Thorndike‘s experiments provided a base structure for almost all subsequent behaviorism experiments. The model of administering an experimental subject with a particular stimulus or task under controlled circumstances came to be known as instrumental conditioning — as opposed to classical conditioning, where the association between one stimulus and another is imposed to evoke a conditioned response.
In repeated and increasingly challenging puzzle box experiments, Thorndike observed that the cats initially searched for ways of escape by chance, while searching their environment. However, when experiments were replicated, the cats gradually learned to make connections between behavior and consequences, choosing to repeat behaviors that resulted in desirable outcomes instead of those that didn’t. Unrewarded behaviors were extinguished, and rewarding behaviors became “fixed” by association.
