Ch.7: Stimulus Control Flashcards
The Three-Term Contingency
A : B —> C
Antecedent Behaviour Consequence
(Stimulus) (Response) (Outcome)
Antecedents (aka Controlling Stim)
-Controlling Stimulus (S)
-Discriminative Stimulus (SD)
-Extinction Stimulus (S-delta)
Controlling Stimulus (s)
Any stimulus or event that changes the probability of an operant behaviour.
Ex: food that the rat receives.
-Two types of consequent controlling stimuli: Reinforcers and Punishers.
-Three types of antecedent controlling stimuli: SD, S-delta, Save.
Discriminative Stimulus (SD)
A stimulus or event that precedes an operant and sets the occasion for its reinforcement.
Ex: traffic light, ringing phone, doorbell
Extinction Stimulus (S-delta)
A stimulus or event that precedes an operant and sets the occasion for its non-reinforcement.
Ex: out of order sign on bathroom… this signals the non-availability of relieving yourself in that bathroom
Controlling stimuli of a pigeon looking at a green and red light (green means food, red means no food)
S-delta (Red Light) : R (peck) —> Extinction (No food)
SD (Green Light) : R (peck) —> SR (Food)
R=reinforcement
Discrimination
Discrimination occurs when the presence (or absence) of stimuli is the occasion on which a response will be followed by reinforcement
It refers to the effect an occasion setting contingency has on behaviour.
Ex: The bird eventually only pecks the key when the green light is on
Stimulus Control
A change in operant behaviour that occurs when either a SD or S-delta is presented
Ex: walking signs
Stroop Effect
The Stroop effect is the delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli.
Ex:
-Say the font colour of the word and the word does not match the colour.
-A stop sign that says proceed
The Discrimination Index
A measure of the stimulus control exerted by an SD or S-delta. The bigger the difference between SD and S-Delta the better the discrimination was.
The discrimination index measures how well someone or something can tell the difference between two things, especially when it comes to behavior and learning. It looks at how well someone can distinguish between when a reward (or punishment) will happen versus when it won’t.
In simple terms: it’s like figuring out how good someone is at telling when doing something will get them a reward or not. The higher the discrimination index, the better they are at knowing when to act to get the reward.
Differential Outcomes Effect (DOE)
Discrimination training proceeds more rapidly when different behaviours produce different reinforcers.
Ex: if you give a dog a treat for sitting and a different treat for rolling over, the dog will quickly learn to tell the difference between the two commands because each action has its own unique reward.
Stimulus Generalization
When someone or an animal responds the same way to things that are similar to the original thing they learned about.
Ex: if a dog learns to sit when you say “sit,” and then it also sits when you say “sit down” (because the words are similar), that’s stimulus generalization. The dog is applying what it learned from one word to similar-sounding ones.
Stimulus Generalization vs Discrimination
Generalization is less precise control
Ex: drug users will relapse in environment where drug use was used in the past.
Discrimination is precise control
Ex: Differentiating different traffic lights
Mental Rotation
Is the letter backwards? The more it is rotated, the longer it takes to decipher.
This is similar to pigeons reaction to trained favourite gradients.
Concept Formation
The process of learning to group things together based on common features or characteristics. It’s how we understand and organize different ideas or objects into categories.
Ex: Learning that all animals with feathers and wings are called “birds.” Even though birds might look different (like an eagle or a parrot), you form the concept that they all belong to the same group because they share certain features.
Ex: Pigeons learning that what humans are via reinforcement
