The bottom-line answer to the question posed in the title is unequivocal “it depends on what you mean byfree.” Is there such a thing as a free operant? Yes, in a methodological sense that the organism is not physically constrained (although in the case of a rat, its operating space ...
Many parents, when trying to deter their children from following the examples of celebrities, point out to them that what a rich and famous person may do is not acceptable in a person from a more humble background. My second example lays to rest the notion that successful teen pregnancy is...
The Premack Principle is also known as“Gradmas's Law.” Parents (and Grandmas) use it naturally all the time. It is the principle that offering something that happens often in a free operant situation to be contingent upon something else that happens with low frequency. Is NCR an anteceden...
What is a compound stimulus? Conditioning: There are two types of conditioning in psychology. The first is classical conditioning where a person learns to react a particular way to a stimulus, whether that stimulus is a word, a situation, or an object. The second is operant conditioning where...
(See technical addendum for notes about dB(A).) Some examples of noises in that decibel range are a gas-powered lawnmower, a busy freeway at 50 feet, a loud overhead pager (intercom), an electric lawn edger, and the noise inside an airplane. Eighty-five dB is the boundary in U.S...