Question

Leo has recently studied the principle of reinforcement in his psychology class. He is now trying to teach his dog how to fetch a ball. Given what psychologists have learned about transfer, is Leo likely to use the principle of reinforcement in helping his dog learn to fetch?

A.) Only if he retrieves the principle of reinforcement when he is teaching his dog.
B.) Definitely no.
C.) Definitely yes.
D.) Only if he has previously learned the principle of reinforcement to automaticity.

Answer 1

C) Definitely Yes

Step-by-step explanation:

As the studies in reinforcement learning have implied that most option learning methods work within the same state space as the problem the agent is solving at the time. Although this can lead to faster learning on later tasks in the same state space, learned options would be more useful if they could be reused in later tasks that are related but have distinct state spaces (kordinadis and Barto, 2006). Which in the case of our Leo can be applied, using shaping a technique that is used to train dogs and has demonstrated successful results, it was studied by Skinner, and is a type of reinforcement learning and can lead the dog to learn this behavior in other stages or spaces.