Essay Sample on Shaping a Rat how to Bar Press

Introduction

More often we do understand that the behavior of an organism modeled with an external environmental factor. Here, the organism becomes a learner either voluntarily or forced with the circumstance to adapt to change in the environment changes. In the learning procedure, numerous ways have been denoted to help in the achievement of the learning process (Charles, 2014). However great persons in psychology came up with two primary mechanisms that explain how leading is achieved in human beings. The procedures include the operant and classical conditioning depending on the nature of the stimulus and how the person responds on it. First, the classical conditioning was formulated by a Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavon in the year 1920 after he experimented to learn how the bell might shape the eating habits of his dog. In the renowned test, the psychologist discovered that the dog began to salivate for food each time the bell rang after continuous exposure to the bell and food association (Hahn, 2013). The dog experiment implies that in classical conditioning, is a learning type in which organisms learn to relate with a multiple of stimulus in the environment. In the classical conditioning, the response, inherently caused by a given stimulus may be changed later by a neutral stimulus learn in the environment (Hahn, 2013).

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On the contrary, the Operant learning procedure was formulated with an American psychologist B. Skinner in 1930, who denoted that learning can be achieved through trial- and- error in a controlled environment. In the experiment, he placed a rat in a chamber, and it accidentally hit a bar that dropped food to the rat. The rat was able to learn the reinforcement of the hitting the bar to receive the food in which the rat began to hit the bar to obtain food. He repeated the same experiment but with different rats and introduced an electric shock as a punishment to change the voluntary response of the rat (Hahn, 2013). In the end, the rats exposed to the punishment exhibited extinction of behavior learned from the environment. The operant conditioning denotes that a learned response can go extinct if the organism's behavior punishment and after the removal of the punishment (Hahn, 2013).

In operant conditioning, scheduling is done in which the organism is exposed to reinforcement and punishment to positively or negatively affect the behavior. The programming done is purposed to determine the manner in which the organism responds in reaction to the reinforcements and punishments (Charles, 2014). There are three scheduling techniques used include the fixed-interval schedule, varied-interval schedule and the fixed-ratio schedule. The fixed-interval schedule refers to the fixed interval of time between reinforcements or the substantial number of responses and stimuli. The varied-interval schedule is the continuous variation of time and response before the behavior is shaped. The varied-ratio schedule refers to the regulation of reactions according to the number of reinforcements.

In the experiment conducted to observe the Operant conditioning of the rats, a fixed interval schedule and varied- interval schedules were adopted to find changes in the behavior of the rat when exposed to reinforcements. The rats were reinforced to a fixed interval, and different range to food and subsequent bar pressing exhibited, whereby a high response rate towards the end of the experiment than the beginning of the process was achieved (Mozzachiodi, Baxter & Byrne, 2013). The subjects showed some increasing responses to food as the investigation progressed, but response varied during the end days of the experiment. The experiment purposed to replicate the previous trials of Skinner and attest that indeed human behavior can be modeled with exposure to some stimulus and punishments results in extinction to some of the learned responses

Methods

Subjects

The subjects obtained for this experiment was a two-month-old adult male Sprague-Dawley rats, housed in the animal colony room at W. C that weighed 150g. Animals kept in a 12 hour light/dark cycle at a constant 20 C. Food and water were available at libitum. The condition of the rat during the lab test was monitored and regulated with the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct to prevent harm to the specimen.

Apparatus

The rat was placed in the Skinner box or operant chamber from which it was exposed to the reinforcements. The Skinner's box pressing bar was compressed at a force of around 6g. The operant conditioning chamber was manufactured by Lafayette Instrument Co, and it fulfilled all the necessities of operant chambers concerning the walling and flooring that allows the installation of reinforcements and electric shock as punishment. The Skinner box measured 23cm long by 15cm width and 23 cm high and had a 24w bulb on the ceiling of the box that illuminated the box.

Experiment Protocol

Before the experiment, the study subjects were trained to press the bar-press at the fixed-ratio interval of the operant conditioning schedule. However, in the current study, the rats received training on the various intervals pressing of the bar-press in which the subject was reinforced to specific kind of bar-pressings only. The bar presses were to be done at the discrete intervals to which it was expected to increase gradually with time after learning the bar presses; it would make it frequently. The investigator recorded many bar presses in particular time intervals for the six days of lab tests. The found data was then registered to draw the relationship of rats learning rate when exposed to given reinforcements.

Results and Discussions

In the study, a record of actions made by the rat at any particular time was created as seen below;

On day 1: The rat seemed to learn where the food was from since no bar press was made. The subject used a considerate time eating the food in the food dispenser, and it was only distracted by the foods that fell around the case.

On day 2: the rat portrayed knowledge of associating food and the bar presses likely after the production of food in a rewarding press. On sniffing the reward bar, the rat was able to attempt several presses that it failed in 2 -3 attempts it made. With determined efforts in the search for food, the rat was able to make successful seven bar presses in a minute. The rat also exhibited the fixed ration facet in which the rat attempted to relate food and the bar presses where it cross-checked the food and the bad press. At the time, the rat was often distracted, and it went on to make as low as a single bar press in 12 minutes. After some time, the rat moved much faster from the food dispenser to the bar press showing that it had learned and understood the relationship of food and the bad press. When the rat become full, it stopped pressing and spent most of the time sniffing through the food dispenser hole. In fixed ratio, the animal exhibited its ability to make 4-5 bar presses. However, when the light was switched off, the rat was distracted and was no longer interested in bar pressing. In day 2, the rat made 307 responses from the 183 reinforcements subjected to it.

On day 3: the specimen was still interested in bar pressing although when an assessment of the fixed ratios (FR) of pressing is made, it only records a significant data in FR 5 and FR 10 in which the rat got down quickly and was distracted. In consideration of the different ratio,(VR) the rat made 14 bar presses in a minute and was much more interested in pressing compared to the previous days. In total during the day, the rat made 490 responses from 179 reinforcements.

On day 4: The rat exhibited signs of extinctions in which 70 presses the rat begun to roam around the Skinner box. However, it displayed a quicker pressing of about 20 bar presses in a minute. The rat produced 630 responses from just 177 from reinforcements.

On day 5: the rat exhibits complete signs of extinction in which it produced 51 responses and 0 reinforcements.

On day 6: the rat was still exhibiting although it bars pressed a couple of times before it stopped; thereafter, the rat just sat down and relaxed.

The results of the study indicate that indeed the behavior of organism when conditioned with reinforcements may abide by the Skinner's operant theory, which affirms to the objective of the research. When the rat was introduced to the new environment, it had to learn how to obtain the food from the environment before it could adapt to the procedure of getting the food. After procedurally changing its behavior, the introduction of light from a bulb as a punishment to the rat initiates the extinct response from the rat in which the rat felt uncomfortable with the close light illumination. Equally, the results of the study replicate the right scallop of behavior in which the rat showed increased response rate after learning but gradually drops towards the end.

The results of the study indicate some characteristics of classical conditioning in which the rat learned the association of food and the pressing of the reward bar-press. Consequently, if the survey were to experiment the classical conditioning, then you would establish that the rat went on to press the bar to obtain food even when food wasn't available. However, since it was aimed to exhibit the shaping of a behavior of the organism, it included a punishment to affirm for change in modeled behavior when the penalty is removed. As seen in the results, the rat reduced the pressing after it was severally distracted by the light.

Conclusion

Studies have proven that humans exhibit much of the animal's behavior as such the knowledge obtained from the experiment have broad application in all facets of human's life such as career, academic, and other social interactions (Mozzachiodi, Baxter & Byrne, 2013). For example, the different and fixed ratio scheduling of mind is seen in students who have the habit of tackling their assignments a night before the submission due date. Moreover, job managers introduce punitive mechanisms to change the behavior of employees that often report late to work to ensure that they report earlier thereafter. Indeed, the knowledge obtained about human learning processes is vital in understanding various forms of human interaction.

References

Charles, E. (2014). Explaining Behaviorism: Operant & Classical Conditioning. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/fixing-psychology/201402/explaining-behaviorism-operant-classical-conditioning

Hahn, C. (2013). The differences and similarities between Classical and Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from https://media.hugendubel.de/shop/coverscans/215PDF/21574289_lprob_1.

Mozzachiodi, R., Baxter, D., & Byrne, J. (2013). Comparison of Operant and Classical Conditioning of Feeding Behavior in Aplysia. Invertebrate Learning And Memory, 183-193. doi: 10.1016/b978-0-12-415823-8.00015-0