Law of Effect and Operant Condition

Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.

           He put a cat inside a puzzle-box, and a plate of food outside the box. the cat, trying to get to the food, broke up the procedure of escaping from the box, into several steps until reaching the goal. The cat learned by trial and error. Every time, the process became faster.

2. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Effect".

          "Law of effect: If the response in a connection is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the strength of the connection is considerably increased whereas if followed by an annoying state of affairs, then the strength of the connection is marginally decreased."*

3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".

  "Law of Exercise: We learn by doing. We forget by not doing, although to a small extent only.
       a. Connections between a stimulus and a response are strengthened as they are used.(law of use)
       b. Connections between a stimulus and a response are weakened as they are not used.(law of disuse)."*


B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning


          Skinner's Operant Conditioning states that it is simpler to break a complex, long procedure into small and simple steps to achieve a greater goal

2. What does  reinforcement always do?
     
           Reinforcement always makes a behavoir continue and it makes it seem as something good.

3. What does a punishment alsways do?

          A punishment always makes a behavoir vanish and it makes it seem as something bad.

4. Explain the difference between "postive" and "negative" as they are used in opernat conditioning.

           Negative means to take something away, and positive means to give something.




* = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thorndike#Thorndike.27s_theory_of_learning