Chapter 8- Stimulus Control of Behaviour

Question 1

Stimulus Control:

Answer 1

Instrumental response controlled by certain stimuli

Question 2

Stimulus Discrimination:

Answer 2

• Animals treating 2 stimuli as different from each other (responding differently to 2 or more stimuli)
  
  • i.e. bird reinforced for pecking when red triangle and white circle shown, then either red triangle or white circle shown, some birds responded more to white circle, some responded more to red triangle

Question 3

Stimulus Generalization:

Answer 3

• Organism responds in a similar fashion to 2 or more stimuli
  
  • i.e. birds reinforced for pecking when yellow light appeared, birds also pecked when other colours appeared

Question 4

Stimulus Generalization Gradient:

Answer 4

• Birds would still peck for yellow/orange light, but not for blue/green light
  
  • Gradient of responding as a function of how similar each test stimulus was to original training stimulus
  • Good way to measure stimulus control because they provide information about how sensitive the organism’s behaviour is to variations in a stimulus