Stimulus-Response Theory

(B. F. Skinner)

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Burrhus Frederic Skinner
 1904 – 1990
 American psychologist,
inventor, social
philosopher, poet
 Bachelor: English
Literature (Hamilton
University)
 Master: Psychology
(Harvard University)
 Doctorate: Psychology
(Harvard University)
 professor of Psychology
inHarvard University

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Theories on L1 Acquisition

Nativism Functionalism Behaviorism

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Behaviorial Theory
 behaviors, such as acting, thinking, and feeling,
can be scientifically observed and measured
 Language, as a behavior, is a set of habits
acquired by operant conditioning and
reinforcement
 developed by B. F. Skinner, among others

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Language
 a subset of other learned behaviors
 a set of associations between meaning and
word, word and phoneme, and statement and
response
 is learned or conditioned through association
between a stimulus and the following response
 a verbal behavior modified by the environment

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Language
 the ―how‖ of language is more important than
the ―what‖ of language form
 a child learns language ―when relatively
unpatterned vocalizations, selectively
reinforced, gradually assume forms which
produce appropriate consequences‖

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stimulus → response (+ or -)

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Operant Conditioning
 the strength of the stimulus-response bond
determines the probability of occurrence of a
certain response
 all behavior is learned or operant

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Operant Conditioning
 complex linguistic behaviors represent chains or
combinations of various stimulus-response
sequences
 behavior is modified or changed by the events
that follow or are contingent upon that
behavior

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Operant Conditioning
 if a particular response is reinforced, it then
becomes habitual
 thus, children produce linguistic responses that
are reinforced, and loses those that are left out

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Reinforcer
 any event that increases the probability of
occurrence of a preceding behavior

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Positive Reinforcers
 benefits the person receiving it
 examples:
 praising
 repetition
 frequent exposure
 material reward

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Negative Reinforcers
 has no value to the person receiving
 causes the recipient to try to ‗escape‘ from it
 Examples:
 physical punishment, discomfort
 criticism and scolding
 negative reinforcers ≠ punishment
 punishment
 occurs after a certain behavior has occurred

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Operant Conditioning
 complex behavior are learned by:
1. chaining - a sequence of behavior is trained in
such a way that each step serves as a stimulus
for the next
2. shaping - a single behavior is gradually
modified by reinforcement of ever-closer
(successive) approximations of the final
behavior
 thus, language results from the active role of the
environment
 the learner is secondary to the process
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Operant Conditioning
 once acquired, a behavior requires only
occasional reinforcement to be strengthened
and maintained
 speech sounds that are ignored are produced
less frequently and eventually disappear
 Extinction
 process of decreasing a behavior without
punishment

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an example of Operant Conditioning

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Skinner Box
•aka operant
conditioning chamber
•used to contain
animals such as rats or
pigeons
•study behavior
conditioning (training)
by teaching a subject
animal to perform
certain actions (like
pressing a lever) in
response to specific
stimuli, like a light or
sound signal

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Skinner Box
•when the subject
correctly performs
the behavior, the
chamber
mechanism
delivers food or
another reward
•the mechanism
delivers a
punishment for
incorrect or
missing responses
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Rat Experiment
1. the rat that was placed in the box did not
know what the lever was for at first
2. the rat pressed the lever, food eventually
came out
3. the rat (when it gets hungry) continue to press
the lever, and gets satisfied with the food

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Rat Experiment
 this is operant behavior because this is an action
that results with a consequence
 the food acts as a reinforcer because it causes
the operant behavior to increase

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Rat Experiment
 operant behavior may come to the points of its
extinction
1. the rat continues to press the lever and yet
food does not come out
2. the rat will eventually cease on pressing the
lever, thus stopping an operant behavior

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Instead of punishing behavior, it is better to
simply take off the reinforcers that cause that
certain behavior. By doing so, the doer of the
behavior will not see the value of his actions,
because the reinforcers have been taken away
from him. The behavior will gradually start to
fade away.

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predictions and assumptions

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Language Acquisition
 word learning is more complex
 mother has become discriminative stimulus (SD),
a stimulus in the presence of which ―mama‖ will
be reinforced
 a bond is built between the referent ―mother‖
and the word mama
 meaning is attached to the speech sound

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Language Acquisition
 more complex responses are learned through
successive approximation
 language learning is based on learning,
imitation, practice, and selective reinforcement
 longer sentences are also learned through
imitation and chaining
 by hearing and imitating enough examples, the
child learns word associations rather than
grammatical rules

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Language Acquisition
 a child acquires grammar by learning these
frames or chains, in which each word acts as a
stimulus for the next, thus, grammatical units are
controlled by surrounding words
 grammar is developed through the learning of
structured phrases and sentence frames
 syntactic and semantic ―slots‖ within each
frame are filled by substituting words or phrases
that fulfill the same requirements

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Language Acquisition
 word ordering is learned as adults reinforce
chains of symbols that are increasingly more
adult-like
 early language behavior is not rule governed
but rather shaped by the contingencies of the
environment

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Children would make errors
 complex linguistic behaviors represent chains or
combinations of various stimulus-response
sequences
 behavior is modified or changed by the events
that follow or are contingent upon that
behavior

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Errors would differ from
child to child

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The level of linguistic
attainment would differ
from child to child
 this depends on the frequency and degree of
reinforcements

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(mostly by Chomsky, of course.)

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Limitations and Loopholes
 children will utter words that even adults do not
say
 children would not know the duality property of
language
 children would not know syntax

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Limitations and Loopholes
 retention of negative language (e.g., cuss
expressions)
 no reinforcement on abstract ideas
 highly dependent on adult control

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Summary(yey~)
 language is a behavior
 as a behavior, it requires reinforcers and stimuli
from the environment
 reinforcers may be positive or negative, primary
or secondary
 languages can be unlearned by putting away
the stimuli/reinforcers

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Owens, Robert. Language Development: An Introduction.
New York: Merill, 1992.
Skinner, Buhhrus Frederic. About Behaviorism. New York:
Random House, 1974.
—. Verbal Behavior. New York: Random House, 1957.

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Prepared by:
Mejia, Coltz
Mendoza, Olive
Moulic, Ezra
Mutya, Daryll
Muyano, Jo

Presentation prepared for BLL 102 (Theories of Language and Language

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