Hi,
This is my two penneth on operant conditioning.
operant conditioningThis theory was proposed by B. F. Skinner and he did alot of the early "experiments" to back it up. It is worthwhile mentioning at this point, the British Psychological Society (BPS) now have strict guidelines on both animal and human "experimentation".
Skinner's theory which he called "operant conditioning" proposed that learning is present during a change in behaviour. These changes in behaviour are a response to something which has happened in the environment (a stimuli) the behavioural change is marking (a response) that the stimuli has been processed and if a regular consistant response occurs over time that behaviour is then learned. The key to achieving this is marking what you want (re-inforcement) which will in turn make it more likely to happen in the future.
One of Skinner's additional proposals (as opposed to earlier models) was that a person or animal can offer a behaviour without it having to be triggered by the environment. I think this is the basis of free shaping where you trap a behaviour that a person or animal offers you and add the cue afterwards.
So, to recap ...
we have "stimulus" --- "response"
to strengthen this you use positive re-inforcement
to weaken this you elicit a different response
to get some more complicated behaviours you need to break them down into small parts and link them together - called shaping
re-inforcement will induce secondary conditioning
. . . more when i have time
