Discrimination In Rat Lab Report

In experiment 1, participants were instructed to press a key to determine if the stimulus was red, blue, yellow, or green. On the second half of the experiment, the stimulus appeared in grey with only one colored letter which was positioned randomly. Error rates for the experiment were below 2.5% for each condition, which is quite low. Experiment 2 was the same as experiment 1 except that there were 114 data collections instead of 288 and there were 36 practice trials instead of 72. According to experiment 1 and 2 it is suggested that the effect of

Once it was knocked a pellets immediately came into the box. Each time the rats would knock the lever pellets would come down. The rats learned quickly. After Skinner learned that the rats could be trained using operant conditioning, he decided to further his experiment.

Following classical conditioning the data show a decrease in variability and in the latency between stimulus presentation and the response. There is also a change in trend from increasing to no trend.

B.F Skinner was an American Psychologist who invented the operant conditioning chamber. The chamber he set up had rats in it and a lever, once the rats pulled the lever they were given a piece of food. After this happened the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. He was a firm believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human

Thereby, Skinner produced experiments whereby rats would navigate through mazes to achieve the goal of a box containing food. His interest was the behaviour of the rat, taking the right turn to achieve the desired result, food. To begin with the rats would take the wrong turn but with experience, they became more skilful. The rats learning behaviour was measured in two ways, firstly the length of time it took from start to end and secondly, the reduction in errors. This was a lengthy experiment which led Skinner to produce ‘the Skinner box’. Whereby, rats learnt to press a lever and pigeons learnt to peck a key in order to attain food, also known as behaviour shaping. This experiment lacks ecological validity as the animals are kept in a controlled environment which is dissimilar to their natural habitat. However, the results which were attained could not have been possible in natural circumstances. Skinner wanted to observe if behaviour could be learned through reaching a desired outcome such as positive reinforcement which needed to be

In the experiment, students conditioned planaria to either avoid or approach light. The process included a learning phase and a memory phase for both experiments 1 and 2. The planaria were placed in a plywood track to be trained. Conditioning for approach light was done by shining the light on the planaria for 30 seconds and then turning the light off. When the light was off, air was blown at the heads of the planaria so that they turned around. This process was repeated and trials were recorded for when the planaria turned on their own without the puff of air. The same process was done for conditioning the planaria to avoid light, except the planaria received puffs of air to the head with the light shining on them. The second portion

METHOD: Before the experiment starts, the rat is food deprived for 24 hours. For the extinction procedure the standby switch is placed in the stby mode, in order to prevent the rat from starting first than the experimenter. Next, the power switch is turned to the on position to test the apparatus for proper functionality. Then, the mode switch is set to CRF. Later, the response and reinforcers counters will be set to zero. Also, the room light is turned off, and the desk lamp is set to the on position. After, the rat is placed into the Operant Chamber, and the lid is secured. Later, the STBY switch is set to run. At this point the timer is set to the on position, and

A virtual rat, Sniffy, was used for this experiment. Sniffy the Virtual Rat, Pro Version 3.0 allows for the demonstration of Pavlovian and operant conditioning of a virtual rat. Tom Alloway, Greg Wilson, and Jeff Graham, authors of Sniffy the Virtual Rat designed this program to be an affordable alternative for students to gain “access to the main phenomena of classical and operant conditioning that courses on the psychology of learning typically discuss” (Jakubow, 2007). The program allows for simulations for Pavlovian conditioning such as acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, stimulus-intensity effects, compound conditioning, blocking, overshadowing, overexpectation, inhibition, sensory preconditioning,

The active control group was not consistently exposed to the green LED light and the opposite sex frogs, as was the experimental group (Gaalema 9). The frogs were being trained to see the unconditional stimulus and then know that it is time to breed upon arrival of the opposite sex frog (Gaalema 9). After the training period, the experimenter did testing trials to see if the frogs had been conditioned to the stimuli (Gaalema 9). The training period consisted of both the experimental groups receiving the green LED light (conditional stimulus) for 90 seconds followed by presentation of opposite sex frogs that remained for five days instead of 120 seconds (Gaalema 9). The control group testing was identical to that of the experimental groups but no flashing green LED lights were used in the control group (no conditional stimulus) (Gaalema 9).

The experiment lasted 15 consecutive days. During the experiment, the rats were placed into 12 identical operative chambers which was used for all behavioral training and testing. Each chamber had an automatic retractable lever

Vision is a light being reflected from an object, which is focused by the cornea and aqueous humor. It then passes through the pupil. Next, the light is highly focused by the lens and the vitreous humor. The light forms an image, which is backwards (it gets flipped) on the retina in the back of the eye. The photoreceptors (cones/rods) respond to the color and the details. They send an electronic message to the optic nerve that gets to the frontal lobe, in which it is compared to previous experiences. There might be a slight difference between the human eye and a mouse’s eye, for we both have different builds and divergent brains. Mice most likely still have to compare the events they see to previous experience. The mice may have lived in a cage their entire life and might have never experienced “human-life” yet, such as the grass, lights, or loud sounds. Furthermore, they are nocturnal creatures, so they would be fine with being in the dark. The light from the glow sticks are a variety of colors, so the variable mouse may stray away from it, since the color of the light is different from the regular classroom lights. I know that mice like to hide in the corners of the maze, so the variable mouse will stay in a corner, especially with the comforting darkness, to hide itself, resulting it to departure the maze at a slower pace than the control mouse. Another aspect to take in consideration is that mouse can feel the change in temperature with their whiskers. The chemical reaction inside the glow sticks will produce heat, which the mouse will be able to sense. Already having experience of the normal

(pressing the lever) by exploitation it to activate its incidence with Associate in Nursing unconditional stimulation (US) (e.g. water or food). During this check, a discriminative stimulus (SD) (e.g. light) exists when the contingency of behaviour-unconditional stimulation (R-US) was dead properly. After several trials, the studied subject showed the required conditioned response (CS) like touching and activating the cause (Trigger). Even with the absence of US convenience, the studied subject memorizes the R-US relationship.

During an experiment placing two rats in transparent, identical boxes facing each other, a demonstrator rat moved a joystick either left or right to receive a food reward. The naïve rat was able to learn the association and would move its own joystick in order to receive a reward. However not only did the rat socially learn the association, but understood that when the demonstrator rat moved its joystick to the left, that meant to move its own joystick to the left

the “Skinner box”. He found that he was able to train rats to press a

To test which rats had received Pavlovian and which, instrumental conditioning would be to perform extinction. Extinction involves repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus. Extinction that occurs in classical conditioning happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Therefore, for one group, you would remove the tone. In operant conditioning, the extinction can occur if the trained behavior is no longer reinforced. Thus, for another group, extinguish tone and food. By doing this, I would see that the classically conditioned rat’s behavior would decline quicker than the operant conditioned rats. Also, another way to test this is to look at the delay in behaviors. In classically conditioned rats, it uses short-delay conditioning in which the conditioned stimulus begins a second or so before the unconditioned stimulus. Thus, if you used long-delay conditioning, the classically conditioned rats’ behavior of turning around to receive the food would slowly decrease. This is because the classically conditioned rats are used to the short-delay and when the long delay is used the behavior will slowly decrease. In classically conditioned rats, you would see that the timing of the conditioned response will slowly decrease. With the operant conditioned rats, you would see that their responses will not decrease as quickly as the classically conditioned rats. This is because the operant conditioned rats