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Reinforcement is a process of speciation where natural selection increases the reproductive isolation (further divided to pre-zygotic isolation and post-zygotic isolation) between two populations of species. This occurs as a result of selection acting against the production of hybrid individuals of low fitness.
The experimental analysis of behavior is a science that studies the behavior of individuals across a variety of species. A key early scientist was B. F. Skinner who discovered operant behavior, reinforcers, secondary reinforcers, contingencies of reinforcement, stimulus control, shaping, intermittent schedules, discrimination, and generalization.
[3]: 354 [4] [5] Differences in behavior or biology that inhibit formation of hybrid zygotes are termed prezygotic isolation. Reinforcement can be shown to be occurring (or to have occurred in the past) by measuring the strength of prezygotic isolation in a sympatric population in comparison to an allopatric population of the same species.
There is also negative reinforcement, which involves taking away an undesirable stimulus. An example of negative reinforcement would be taking an aspirin to relieve a headache. Reinforcement is an important component of operant conditioning and behavior modification. The concept has been applied in a variety of practical areas, including ...
Secondly, the Pavlovian relation between surrounding, or context, stimuli and the rate or magnitude (but not both) of reinforcement obtained in the context (i.e., a stimulus–reinforcer relation) governs the resistance of the behavior to operations such as extinction. Resistance to change is assessed by measuring responding during operations ...
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.
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. [1] [2] 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 ...
The population that goes extinct may leave behind some of its genes in the surviving population if they hybridize. For example, the secondary contact between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, as well as the Denisovans, left traces of their genes in modern human. However, if hybridization is so common that the resulting population received ...