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Skinner box

 
Dictionary: Skinner box

n.
A soundproof, light-resistant box or cage used in laboratories to isolate an animal for experiments in operant conditioning and usually containing only a bar or lever to be pressed by the animal to gain a reward, such as food, or to avoid a painful stimulus, such as a shock.

[After Burrhus Frederick SKINNER.]


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World of the Mind: Skinner box
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A type of experimental chamber often used in the laboratory analysis of behaviour, named after the American psychologist B. F. Skinner. As a graduate student at Harvard in 1929 he invented the first such chamber to facilitate the study of eating behaviour in rats, and he later developed many versions.

The prototypical Skinner box for, say, a rat (Fig. 1) would be cubic in shape, 30 cm (1 foot) long on each edge, and would contain the following elements: (i) an 'operandum', such as a lever that protrudes from one wall, and (ii) an opening in that wall where the rat could obtain a small pellet of food, delivered by a mechanical feeding device. The box would be light-and soundproof to minimize distractions and maximize the effectiveness of events that occur inside the box. If lever pressing produces a pellet of food in this situation, a hungry rat will typically press the lever repeatedly and thereby eat.

Since its invention, the Skinner box has been adapted to study many organisms besides the rat, behaviours other than bar pressing, and consequences other than food presentation. Behaviour has been studied in the context of auditory and visual stimuli, such as coloured lights and pure tones, as well as more complex stimuli, such as other organisms and slides of the natural environment projected on a screen inside the chamber. In general, the term is now applied to almost any experimental chamber used in the study of the relationships of behaviour, its antecedent stimuli, and its consequences.

The use of the term probably began with Clark Hull, who made use of what he called a 'modified Skinner box', described in his Principles of Behavior. Skinner himself objected to the use of the term and in particular to its erroneous extension to the 'air-crib', an enclosed crib for human infants that he invented in the 1940s.



Fig. 1. The interior of a typical Skinner box. A hungry rat is poised over a lever protruding from the front wall. Pressing the lever one or more times will operate a feeder; the rat can retrieve a pellet of food which is dispensed at the small opening in the wall. The rat can easily learn to make discriminations; for example, to press the lever when a light is on and not to press it when the light is off. Chambers for other animals may vary considerably from this one.


(Published 1987)

— Robert Epstein



Veterinary Dictionary: Skinner box
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An experimental enclosure for testing animal conditioning, in which the subject animal performs (e.g. presses a bar or lever) to obtain a reward. See also instrumental conditioning.

Wikipedia: Operant conditioning chamber
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Skinner box
Skinner box with 2 respond levers, 2 cue lights, 1 electrified floor, 1 house light and 1 speaker are above the cage

An operant conditioning chamber (also known as the Skinner box) is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of behavior to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University (Masters in 1930 and doctorate in 1931). It is used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

Contents

Structure

The structure forming the shell of a chamber is a box large enough to easily accommodate the organism being used as a subject. (Common model organisms used include rodents—usually lab ratspigeons, and primates). It is often sound-proof and light-proof to avoid distracting stimuli.

Operant chambers have at least one operandum (or "manipulandum"), and often two or more, that can automatically detect the occurrence of a behavioral response or action. Typical operanda for primates and rats are response levers; if the subject presses the lever, the opposite end moves and closes a switch that is monitored by a computer or other programmed device. Typical operanda for pigeons and other birds are response keys with a switch that closes if the bird pecks at the key with sufficient force. The other minimal requirement of a conditioning chamber is that it has a means of delivering a primary reinforcer or unconditioned stimulus like food (usually pellets) or water. It can also register the delivery of a conditioned reinforcer, such as an LED (see Jackson & Hackenberg 1996 in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior for example) as a "token".

With such a simple configuration, one operandum and one feeder, it is possible to investigate many psychological phenomena. Modern operant conditioning chambers typically have many operanda, like many response levers, two or more feeders, and a variety of devices capable of generating many stimuli, including lights, sounds, music, figures, and drawings. Some configurations use an LCD panel for the computer generation of essentially any stimulus.

Operant chambers can also have electrified nets or floors so that electrical charges can be given to the animals; or lights of different colors that give information about when the food is available. Although the use of shock is not unheard of, approval may be needed in some countries to avoid unnecessary harmful experimentation on animals. Skinner's work did not focus on punishment, and involved a "paw slap" which caused him to conclude, incorrectly, that punishment was ineffective. Works by Azrin, Sidman and others in the 1960s and 1970s showed this was not the case.

Research Impact

Skinner's operant chamber allowed him to explore the rate of response as a dependent variable, as well as develop his theory of schedules of reinforcement. The first operant chambers were attached to cumulative records on drums producing characteristic pauses, scallops, and other lines. Operant conditioning chambers have become common in a variety of research disciplines including behavioral pharmacology, and whose results inform many disciplines outside of psychology such as behavioral economics.

Popular 'Extensions'

Slot machines and online games are sometimes cited as examples of human devices that use sophisticated operant schedules of reinforcement to reward repetitive actions.[1][citation needed] Skinner's analysis of contingencies can be applied to almost any activity, however; including valuable ones like writing novels, and artistic exploration and creativity.[citation needed]

Skinner Box

Skinner is noted to have said that he didn't want to be an eponym.[2] The term Skinner Box is considered by some[who?] to be pejorative, and is probably most commonly used by those who are not in the discipline of Experimental analysis of behavior or in psychology[citation needed].

See also

References

  1. ^ Dennis Coon (2005). Psychology: A modular approach to mind and behavior. Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 278–279. ISBN 0534605931. 
  2. ^ Skinner, B. F. (1959). Cumulative record (1999 definitive ed.). Cambridge, MA: B.F. Skinner Foundation. p 620

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
World of the Mind. The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Second Edition. Copyright © Oxford University Press, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Operant conditioning chamber" Read more