fixed response to seeing steak. Now, when presenting the steak, the scientist would ring a bell (new stimulus you designed). After a while, the dog will salivate to the bell alone.

Now for Operants. Here you also have a fixed response, but you can train the animal to do it more by coupling it with a reward, or train the animal to stop by punishing. Ex: In a cage, there is a tree post. A woodpecker is placed in the cage, and naturally pecks the post. Now, if you want to train the woodpecker to stop exhibiting the pecking behavior, you could place an electrode in the post, so whenever it gets pecked the animal is shocked........after a while, the woodpecker no longer pecks on that post. Now you can also enhance the pecking behavior like so: Place two posts in the cage, of two different colors (we'll say blue and white) Set the woodpecker loose. However, everytime it pecks the blue post, reward the woodpecker..........soon after a while it will only peck the blue post. This is operant.

I hope those are good explanations. Anyone correct me or add. Hope this helps.

 

[americanpierg]

operant = reward/punishment system

classical = associating some kind of unrelated action with another. For example, the classic example of when you ring a bell, the dog gets fed. So the dog now associates the bell with food so the dog will begin to salivate.

So what if you punish the dog for salivating, would it then be operant? Ring the bell, the dog gets rewarded with food, but then salivates and gets punished for drooling.

 

[PooyaH]

operant = reward/punishment system

classical = associating some kind of unrelated action with another. For example, the classic example of when you ring a bell, the dog gets fed. So the dog now associates the bell with food so the dog will begin to salivate.

I'm just wondering; would food be the unconditioned stimulus and salvation be unconditioned response? And the reaction (salvation) to the bell alone without the presence of food would be conditioned stimulus?

 

[whoaaitzkyle]

I'm just wondering; would food be the unconditioned stimulus and salvation be unconditioned response? And the reaction (salvation) to the bell alone without the presence of food would be conditioned stimulus?

I believe that's correct.

To the previous post before this, haha interesting way of looking at the different conditioning. Try looking at the previous reply.. maybe their attempt is easier to understand. hope you understand a little more than when you first asked at least!

 

[PooyaH]

So what if you punish the dog for salivating, would it then be operant? Ring the bell, the dog gets rewarded with food, but then salivates and gets punished for drooling.

That's just messed up! 😀

 

[DRHOYA]

So what if you punish the dog for salivating, would it then be operant? Ring the bell, the dog gets rewarded with food, but then salivates and gets punished for drooling.

Haha interesting. I think Pavlov would be angry at you. Plus, I think this may confuse the OP. I think my example above is a clear difference.

 

[drgreen]

Thanks, great explanations!