Skinner's box what this experiment consists of

A very important aspect of Skinner's contribution is related to his passion for the creation of innovative technical media. It is, in effect, the ideation of the so -called "Skinner box", a particular cage where the experimental animal underwent controlled and reproducible conditioning procedures. Its diffusion was so wide that even today its updated versions are part of the daily arsenal of those who do research in animal psychology. In this psychology-online article we will see together What is Skinner's box, and what this experiment consists of in the base of operating conditioning.

1. What is Skinner's box
2. What is the Skinner box experiment
3. SKINNER BOX OBJECTIVE
4. Skinner box theory
5. Skinner and operating conditioning

What is Skinner's box

Skinner resumed the studies of Ivan Pavlov and Edward Lee Thorndike and deepened them: Thorndike's work on "instrumental" learning was then expanded by Skinner, who built another box, the Skinner Box, very similar to the "Box Problem": A cage in which a laboratory mouse can activate a food ball dispenser mechanism, pressing a lever.

The improvement of the procedure and the experimental apparatus, the Skinner Box by the Skinner itself, has allowed to highlight and quantify the relationship between independent variables (discriminant stimulus and reinforcing stimulus) with the dependent variable (frequency of behavioral responses) avoiding the interference of Other variables that had influenced the relationships arising from the experimental devices prepared by Thorndike.

What is the Skinner box experiment

The Skinner box experiment (1938) is simple: a rat was placed in a closed and acoustically isolated cage, so that the animal was not reached by external stimuli. In the cage there was a small lever whose pressure caused the fall of a food ball. The lever, in addition, was connected to an external down: when lowering the lever, the down marked the paper that ran on a roller, thus allowing to record the frequency with which the lever was lowered. This device was called "Skinner Box" (Skinner Box).

¿How the Skinner box works? The rat in the cage, exploring the environment and moving at will, Press the lever sooner or later, causing the fall of the food ball. Sometimes, it is observed that leverage is reduced regularly. The rat presses the lever several times in a short period of time, and the intervals between the pressures coincide with the necessary time to eat the food ball; After which the lever is not pressed for a certain period of time, because the animal is satiated, then, after a while, The rat is directed by the lever, begins to press and eat.

Next, we will see the ovjective of the Skinner box

SKINNER BOX OBJECTIVE

His main interest was to understand how human behavior changes according to the effect: If there is a pleasant consequence the subject tends to repeat the behavior. If, on the other hand, the answer is unpleasant, the subject tends to abandon a behavior.

In order to study the operating behaviors, Skinner introduced a variation in the cage-problem that used Thorndike: the skinner box allowed to systematically study the behaviors of the animals (initially rats, then almost exclusively pigeons) in controlled conditions. Skinner's cage allows us Evaluate how reinforcement acts on the operational response, examining the rhythm with which the behavior is manifested. His interest did not reside in the Assembly Unconditional-Stimulus Association, as in the case of Pavlov, but in the possibility of modifying the frequency of occurrence of a behavior arose spontaneously, administering a reinforcement.

In this article, you will find detailed the psychological experiment of the Pávlov Dog.

Skinner box theory

It is not always possible to identify the stimulus that causes an answer, or is not always a stimulus to provoke the answer: in these cases, according to Skinner, It is the associative link that is established between response (behavior) and reinforcement (consequence) that determines learning and, therefore, behavior maintenance.

As you can see, there is no initial stimulus that pushes the rat to press the lever: however, once the lever has been accidentally pressed, the presentation of the food reinforces the action that has determined its dosage. Learning then is "displaced" in the relationship between "action" (which Skinner and behaviorals continue to indicate as "response") and "reinforcement", which makes this initially random behavior maintained by the subject.

In this article, you will find more information about Skinner's theory.

Skinner and operating conditioning

Skinner considers this paradigm a form of conditioning, and calls it "operant conditioning" To highlight the difference with the conditioning of Pavlov, which is called "respondent". In the latter case, the answer is raised by a stimulus and the reinforcement correlates with the stimulus; In Skinnerian conditioning, on the contrary, it is the answer that determines the reinforcement, and therefore the answer is "operant", since there is no stimulus that determines it. If then an operant behavior acquires a relationship with an earlier stimulation, then it can become a "discriminated operating behavior".

Here you can see the definition and examples of operant conditioning.

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