Karen Pryor

Karen Pryor

Karen Pryor was a researcher and first author of the 1969 Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior paper on training two rough-toothed porpoises to produce novel behaviour.

Who they are

The work of Karen Pryor reaches this site through the paper listed below. On this site the name is tied to Operant Conditioning, Reinforcement and Punishment.

Key papers

Pryor, K. W., Haag, R., & O'Reilly, J. (1969). The creative porpoise: Training for novel behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 12(4), 653-661. What it reports: Two rough-toothed porpoises were trained to produce new kinds of behaviour by reinforcing a different response in each series of sessions; in one session an animal met the criterion with four new types of response.

Key ideas

Operant Conditioning: B.F. Skinner's finding that behavior is shaped by its consequences, not by conscious intent, reward or punish an action and you change how often it recurs.

Reinforcement and Punishment: The two families of consequence in operant conditioning: reinforcement makes a behaviour more likely, punishment makes it less likely.

Sources

  1. Pryor, K. W., Haag, R., & O'Reilly, J. (1969). The creative porpoise: Training for novel behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 12(4), 653-661.