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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.
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 .
Dogs have often been used in studies of cognition, including research on perception, awareness, memory, and learning, notably research on classical and operant conditioning. In the course of this research, behavioral scientists uncovered a surprising set of social-cognitive abilities in the domestic dog, abilities that are neither possessed by ...
Clicker-training a dog. Clicker training is a positive reinforcement [1] animal training method based on a bridging stimulus (the clicker) in operant conditioning. The system uses conditioned reinforcers, which a trainer can deliver more quickly and more precisely than primary reinforcers such as food. The term "clicker" comes from a small ...
In simple, practical situations, for example if one were training a dog using operant conditioning, optimal stimulus control might be described as follows: The behavior occurs immediately when the discriminative stimulus is given. The behavior never occurs in the absence of the stimulus. The behavior never occurs in response to some other stimulus.
A simple example of this is conditioned food aversion, or the aversion developed to food that has previously resulted in sickness. Food aversions can also be conditioned using classical conditioning , so that an animal learns to avoid a stimulus previously neutral that has been associated with a negative outcome. [ 3 ]
A clinical example of this is the subcutaneous "self-injection" of insulin by a diabetic patient. In animal experimentation, self-administration is a form of operant conditioning where the reward is a drug. This drug can be administered remotely through an implanted intravenous line or an intracerebroventricular injection.
Studies have shown that the obedience training of domestic dogs can be explained using operant conditioning methods. [9] Like humans, concentration as well as motivation must be present in order for learning to occur. [9] Therefore, understanding the dog's motivation and emotional states may result in more successful training.