Operant Conditioning

A learning process in which behaviour is modified by its consequences — specifically, by reinforcement (rewards that increase the likelihood of the behaviour) or punishment (consequences that decrease it). In accessibility research and clinical assessment, operant conditioning paradigms are used to evaluate the perceptual and cognitive abilities of individuals who cannot provide verbal or explicit responses, including infants and people with severe cognitive or communication disabilities. For example, an infant can be conditioned to look toward a reward display when they detect a change in an auditory stimulus, allowing researchers to measure their auditory discrimination ability through observable behaviour (anticipatory eye movements) rather than requiring verbal reports.