Psychology 105
Homework Assignment 2
Associative Learning

Your task for this homework assignment is to condition the behavior of some organism (human or otherwise) using either operant or classical conditioning, and write a brief (1 to 3 page) paper describing what you did and how it worked (or did not work).

Here are some important guidelines:

• Use only non-aversive stimuli.
• DO NO HARM!
• The paper is an individual assignment.
• The training can be done with a partner or in a group.

Things to be sure to include in your paper:

1. What behavior are you trying to condition? (Clearly operationally define it.)
2. Are you using operant or classical conditioning? Explain it clearly in terms of UCS, UCR, CS, CR (for classical conditioning) or the relevant terms from operant conditioning (positive or negative reinforcement or punishment; fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, or variable interval schedule; extinction - probably only some of these terms will be relevant for your project.)
3. What was your baseline measurement of the behavior you tried to change? (number of occurrences per hour? Strength of response? Presence vs. absence of the behavior?)
4. Using the same method of measuring the behavior after training, what was that quantity?
5. How was the training carried out?
6. Did the training produce the learning you expected?
7. What are your thoughts about why your conditioning experiment did or did not work?