| 释义 |
operant, a. and n.|ˈɒpərənt|
[ad. L. operāntem, pr. pple. of operārī to operate.]
A. adj.
a. That operates, works, or produces effects; in operation, operative; † powerful in effect (obs.).
1602Shakes. Ham. iii. ii. 184 My operant Powers my Functions leaue to do. 1607― Timon iv. iii. 25 Sawce his pallate With thy most operant Poyson. 1677Gale Crt. Gentiles iv. 427 This efficacious medicinal grace..they terme it sometimes..‘the operant and cooperant grace’. 1810Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1838) III. 305 The Roman doctrine, that the priest's absolution is operant, and not simply declarative. 1894G. Macdonald Lilith xvi. (1895) 119 No conscious courage was operant in me.
b. Psychol. Involving the modification of behaviour by the reinforcing or inhibiting effect of its consequences; opp. respondent. Cf. instrumental a. 7.
1937[See B. 1 b below]. 1938B. F. Skinner Behavior of Organisms xiii. 439 Comparing conditioning of Type S (which is largely, if not wholly, respondent) with Type R (which is apparently wholly operant). 1941Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. LIV. 568 (heading) An automatic device for providing motivation and reinforcement in operant conditioning. 1959Jrnl. Exper. Analysis of Behavior II. 57 Young and Boycott (1955) describe behavior in the octopus which is almost certainly operant in nature, i.e., not elicited, but maintained by its consequences. 1963P. Swartz Psychol. x. 208/2 In contrast to respondent conditioning, in which the reinforcing agent is coupled with the conditioned stimulus, in operant learning the appearance of the reinforcer is dependent upon the occurrence of the response. 1964Ratner & Denny Compar. Psychol. xi. 566 A common distinction between instrumental and operant learning, at least in the laboratory, is that the animal is free to respond at any time in the operant situation but is usually given discrete trials when the learning is labeled instrumental. 1968Listener 29 Aug. 265/2 The sickest man in the hospital was selected to be..the first experiment in ‘operant conditioning’ therapy on a severely regressed and catatonic schizophrenic in Britain. 1970Hinsie & Campbell Psychiatric Dict. (ed. 4) 150/2 It has been suggested that many forms of psychotherapy are applications of operant conditioning... The patient learns what the therapist expects or wants to hear, and he modifies his own speech and behavior accordingly. 1975Nature 20 Mar. 219/1 Behaviourism..puts us in a position to alter and improve the condition of mankind if only we will apply its commanding insights..into the agency of such cardinal notions as reinforcement and operant behaviour.
B. n.
1. a. One who, or that which, operates, works, or exerts force or influence.
1700S. Parker Six Philos. Ess. 96 Where the Operation is essentially one, the Operant cannot be more. 1871G. Macdonald Wilf. Cumb. I. x. 89 Cupboard love is not..always the most powerful operant on the childish mind.
b. Psychol. An item of behaviour that is held to be not a response to a prior stimulus but something which is initially spontaneous on the part of the organism, ‘operating on’ or affecting the environment so as to produce consequences which may reinforce or inhibit its recurrence.
1937B. F. Skinner in Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. XVI. 274 There is also a kind of response which occurs spontaneously in the absence of any stimulation with which it may be specifically correlated... It does not mean that we cannot find a stimulus that will elicit such behaviour but that none is operative at the time the behaviour is observed. It is the nature of this kind of behaviour that it should occur without an eliciting stimulus, although discriminative stimuli are practically inevitable after conditioning... I shall call such a unit an operant and the behavior in general, operant behavior. 1938― Behavior of Organisms i. 21 If the occurrence of an operant is followed by presentation of a reinforcing stimulus, the strength is increased. 1941Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. LIV. 568 Aversion drives..offer certain advantages which other drives, e.g. hunger and thirst, do not... Reinforcement can follow immediately the emission of the operant; under hunger motivation several responses may intervene between the operant that is measured and its subsequent reënforcement. 1967Koestler Ghost in Machine i. 8 Operant strength is usually measured, for technical reasons, by the ‘rate of extinction’—how long the rat will persist in pressing the lever after the supply of pellets has been stopped. 1972Jrnl. Social Psychol. LXXXVI. 11 Recent analyses have conceived of conforming behavior as an instrumental response directed toward the attainment of functional goals... It can be considered a kind of social operant, which should change..with changes in the characteristics of reinforcement.
2. A workman: = operative B. 2. rare.
1831Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Newsp. 35 Yrs. Ago, No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny which this necessity exercised upon us. |