Operant behavior

Operant behavior is behavior guided by its consequences. Conditioning operant behavior requires making a biologically important event, or a stimulus signaling such an event, depend on the occurrence of a target operant response. If this arrangement leads to an increase in the probability of the target response, the contingent event is termed a reinforcer and the associated process reinforcement. In this chapter, we review the conditions under which reinforcement takes place, that is, how an animal is able to detect that a reinforcer is delivered as the consequence of the emission of a behavior (operant learning). We look at how behavior is modulated by its consequences in situations in which reinforcement occurs at a fixed time after a specific event (interval timing) and situations in which the animal has the choice between several response alternatives, each reinforced according to a different rule (operant choice). Finally, we review theories that explain why some events have reinforcing properties (reinforcement theory).

Duke Scholars

Author John E. R. Staddon Psychology & Neuroscience