Operant conditioning is not that tough to understand. It's really all about actions and consequences. The key ideas are the operant (an action by an organism that changes the environment) and the consequence that follows. Reinforcement refers to any consequence that increases the operant's future likelihood. If we know what is reinforcing and can control the delivery, then we can use reinforcement to increase the likelihood of some desired operant behavior. It is well known that reinforcement is especially potent when it is delivered immediately following the desired behavior. But this poses a lot of problems. If video games are reinforcing to a kid sitting in class, you wouldn't want to deliver this reinforcement right in the middle of a lesson. You need a way to bridge the gap between the target behavior and the reinforcemnt. Well, bring on the tokens!
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