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The Behavior of Organisms is B.F. Skinner's first book and was published in May 1938 as a volume of the Century Psychology Series. [1] It set out the parameters for the discipline that would come to be called the experimental analysis of behavior (EAB) and Behavior Analysis. This book was reviewed in 1939 by Ernest R. Hilgard. [2]
Kenneth MacCorquodale (June 26, 1919 - February 28, 1986) was an American psychologist who played a major role in developing scientifically validated operant conditioning methods. He was a student of B. F. Skinner at the University of Minnesota. [1] [2]
To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box), [8] and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement .
Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition (or removal) of reward or aversive stimuli. The frequency or duration of the behavior may increase through reinforcement or decrease through punishment or extinction .
Central to operant conditioning is the use of a Three-Term Contingency (Discriminative Stimulus, Response, Reinforcing Stimulus) to describe functional relationships in the control of behavior. Discriminative stimulus (S D) is a cue or stimulus context that sets the occasion for a response. For example, food on a plate sets the occasion for eating.
The free operant has advantages in this respect, because it removes restrictions on the frequency with which a response can occur and permits the observation of moment-to-moment changes in frequency. C.B. Ferster, The use of the free operant in the analysis of behavior, 1953 Psychological Bulletin, 50, 263-274.
That includes his study of the basic principles. For example, the original behaviorists treated the two types of conditioning in different ways. The most generally used way by B. F. Skinner constructively considered classical conditioning and operant conditioning to be separate and independent principles. In classical conditioning, if a piece ...
William N. Schoenfeld (December 6, 1915 – August 3, 1996) was an American psychologist and author.. Born in New York City, he conducted original research in experimental psychology, and advocated behaviorism, which seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of experiencing consequences.