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Melioration Theory
Melioration theory in behavioral psychology is a theoretical algorithm that predicts the matching law. Melioration theory is used as an explanation for why an organism makes choices based on the rewards or reinforcers it receives. The principle of melioration states that animals will invest increasing amounts of time and/or effort into whichever alternative is better. To meliorate essentially means to "make better".Mazur, James E. Learning and Behavior (6th ed.) Upper Saddle River NJ: 2006 p. 332-335 Melioration theory accounts for many of the choices that organisms make when presented with two variable interval schedules. Melioration is a form of matching where the subject is constantly shifting its behavior from the poorer reinforcement schedule to the richer reinforcement schedule, until it is spending most of its time at the richest variable interval schedule. By matching, the subject is equalizing the price of the reinforcer they are working for. This is also called hyperbolic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behavioral Psychology
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement (psychology), reinforcement and punishment (psychology), punishment three-term contingency, contingencies, together with the individual's current Motivation, motivational state and Stimulus control, controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, deriving from Skinner's two levels of selection: phylogeny and ontogeny. they focus primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism views internal mental states as explanations for observable behavior. Beha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matching Law
In operant conditioning, the matching law is a quantitative relationship that holds between the relative rates of response and the relative rates of reinforcement in concurrent schedules of reinforcement. For example, if two response alternatives A and B are offered to an organism, the ratio of response rates to A and B equals the ratio of reinforcements yielded by each response.Poling, A., Edwards, T. L., Weeden, M., & Foster, T. (2011). The matching law. ''Psychological Record'', 61(2), 313-322. This law applies fairly well when non-human subjects are exposed to concurrent reinforcement, variable interval schedules (but see below); its applicability in other situations is less clear, depending on the assumptions made and the details of the experimental situation. The generality of applicability of the matching law is subject of current debate. The matching law can be applied to situations involving a single response maintained by a single schedule of reinforcement if one assumes t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinforcer
In behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular '' antecedent stimulus''. For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever to receive food whenever a light is turned on; in this example, the light is the antecedent stimulus, the lever pushing is the ''operant behavior'', and the food is the ''reinforcer''. Likewise, a student that receives attention and praise when answering a teacher's question will be more likely to answer future questions in class; the teacher's question is the antecedent, the student's response is the behavior, and the praise and attention are the reinforcements. Punishment is the inverse to reinforcement, referring to any behavior that decreases the likelihood that a response will occur. In operant conditioning terms, punishment does not need to involve any type of pain, fear, or physical actions; even a brief spoken expression of disappr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyperbolic Discounting
In economics, hyperbolic discounting is a time inconsistency, time-''inconsistent'' model of delay discounting. It is one of the cornerstones of behavioral economics and its brain-basis is actively being studied by neuroeconomics researchers. According to the discounted utility approach, intertemporal choices are no different from other choices, except that some consequences are delayed and hence must be anticipated and discounted (i.e., reweighted to take into account the delay). Given two similar rewards, humans show a preference for one that arrives in a more prompt timeframe. Humans are said to ''discount'' the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay. In the financial world, this process is normally modeled in the form of exponential discounting, a time-''consistent'' model of discounting. Many psychological studies have since demonstrated deviations in instinctive preference from the constant discount rate assumed in exponential disc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rate Of Reinforcement
In behaviorism, rate of reinforcement is number of reinforcements per time, usually per minute. Symbol of this rate is usually ''Rf''. Its first major exponent was B.F. Skinner (1939). It is used in the Matching Law. ''Rf'' = ''# of reinforcements/unit of time'' = ''SR+''/''t'' See also * Rate of response References * Herrnstein, R.J. (1961). Relative and absolute strength of responses as a function of frequency of reinforcement. ''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour'', 4, 267–272. * Herrnstein, R.J. (1970). On the law of effect. ''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior'', 13, 243–266. * Skinner, B.F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. , . Behaviorism Quantitative analysis of behavior Reinforcement In Behaviorism, behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular ''Antecedent (behavioral psychology), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Herrnstein
Richard Julius Herrnstein (May 20, 1930 – September 13, 1994) was an American psychologist at Harvard University. He was an active researcher in animal learning in the Skinnerian tradition. Herrnstein was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology until his death, and previously chaired the Harvard Department of Psychology for five years. With political scientist Charles Murray, he co-wrote ''The Bell Curve'', a controversial 1994 book on human intelligence. He was one of the founders of the Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior. Early life and education Richard Herrnstein was born on May 20, 1930, in New York City, to a family of Hungarian Jewish immigrants; the son of Flora Irene (née Friedman) and Rezso Herrnstein, a housepainter. He was educated at the High School of Music & Art and the City College of New York, receiving a B.A. from the latter in 1952. In 1955, Herrnstein obtained his Ph.D. at Harvard University, with a thesis titled ''Behavioral Consequences ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinforcement
In Behaviorism, behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular ''Antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimulus''. For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever to receive food whenever a light is turned on; in this example, the light is the antecedent stimulus, the lever pushing is the ''operant behavior'', and the food is the ''reinforcer''. Likewise, a student that receives attention and praise when answering a teacher's question will be more likely to answer future questions in class; the teacher's question is the antecedent, the student's response is the behavior, and the praise and attention are the reinforcements. Punishment (psychology), Punishment is the inverse to reinforcement, referring to any behavior that decreases the likelihood that a response will occur. In operant conditioning terms, punishment does not need to involve any type of p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Behaviorism
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, deriving from Skinner's two levels of selection: phylogeny and ontogeny. they focus primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism views internal mental states as explanations for observable behavior. Behaviorism emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had diffic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychological Theories
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
