Chapter 8 Flashcards
What is antecedent stimuli
Stimuli that comes to control the responses of an individual (s in SRO)
What is the other name of antecedent stimuli
Discriminative stimuli
What is the other name of the behaviour produced by the antecedent?
Response (to discriminative stimuli)
What is the name of the result of the behaviour
Consequence or reinforcer
How is discriminative/antecedent stimulus also called?
An occasion setter (for the behaviour and outcome to occur)
How many stimulus are controlling behaviour
More than one (in real life)
How can we know if a stimulus is controlling behaviour (and which does)
Present each stimulus by itself and compare the response rate (experiment of pigeons with white triangle in red circle)
Can we predict which stimulus will control behaviour?
No, we cannot; it will be different for each individual (we can only observe which does but not predict)
What is stimulus discrimination?
behaving differently with different stimuli
What is stimulus generalization?
behaving the same way across a range of stimuli - opposite of stimulus discrimination
Give an example of stimulus generalization in an experiment
Pavlov with vibration on dogs tigh, experiment with pigeons that had to peck a key at various colours of light
What is a generalization gradient
Decrease of responding when the stimulus is far from the trained stimulus
What does a steep generalization gradient means vs a flat one
steep: good stimulus generalization
flat: no/low generalization
What can discrimination tasks tell us about individuals?
Their sensory capacities; what is included/not in an individual’s sensory world
What is overshadowing?
When you put different stimuli together in a classical conditioning paradigm, sometimes one will be more effective than the other in the control of behaviour
What is the stimulus-element approach?
Explanation for overshadowing: One stimulus cannot overpower the other because one is simply stronger than another
What is the configural-cue approach?
Explanation for overshadowing: The compound stimuli cannot be separated into 2+ single stimuli; it’s a whole
• What we observe when we separate the 2 stimuli from the compound is not because of overshadowing; there is a decrement in responding (decrease) because the whole stimuli is not present (animal was never trained to a single stimuli; therefore it responds less
What is the goal of a stimulus discrimination procedure? How do we do it?
being able to distinguish with various forms of one type of stimuli (more precise than differencing between different types of stimuli altogether)
Method: Pairing one aspect of a stimulus compound (S+ or SD) with reinforcement and another (S- or S delta) with no reinforcement
What are called the stimuli once the associations are made with their reinforcement/no reinforcement?
Discriminative stimuli
What will be learned in a stimulus discrimination procedure?
Responding to S+
Suppress response to S-
Or both
What is discrimination training focused on interoceptive cues?
Discrimination training focused on internal cues elicited by drug/substance taking
Discrimination training focused on compound or configural cues?
Discrimination training focused on cues associated together as a compound (A and B rather than only A)
What is positive patterning?
stimulus A and B are NOT reinforced when they are separated (A- and B-), they are reinforced when they are presented as a compound (AB+)
What is negative patterning?
stimulus C and D are reinforced when they are separated (C+ and D+), but they are NOT reinforced when they are presented as a compound (CD-)
What is Spence’s theory of discrimination learning?
Spence thought that discrimination learning makes the organism learn to respond to S+ (excitatory response tendencies) and suppress response to S- (inhibitory tendencies), not either one (has to be both)
How can we test Spence’s theory of discrimination learning?
According to the summation test, if S- acquires inhibitory properties it should inhibit responding to stimuli S+ (which is usually an excitatory stimuli)
What is an intradimensional discrimination?
A training procedure in which the S+ and S– differ only in terms of the value of one stimulus feature (in this case pitch)
What is the Peak shift effect?
Generalization gradients are centered around S+ and S-, but if the stimulus are very similar, they may overlap
• Inhibition may generalize to S+ and vice-versa, resulting in a peak-shift effect
