5.24 : 항본능표류

Instinctive drift refers to the tendency of animals to revert to their innate behaviors despite repeated reinforcement.

Breland and Breland conducted an experiment where a raccoon was trained to pick up two coins and place them in a container in exchange for food.

As the raccoon learned to associate the coins with food, the coins became a conditioned stimulus or a substitute for food. Over time, the raccoon became less willing to put the coins into the container.

Raccoons have a natural tendency to rub the food they hold. Once the coins became a conditioned stimulus for food, the raccoon rubbed the coins together instead of placing them in the container.

This phenomenon demonstrates the necessity of considering innate biological factors in the study of learning, such as reflexes like the suckling reflex in infants and instincts like a spider spinning a web. These factors restrict the range of behaviors that can be trained through reinforcement.