You've finished your homework, so you settle into your favorite chair to play your video games. "Going into your Skinner box?" your roommate jokes. What does a video game have in common with the traditional Skinner box? (Check all that apply)

Question

_____  conditioned stimulus is associated with a reward
_____  food pellets are dispensed
_____  involves involuntary behavior by the subject
_____  involves voluntary behavior by the subject
_____  rapid feedback
_____  rat subjects
_____  repeated series of actions and rewards

Clarify question:
What is the key concept addressed by the question?

What type of thinking is required?

Gather Content:
What do you already know about what was studied with the Skinner box and what behaviors are exhibited when playing video games? What other information is related to the question?

Choose Answer:
Given what you now know, what information is most likely to produce the correct answer?

Reflection on Process:
Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?

Answer 1

_____  conditioned stimulus is associated with a reward
_____  food pellets are dispensed
_____  involves involuntary behavior by the subject
__X__  involves voluntary behavior by the subject
__X__  rapid feedback
_____  rat subjects
__X__  repeated series of actions and rewards


Clarify question:
What is the key concept addressed by the question?
How playing video games relates to the behavior studied using a Skinner box.

What type of thinking is required?
This is an analyze question. You are being asked to compare the act of playing a video game with the operant conditioning that occurs when a rat is placed in a Skinner box. In this question you must select all of the correct answers.

Gather Content:
What do you already know about what was studied with the Skinner box and what behaviors are exhibited when playing video games? What other information is related to the question?
  This question comes from the section of the textbook that discusses the different types of learning. You are being asked to look at all of the choices and select the ones that a human playing a video game and a rat in a Skinner box have in common.Skinner's operant conditioning chamber was a box with a lever that could be pushed to produce a reward, and has become synonymous with activities that involved repeated actions and rewards, with voluntary behavior by the subject. It differs from classical or Pavlovian conditioning, which involves passive or involuntary behavior by the subject (e.g., dog salivating) in response to a conditioned stimulus (e.g., a bell) that has been associated with a reward (e.g., food).

Choose Answer:
Given what you now know, what information is most likely to produce the correct answer?
Voluntary behavior, repeated actions, and rapid feedback are all components of learning that humans playing video games and rat in a Skinner box have in common.

Reflection on Process:
Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?
Were you able to select all of the correct answers? The key to answering this question was to take operation of a skinner box and break it in to its parts. Then you needed to identify the parts of the interaction in the Skinner box that were similar to what happens when playing a video game.