Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Operant conditioning chamber for reinforcement training. 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. [1] For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever to receive food whenever a light is turned on.
[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.
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 ...
Reinforcement is the deliberate introduction and integration of an organism into an area where its species is already established. [1] This mode of translocation is implemented in populations whose numbers have dropped below critical levels, become dangerously inbred, or who need artificial immigration to maintain genetic diversity. [15]
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 significant amount of genetic contribution from both populations, the result should be considered a fusion.
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.