Chapter 4: Reinforcement and Extinction of Operant Behavior Flashcards
The tendency of an animal to emit variations in response topography in a given situation.
Behavioral variability
An event or stimulus that has acquired its effectiveness to increase operant behavior on the basis of an organism’s life or ontogenetic history.
Conditioned reinforcer
The relationship between the occasion (e.g., SD), the operant class (R), and the consequences that follow the behavior (Sr)…SD: R–> Sr
Contingency of reinforcement
A schedule of reinforcement in which each response produces reinforcement.
Continuous reinforcement
A procedure that involves reinforcement in the presence of one stimulus (SD) but not in other settings (SΔ).
Differential reinforcement
An event or stimulus that precedes an operant and sets the occasion for operant behavior (antecedent stimulus), due to a history of reinforcement when that stimulus is present.
Discriminative stimulus (SD)
Respondent (CR) and reflexive (UR) behavior that is made to occur by the presentation of a stimulus (CS or US).
Elicited (behavior)
Operant behavior that occurs at some probability in the presence of a discriminative stimulus, but the SD does not force its occurrence.
Emitted (behavior)
A procedure that involves the breaking of the contingency between an operant and its consequence.
Extinction (as a procedure)
A behavioral process that refers to a decline in the frequency of the operant when the contingency between an operant and its consequence has been broken.
Extinction (as a process)
A rabid burst of responses when an extinction procedure is first implemented.
Extinction burst
The time from the onset of one event (e.g., SD) to the onset of another (e.g., R).
Latency
A contingency that involves the removal of an event or stimulus following behavior that has the effect of decreasing response rate.
Negative punishment
A contingency where an ongoing stimulus or event is removed (or prevented) by an operant response and the rate of response increases.
Negative reinforcement
The selection of operant behavior during the lifetime of an organism.
Ontogenetic selection
Behavior that operates on the environment to produce a change, effect, or consequence.
Operant
A set of responses that vary in topography but produce a common environmental consequence or effect.
Operant class
An increase or decrease in a response as a function of the consequences that have followed the response.
Operant conditioning
The rate of an operant before any known conditioning (e.g., the rate of key pecking before a peck-food contingency has been established).
Operant level
A phenomenon in which intermittent reinforcement schedules generate greater resentence to extinction than continuous schedules of reinforcement.
Partial reinforcement effect (PRE)
A contingency that involves the presentation of an event or stimulus following behavior that has the effect of decreasing the rate of response.
Positive punishment
A contingency that involves the presentation of an event or stimulus following behavior that increases the rate of response.
Positive reinforcement
Any stimulus or event that increases the probability (rate of response) of an operant when presented contingent on that response.
Positive reinforcer
A higher frequency behavior will function as reinforcement for a lower-frequency response.
Premack principle
The number of responses that occur in a given interval of time.
Rate of response
All of the behavior that an organism is capable of emitting on the basis of species and environmental history.
Repertoire (of behavior)
The perseverance of operant behavior when it is placed on extinction.
Resistance to extinction
The principle that animals will work to gain access to activities that are restricted or withheld.
Response deprivation
When reinforcement is contingent on some difference in response properties, that form of response will increase.
Response differentiation
The difference in relative frequency or probability of different response topographies (e.g., all the ways you can open your car door) that make up an operant (e.g., opening your car door).
Response hierarchy
Repeated presentations of a reinforcer weaken that reinforcers effectiveness, and for this reason the rate of response also declines.
Satiation
An event or stimulus that precedes an operant and reduces the likelihood of a response, due to a history of that response failing to produce reinforcement when that stimulus is present.
S-delta (SΔ)
A method of developing new responses that involves the differential reinforcement of closer and closer approximations to a target response.
Shaping
The physical form of a response
Topography
