Reinforcement Schedules

Schedules of reinforcement are the rules that determine how often an organism is reinforced for a particular behavior. The particular pattern of reinforcement has an impact on the pattern of responding by the animal. A schedule of reinforcement is either continuous or partial. The behavior of the Fire Chief Rabbit to the left was not reinforced every time it pulled the lever that "operated" the fire truck. In other words, the rabbit's lever pulling was reinforced on a partial or intermittent schedule. There are four basic partial schedules of reinforcement. These different schedules are based on reinforcing the behavior as a function of (a) the number of responses that have occurred or (b) the length of time since the last reinforcer was available. The basic four partial schedules are: Fixed Ratio, Variable Ratio, Fixed Interval, and Variable Interval

Schedules of Reinforcement

In operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement are an important component of the learning process. When and how often we reinforce a behavior can have a dramatic impact on the strength and rate of the response. 

A schedule of reinforcement is basically a rule stating which instances of a behavior will be reinforced. In some case, a behavior might be reinforced every time it occurs. Sometimes, a behavior might not be reinforced at all. Either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement might be used, depending on the situation. In both cases, the goal of reinforcement is always to strengthen the behavior and increase the likelihood that it will occur again in the future. 

Observational Learning or Learning by Imitation

Albert Bandura was born in Alberta, Canada in 1925. Bandura's early work in the 1960's represents one of the bridges from behaviorism to cognitive models for learning. Observational learning is the process of learning by observing a model and then duplicating a skill, process, strategy, or task that is demonstrated by the model. This occurs without overt instructional activity, and the model may not even know he/she is serving as an instrument of learning for the observer. According to Bandura, this type of learning is an information processing activity. 

Observational learning, also called social learning theory, occurs when an observer’s behavior changes after viewing the behavior of a model. An observer’s behavior can be affected by the positive or negative consequences–called vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment– of a model’s behavior.

There are several guiding principles behind observational learning, or social learning theory:

• The observer will imitate the model’s behavior if the model possesses characteristics– things such as talent, intelligence, power, good looks, or popularity–that the observer finds attractive or desirable.

• The observer will react to the way the model is treated and mimic the model’s behavior. When the model’s behavior is rewarded, the observer is more likely to reproduce the rewarded behavior. When the model is punished, an example of vicarious punishment, the observer is less likely to reproduce the same behavior.

• A distinction exists between an observer’s “acquiring” a behavior and “performing” a behavior. Through observation, the observer can acquire the behavior without performing it. The observer may then later, in situations where there is an incentive to do so, display the behavior

Transfer of Learning

The carry over of habits of thinking, feeling or working of knowledge or skills from one learning area to another is usually referred as the transfer of training. In other words, the influence that the learning of one skill has on the learning or performance of another transfer of training or learning. Will knowledge of English help a person learn German? Are skillful table-tennis players generally good court-tennis players? Can a child who does not know how to add learn to multiply? Such questions represent the problems of transfer of training.

Basically transfer can take 3 different forms: 

• Positive Transfer: Performance on one task may facilitate performance of second task which is called positive transfer.

• Negative Transfer: Performance on one task may inhabit or disrupt performance on a second task which is called negative transfer.

• Zero Transfer: There may be no effect of one task on another this called zero transfer.

Trial-and-Error Learning Theory

E. L. Thorndike

The experimental study of animal learning by E. L. Thorndike (1874-1949) in the United States and his theory on trial-and-error learning provided the impetus for Skinner's experiments on instrumental or operant conditioning. Thorndike's doctoral research on 'Animal Intelligence' in 1898 provided the psychological world the first miniature system of learning known as trial-and-error learning. 

Trial & Error is based on random activities to reach the goal. Thorndike's research on animals showed that learning is a matter of connecting responses to stimuli in a very mechanical way. There is no involvement of consciousness, thinking, reasoning or understanding. The animal performs responses mechanically. The responses that bring reward are learned; the responses that do not bring reward are not learned. The animal does not show ability to understand, think, and reason. The animal learns mechanically through trial-and-error.

Indeed many forms of human learning, particularly the learning of sensory- motor skills, are achieved through trial-and-error. Learning to walk, to swim, or to ride a bicycle is based on trial-and-error. At the beginning, we make wrong movements and commit errors. As we go through a series of practice trials, errors are reduced and responses are mastered. The gradual reduction of errors over trials gives the name, trial-and-error form of learning.

Insight Learning Theory

Wolfgang Kohler

Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) was born in Estonia, and earned his Ph.D from the University of Berlin in 1909 on psycho-acoustics. Kohler was one of the original Gestalt theorists and proposed his own theory called the Insight Learning Theory. (The term "Gestalt" refers to any pattern or organized whole. The key concept in Gestalt theory is that the nature of the parts is determined by the whole - parts are secondary to the whole. When we process sensory stimuli, we are aware directly of a configuration or overall pattern which is grasped as a whole. For example, when listening to music, we perceive a melody rather than individual notes, or when looking at a painting, we see the overall image rather than individual brush strokes. Köhler emphasized that one must examine the whole to discover what its natural parts are, and not proceed from smaller elements into wholes). 

Kohler's Famous Experiment on Chimpanzee:

In one of his more famous studies, he set up a problem for one of the chimpanzees. Sultan the chimp was faced with the problem of how to get to a banana that was placed just out of reach, outside his cage. Sultan solved this problem relatively easily. First he tried to reach the banana through the bars with his arms and then used a stick that was lying in the cage to rake the banana into the cage. As chimpanzees are natural tool users, this behaviour is not surprising and is still nothing more than simple trial-and-error learning.

Learning: Definition

The term 'learning' is one of those concepts whose meaning is crystal clear until one has to put it in actual words. "Learning is when you learn something". "Learning is learning how to do something". A more useful definition is as follows: Learning is any  relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice.

What does "relatively permanent" mean? The "relatively permanent" part of the definition refers to the fact that, when people learn things, some part of the brain is physically changed to record what they have learned. This is actually a process of memory. Without the ability to remember things, learning process will not take place effectively or people cannot learn anything. Although there is no conclusive proof as yet, researches suggest strongly that once people learn something, it is always present somewhere in the memory. They may be unable to get to it or retrieve it, but it is there somewhere stored in the memory.

Operant Conditioning Theory

B. F. Skinner

B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990) was the behaviorist who assumed leadership of the field after John Watson. He was even more determined than Watson that psychologists should study only measurable, observable behaviour. In addition to his knowledge of Pavlovian classical conditioning, Skinner found in the work of Thorndike a way to explain all behavior as the product of learning. He even gave the learning of voluntary behavior a special name: Operant Conditioning. Voluntary behavior is that which people do to operate in the world. So voluntary behavior for Skinner is operant behavior and the learning of such behavior is operant conditioning. 


Operant Conditioning is a type of learning. It is very similar to the classical conditioning. The term "Operant" refers to how an organism operates on the environment, and hence, operant conditioning comes from how we respond to what is presented to us in our environment. It can be thought of as learning due to the natural consequences of our actions.

The classic study of Operant Conditioning involved a cat who was placed in a box called "Skinner box" or "operant conditioning chamber, with only one way out; a specific area of the box had to be pressed in order for the door to open. The cat initially tries to get out of the box because freedom is reinforcing. In its attempt to escape, the area of the box is triggered and the door opens. The cat is now free. Once placed in the box again, the cat will naturally try to remember what it did to escape the previous time and will once again find the area to press. The more the cat is placed back in the box, the quicker it will press that area for its freedom. It has learned, through natural consequences, how to gain the reinforcing freedom.

We learn this way every day in our lives. Imagine the last time you made a mistake; you most likely remember that mistake and do things differently when the situation comes up again. In that sense, you’ve learned to act differently based on the natural consequences of your previous actions. The same holds true for positive actions. If something you did results in a positive outcome, you are likely to do that same activity again.

Classical Conditioning Theory

Classical Conditioning is one important type of learning. It was actually discovered accidentally by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who discovered this phenomenon while doing research on digestion. His research was aimed at better understanding the digestive patterns in dogs.

During his experiments, he would put meat powder in the mouths of dogs who had tubes inserted into various organs to measure bodily responses. What he discovered was that the dogs began to salivate before the meat powder was presented to them. Then, the dogs began to salivate as soon as the person feeding them would enter the room. He soon began to gain interest in this phenomenon and abandoned his digestion research in favor of his now famous Classical Conditioning study.

Basically, the findings support the idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring. When we touch a hot stove, our reflex pulls our hand back. It does this instinctually, no learning involved. It is merely a survival instinct. But why now do some people, after getting burned, pull their hands back even when the stove is not turned on? Pavlov discovered that we make associations which cause us to generalize our response to one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. In other words, hot burner = ouch, stove = burner, therefore, stove = ouch.

Methods of Effective Learning

1. Distributed vs Massed Practice:

When short practice period are used separated by rest intervals, the procedure is called distributed practice. Sometimes, however the individual works continuously, until the task is mastered or at least for long period of time. This procedure is called massed practice. 

Research with a wide variety of different task and rest intervals of various sizes has shown there is an advantage of distributed practice. The reasons of this are as follows. 

• If the work unit is very long, fatigue may occur and reduce the effectiveness of once effort. 

• A short work unit usually produces higher motivation than a long one because of the reinforcing conditions of reaching a goal more often. 

• Also it has been known that when a person stops work, there may be a preservation of neural processes aroused by the work unit. 

Sometimes massed learning is better than the distributed learning. Skilled workers can be trained with fewer lessons if their lessons were shorten or came after a long interval of time. Some individuals take a long time to warm up to the task and start working. These people waste a lot of time in each practice time before actually starting to learn. They might accomplish more if the work period is increased in time.