Chapter 8

Question 1

What is antecedent stimuli

Answer 1

Stimuli that comes to control the responses of an individual (s in SRO)

Question 2

What is the other name of antecedent stimuli

Answer 2

Discriminative stimuli

Question 3

What is the other name of the behaviour produced by the antecedent?

Answer 3

Response (to discriminative stimuli)

Question 4

What is the name of the result of the behaviour

Answer 4

Consequence or reinforcer

Question 5

How is discriminative/antecedent stimulus also called?

Answer 5

An occasion setter (for the behaviour and outcome to occur)

Question 6

How many stimulus are controlling behaviour

Answer 6

More than one (in real life)

Question 7

How can we know if a stimulus is controlling behaviour (and which does)

Answer 7

Present each stimulus by itself and compare the response rate (experiment of pigeons with white triangle in red circle)

Question 8

Can we predict which stimulus will control behaviour?

Answer 8

No, we cannot; it will be different for each individual (we can only observe which does but not predict)

Question 9

What is stimulus discrimination?

Answer 9

behaving differently with different stimuli

Question 10

What is stimulus generalization?

Answer 10

behaving the same way across a range of stimuli - opposite of stimulus discrimination

Question 11

Give an example of stimulus generalization in an experiment

Answer 11

Pavlov with vibration on dogs tigh, experiment with pigeons that had to peck a key at various colours of light

Question 12

What is a generalization gradient

Answer 12

Decrease of responding when the stimulus is far from the trained stimulus

Question 13

What does a steep generalization gradient means vs a flat one

Answer 13

steep: good stimulus generalization
flat: no/low generalization

Question 14

What can discrimination tasks tell us about individuals?

Answer 14

Their sensory capacities; what is included/not in an individual’s sensory world

Question 15

What is overshadowing?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What is the stimulus-element approach?

Answer 16

Explanation for overshadowing: One stimulus cannot overpower the other because one is simply stronger than another

Question 17

What is the configural-cue approach?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What is the goal of a stimulus discrimination procedure? How do we do it?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What are called the stimuli once the associations are made with their reinforcement/no reinforcement?

Answer 19

Discriminative stimuli

Question 20

What will be learned in a stimulus discrimination procedure?

Answer 20

Responding to S+
Suppress response to S-
Or both

Question 21

What is discrimination training focused on interoceptive cues?

Answer 21

Discrimination training focused on internal cues elicited by drug/substance taking

Question 22

Discrimination training focused on compound or configural cues?

Answer 22

Discrimination training focused on cues associated together as a compound (A and B rather than only A)

Question 23

What is positive patterning?

Answer 23

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+)

Question 24

What is negative patterning?

Answer 24

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-)

Question 25

What is Spence’s theory of discrimination learning?

Answer 25

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)

Question 26

How can we test Spence’s theory of discrimination learning?

Answer 26

According to the summation test, if S- acquires inhibitory properties it should inhibit responding to stimuli S+ (which is usually an excitatory stimuli)

Question 27

What is an intradimensional discrimination?

Answer 27

A training procedure in which the S+ and S– differ only in terms of the value of one stimulus feature (in this case pitch)

Question 28

What is the Peak shift effect?

Answer 28

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