Chapter 9- Generalization, Discrimination, And Stimulus Control

Question 1

What is discrimination? Why is discrimination a valuable ability?

Answer 1

The tendency to behave differently in different situations

Valuable because learning would be a handicap if what was learned carried over to situations where it was inappropriate. Sometimes it is best if behaviour learned in one situation does not carry over to very different situations

Question 2

The tendency for a learned behaviour to occur in the presence of stimuli that were not present during training

Answer 2

Generalization

Question 3

Provide and recognize examples of generalization as it occurs in Pavlovian conditioning and operant conditioning

Answer 3

Pavlovian conditioning: a dog may learn to salivate to the sound of a tuning fork vibrating at 1000 cps. After this training, the dog may then be found to salivate to the sound of a tuning fork vibrating at, say, 950 cps to 1100 cps, even though it was never exposed to these stimuli

Operant conditioning: Thorndike observed that a cat that has learned to escape from one box by clawing and is then put into another box has a greater tendency to claw at things then it instinctively had at the start

Question 4

How did Watson and Rayner demonstrate generalization of Pavlovian conditioning in their work with little Albert?

Answer 4

After little Albert learned to fear a white rat, he became fearful of other previously neutral stimuli. Specifically, other white, for he objects that were similar to the white rat

Question 5

How can generalization be increased?

Answer 5

By providing training in a wide variety of settings

Question 6

Describe the results of Eisenberger and his colleagues in inducing the generalization of desirable behavioural tendencies.

Answer 6

Found that rewarding a high level of effort on one task increases the level of effort on other tasks, a phenomenon they called learned industriousness. This means that trying hard may, if reinforced in one situation, generalize to another

Question 7

When rewarding a high level of effort on one task increases the level of effort on other tasks

Answer 7

Learned industriousness

Example: a person who is praised for working really hard at moving firewood, will work equally as hard at cutting it later

Question 8

Provide and recognize original examples of cases in which generalization is not helpful. Describe Dweck and Repucci’s study illustrating this aspect of generalization

Answer 8

Sometimes a behaviour that is useful in one situation generalizes to situations in which it is not appropriate.

Example: Thorndike noticed that a cat that had learned to escape from a box by pulling on a loop would later pull at the same spot, even though the loop had been removed.
A college student who is off-colour jokes get big laughs in the dormitory me later find that the same jokes are not appreciated at the family dinner table

Dweck Repucci: teachers first gave students unsolvable problems. Later these teachers gave the students problems that could be solved, but the students failed to solve them. Perhaps the tendency to give up generalize from the first situation to the second, because when a different teacher gave the students a solvable problems, they were successful

Can also make a problem behaviours more troublesome then they would if they did not generalize: if punching a large inflated doll is reinforced, children later tend to be more aggressive when interacting with their peers

Question 9

Any graphic representation of generalization data. When generalization results are plotted on a curve, they yield a figure called the:

Answer 9

Generalization gradient

Question 10

Describe Gottman’s and Kallush’s study of stimulus generalization in pigeons

Answer 10

Birds learned to pack a disc of a particular colour and later had the opportunity to pack discs of various colors, including the colour used in training. Pigeons packed the disc most frequently when it was the colour used during training, but they also packed the disc when it was other colours. The more closely the disc resembled the training desk, the more often the birds pecked it. If a disk or almost the same colour as the training desk, the birds pecked it at almost as much as if it were the training desk and if it were a very different color, they seldom touched it

Question 11

Generalization based on an abstract, as opposed to a physical, property of a stimulus

Answer 11

Semantic generalization

Question 12

Describe Razran’s study of the semantic generalization of Pavlovian conditioning

Answer 12

Had people learn to salivate at the sight of words and then showed them words that were either homophones, words with similar sounds but different meanings, or synonyms of the words in training. The participants salivated in response to the homophones, however, they salivated even more in response to the synonyms. Although there was some generalization based on the sounds of words, there was even more generalization based on word meanings

Question 13

Provide an original example of racial or nationality-based prejudice that is due to semantic generalization.

Answer 13

Textbook example: during World War II, the word Japanese was often paired with unpleasant words which probably elicited negative emotional reactions in other people. Thousands of Japanese people were imprisoned in concentration camps and their property confiscated, although they’re only crime was that they resembled the enemy

Original example: just recently, Syrian refugees were targeted as well as other people of Arab descent already living in the country because of the terrorist attacks around the world

Question 14

Can generalization of the effects of extinction and punishment occur?

Answer 14

Yes, behaviour produced by extinction and punishment also spread beyond the training situation

Example: when pressing a horizontal levers for food was put on extinction with rats, this reduced the rats tendency to press a new vertical lever

Question 15

Describe Koenig and Slivko’s study of inhibitory stimulus generalization

Answer 15

Trained pigeons to peck discs of various colours then began providing brief electrical shock on some occasions reinforcing certain colours but punishing a particular color. The tendency to peck the disc when it was that colour declined, but so did the tendency to pack when the disc was other colors, especially those that were similar to the punished colour

Question 16

A process in which a response reinforced in one stimulus situation becomes apt to occur in a different, though similar, stimulus situation

Answer 16

Excitatory stimulus generalization

Question 17

A process in which a response extinguished in one stimulus situation becomes less apt to occur in a different, though similar, stimulus situation

Answer 17

Inhibitory stimulus generalization

Question 18

The tendency for a behaviour to occur in the presence of certain stimuli, but not in their absence

Answer 18

Discrimination

Example: the tendency to respond in the presence of a red light, but not in other situations, such as the presence of a blue or green light

The organism behaves differently in different situations

Question 19

How are discrimination and generalization inversely related?

Answer 19

The more discrimination, the less generalization. Generalization gradients therefore also reflect the degree of discrimination. A relatively flat gradient indicates little or no discrimination; a steep gradient indicates considerable discrimination

Question 20

Any procedure for establishing A discrimination

Answer 20

Discrimination training

Question 21

In this type of discrimination training, training consists of presenting one stimulus, the CS+, with the US and presenting another stimulus, the CS-, without the US

Answer 21

Pavlovian discrimination training

Sample: we might put food into a dogs mouth each time a buzzer sounds and give the dog nothing when a bell rings. The dog will salivate at the sound of the buzzer, the CS+, but not at the sound of the bell, the CS-. The dog discriminate between the buzzer and the bell

Question 22

In this type of discrimination training, training normally consists of reinforcing a behaviour when it occurs in the presence of one stimulus, the S+ or Sd, but not when it occurs in the presence of another stimulus, the S- or Sdelta,

Answer 22

Operant discrimination training

Example: arrange an experimental chamber so that a rat receives food each time it presses a lever, but only if the lamp is on. The result will be that when the lamp is on, S+, The rat presses the lever, and when the lab is off, S-, it does not press. The rat discriminates between the light on situation and the light off situation

Question 23

In operant discrimination training, any stimulus that signals either that a behaviour will be reinforced (S+ or Sd) or will not be reinforced (S- or Sdelta)

Answer 23

Discriminative stimuli

Stimuli that are associated with different consequences for behaviour

Question 24

A discrimination training procedure in which the S+ and S- are presented one after the other in random sequence

The S+ and S- alternate, usually randomly. When the S+ appears, the behaviour is reinforced; when the S- appears, the behaviour is on extinction

Answer 24

Successive discrimination training

Example: A rat may be placed in an experimental chamber with two lightbulbs, one red and one green, over a lever. Whenever the red light is on, lever pressing produces food; whenever the green light is on, lever pressing has no effect

Question 25

A discrimination training procedure in which the S+ and S- are presented at the same time

Answer 25

Simultaneous discrimination training

Example: placing a rat in a chamber in which the red and green lights are on, with each light placed above its own lever. Pressing the lever under the red light results in food; pressing the lever under the green light does not

Question 26

A discrimination training procedure in which the task is to select from two or more comparison stimuli the one that matches a sample

The comparison stimuli include the S+ – The stimulus that matches the sample — and one or more S-s.

Answer 26

Matching to sample

Example: a sample disk on one wall of an experimental chamber may be illuminated by either a red or a green light. On some trials the disc will be red and others will be green. After a short time the sample desk goes dark, and two comparison discs, one red and one green, are illuminated. The S+ is the disc of the same colour as the sample. If a pigeon pecks the comparison disc that matches the sample, it receives food; if it text the other disk, it receives nothing. To obtain reinforcement, the bird must successfully discriminate between the disk that matches the sample and the one that does not

Question 27

A variation of matching to sample in which reinforcement is available for selecting the comparison stimulus that is different from the sample

Answer 27

Mismatching or oddity matching

Example: a bird is required to peck a disk that is different from the sample

Question 28

A form of discrimination training in which the S- is introduced in very weak form and gradually strengthened. The usual result is that discrimination is achieved with few or no errors

Answer 28

Errorless discrimination training

Example: in training a pigeon to discriminate between a red disk (S+) and a green disk (S-), Terrace presented the red desk at full strength for three minutes at a time and instead of presenting a green disc for three minutes, he presented an unlit disk for 5 seconds. Pigeons are less likely to pack a dark disc then a bright one, and the shorter the time the disc is available, the less likely they are to pick it. The result was that the S- was seldom pecked. Gradually he increased the duration and strength of the S- while reinforcing pecking at the S+. Finally he was able to present the green disk without the bird pecking it

Question 29

The finding that discrimination training proceeds more rapidly when different behaviours produce different reinforcers

Answer 29

Differential outcomes effect

Example: pressing one lever after hearing a tone produces one food pellet, and pressing another lever after hearing a clicker produces five pellets.

Question 30

The tendency for a behaviour to occur in the presence of an S+ but not in the presence of an S-

When discrimination training brings behaviour under the influence of discriminative stimuli

Answer 30

Stimulus control

Stopping at an intersection when the light is red and driving when the light is green

Question 31

Describe Pavlov’s theory of stimulus discrimination/generalization

Answer 31

It is physiological. He speculated that discrimination training produces physiological changes in the brain. It establishes an area of excitation associated with the CS+, and an area of inhibition associated with the CS-. If a novel stimulus is similar to the CS+, it will excite an area of the brain near the CS+ area. The excitation will irradiate to the CS+ area and elicit the CR. The same thing happens with the CS- with novel stimuli

Question 32

Describe Spences theory of stimulus discrimination/generalization

Answer 32

Put aside Pavlov’s physiology but kept the notions of excitation and in inhibition.
Pairing a CS+ with a US results in an increased tendency to respond to the CS+ And to stimuli resembling the CS+. Similarly, reinforcement for responding in the presence of an S plus results in an increased tendency to respond not only to the S plus but to similar stimuli
The generalization gradient that results is called an excitatory gradient
Presenting ACS minus without the US result in a decrease to tendency to respond to the CS minus and to stimulate resembling the CS. And withholding reinforcement when responses occur in the presence of an S minus result in a decrease tendency to respond to that stimulus and two similar stimuli
The generalization gradient that results is called an inhibitory gradient

The tendency to respond to any given stimulus was the result of the interaction of the increased and decreased tendencies to respond, as reflected in gradients of excitation and inhibition

Question 33

The tendency following discrimination training for the peak of responding in a generalization gradient to shift away from the CS- or S-

Answer 33

Peak shift

Question 34

Describe the Lashley-Wade theory of stimulus discrimination/generalization

Answer 34

Argued that generalization gradients depend on prior experience with stimuli similar to those used in testing. Discrimination training increases the steepness of the generalization gradient because it teaches the animal to tell the difference between the S+ and other stimuli. Animals and humans undergo a kind of discrimination training in the course of their everyday lives. If an animal is prevented from having any experience with a certain kind of stimulus, such as color, it’s behaviour following training will be affected. If such a color-naïve animal is trained to respond in the presence of a red disk, for example, it will lead to respond just as frequently to a green desk. In other words, it’s gradient of generalization it will be flat

Question 35

Any class or group or category, the members of which share one or more defining features

Answer 35

Concept

The defining features allow us to discriminate the members of one class from the members of another class

Question 36

What does it mean to understand a concept?

Answer 36

Understanding a concept means discriminating between stimuli that fall within the concept class and those that fall outside the concept class.

Question 37

Kohler trained chickens to select the lighter of two gray squares, after training, he tested them with a light gray square that had always lead to food and with a still lighter gray square they had never seen before. Instead of choosing the original gray square that had previously lead to food, the birds chose the new lighter Square. This phenomenon was called

Answer 37

Transposition, since it seemed analogous to musical transposition, in which a composition is played in a key different from the original

Question 38

Describe a typical mental rotation experiment

Answer 38

People were showing letters that had been rotated by varying degrees from their normal, upright position and were asked whether the letters were backward, that is, mirror images of the original, or not. The greater the rotation, the longer it took people to answer. May mean that from such data, people mentally rotate an internal representation or image of the letter until it is in its normal, upright position, and then decide whether it is backward

Question 39

How can mental rotation be interpreted as generalization?

Answer 39

When rotating images, plotting the time it takes to react to rotated figures results in a curve that looks like a generalization gradient. Participants respond most quickly to the trainings to be less, the letter they were trained in school to recognize; the less the stimulus resembles the training stimulus, the slower is the response

Question 40

Describe how Phelps and Reit flattened the mental rotation generalization gradient

Answer 40

With continued training of college students to discriminate between geometric shapes that did and do not match the sample, the generalization gradients flattened. This is probably because students continued to receive feedback during testing and therefore improved their reaction times to rotated items.

Question 41

Describe smoking and quitting smoking in terms of stimulus control relationships. How can you use stimulus control principles to make it more likely that someone will quit smoking successfully?

Answer 41

If each reinforcement increases the resistance of a behaviour to change, then it is hardly surprising that people find it difficult to quit smoking. Drug-associated stimuli include environmental events, because they have been paired with tobacco use in the past, have acquired some degree of stimulus control over tobacco use. Because the use of tobacco and the reinforcing effects of nicotine have frequently occur together in the situations, they have become discriminative stimuli for lighting a cigarette. And since smokers typically smoke throughout the day, many different situations become discriminative stimuli for smoking

Two basic approaches to preventing relapse: this former smoker can avoid situations in which he or she often smoked in the past, thereby avoiding the ability of the situations to elicit smoking, or the smoker can undergo training to reduce to control the situations have over their behavior. This may be done, for example, by gradually exposing the smoker to those situations while preventing him or her from smoking

Question 42

Describe the experimental neurosis in dogs that was initially discovered in Pavlov’s laboratory. Why did Pavlov label it as a neurosis? How is experimental neurosis similar to human instances of nervous breakdowns?

Answer 42

A dog was trained to salivate at the site of a circle flashed on the screen, and not to salivate at the site of an oval. When the researcher modify the oval so that it more closely resembled the circle until the two forms were nearly identical, progress with the dog stopped. Not only did the animal fail to discriminate between the two forms, but it began to squeal and Wriggle and tore off the apparatus for mechanical stimulation of the skin, and been through the tubes connecting the animals room with the observer

Pavlov called the dogs bizarre behaviour and experimental neurosis because it seemed to him that the behaviour resembled that sometimes seen in people who had had “nervous breakdowns”

Sometimes humans find themselves in situations that require settled discriminations, and such situations do seem to be stressful. For example, when teenagers are praised by their parents for accepting responsibility, and another locations they are criticized for not knowing their place.

Question 43

Any bizarre or neurotic-like behaviour induced through an experimental procedures such as discrimination training

Answer 43

Experimental neurosis

Question 44

What is generalization? Why is generalization such an important topic?

Answer 44

Generalization is when what we learn in one situation carries over to new situations. This tendency for a learned behaviour to spread to new situations not involved in training is called generalization

It is important because we rarely, if ever, find ourselves in precisely the same situation twice, so it is important that what we learn in one situation carries over to new situations

Question 45

Occurs when a class of stimuli that share stimulus features act as discriminative stimuli for responding

Answer 45

Conceptual behaviour

A child who can correctly identify the concept of inside. Correctly identifies marbles is being inside bottles, cats as being inside houses, and planes as being inside hangers. The stimulus feature of insideness would be a discriminative stimulus for the child’s behavior. This child can identify insideness even when it occurs in diverse and novel situations

Question 46

The members of the stimulus class

Answer 46

Concept instances or examples

Concept instances of the concept Limerick is composed of all the instances of limerick poems

Question 47

The relevant, defining, or distinctive features of the concept

Answer 47

Critical features

The critical features of a limerick has to do with the rhymes and number of words

Question 48

Features of the stimuli in the class that do not define the concept and vary from one stimulus instance to the next

Answer 48

Variable features

The humour of the limerick and the words and rhymes used

Question 49

Explain why learning to respond to stimulus features, rather than individual stimuli, is valuable

Answer 49

Responding to stimulus features allow us to generalize what we’ve learned two new stimulus-class members we encounter. Without this, each new stimulus we encounter would require complete relearning

Question 50

Explain how concept learning involves both discrimination and generalization

Answer 50

Concept learning involves discrimination because an individual must label members of the concept class as such, and not label other stimulus classes of the concept that are not instances of the concept

Involves generalization because an individual who has learned the concept will respond to all members of the stimulus class in the same way

Question 51

When presented with new concept examples, the individual fails to identify them appropriately

The learner fails to identify correctly all members of a conceptual-stimulus class as concept instances

Answer 51

Undergeneralization

Question 52

When the learner incorrectly identifies concept non-instances outside the conceptual-stimulus class as concept instances

Answer 52

Overgeneralization

Question 53

What is necessary to test for conceptual behavior?

Answer 53

It is necessary to show that the critical features of the concept are discriminative stimuli for the learners response. To do this, it is necessary to use novel test items, ones the learner has not encountered before

Question 54

Describe the relation between concepts and words. Describe the benefits of using words to refer to concepts

Answer 54

Many concepts have labels, words that refer to the critical feature of the stimulus class.

And if it’s: allows us to talk, read, and right about huge glasses of stimuli that are too numerous to encounter directly. Through the use of words, we can discuss abstract relations. Words that referred to concept features free hour thinking from the constraints of a specific stimuli by allowing us to refer to stimulus features in isolation and in relation to other stimulus features.

Question 55

Describe the common factors between conceptual discrimination and stimulus discrimination that make them each effective

Answer 55

Conceptual discrimination is a type of stimulus discrimination, so the principles that make stimulus discrimination effective generally apply to conceptual discrimination as well. Factors such as active responding, pre-training procedures, the similarity of the stimuli, the relationship between the training and goal stimuli, the similarity of required responses, The rate of stimulus presentation, and the order of stimulus presentation I’ll contribute to the effectiveness of conceptual discrimination

Question 56

How does defining the goal of conceptual discrimination through concept analysis contribute to the effectiveness of conceptual discrimination?

Answer 56

Having a goal allows us to plan instruction of the concept. The goals of concept teaching must be defined before we can go further.

Through concept analysis, a concept is broken down into its critical and variable features which allows a teacher to construct concept examples and non-examples for teaching purposes.
Add additional benefit of concept analysis is it’s effect on teachers, by demanding that teachers identify the components of the concepts their students are learning and provides them with a fresh and precise understanding of concepts they may have taught before, but not thoroughly analyzed

Question 57

How does using concept definitions contribute to the effectiveness of conceptual discrimination?

Answer 57

A concept definition is a rule that specifies the features of a concept that make it a member of the conceptual stimulus class. A student who learns this definition is able to apply it to discriminate between examples and non-examples.

Effective because students have previously learned the words in the concept definition, and these words then can serve as discriminative stimuli for identifying concept examples and non-examples. They take advantage of the students previous learning of the words in the rule

Question 58

How does training discrimination skills with examples and non-examples contribute to the effectiveness of conceptual discrimination?

Answer 58

Teaching concepts through definitions alone does not give the students the opportunity to discover the range and richness of variation in the examples that make up the conceptual stimulus class. Important aspects of examples and non-examples include use of focal examples, use of a broad range of examples that include many different variables features, and use of non-examples that lack a single critical feature to teach the learners the boundaries of the conceptual stimulus class

Question 59

When Variable features of the concept are responded to as critical features

Answer 59

Errors of misconception

Mistaking the types of food eaten by people with boulimia nervosa as being a critical feature of the concept

Question 60

When a learner is trained to engage in a response that has a set of specified features, and this training allows the learner to engage in new responses that have those features, we say that the learner has required a:

Answer 60

Generalized response class

Also called operations, and the training that produces a generalized response class is sometimes called operations training. The word operant is also often used to refer to a generalized response class

Example: generalized imitation where in learners imitations of specific model behaviours are prompted and reinforced, which enables the learner to show generalized imitation, to imitate any new modelled response.

Question 61

Explain why generalized imitation and Goetz and Baer’s work in training creative responding illustrate generalized response classes

Answer 61

Trained preschool children to perform novel forms a block building by reinforcing the building of new forms. This training cost of the children to build a new forms at a higher rate. This is an example of a generalized response class because the train response had a specified feature: it had to be different from what the child had done before; and the training resulted in the children being able to perform new responses that had the specified property, novelty

Question 62

Compare and contrast conceptual behaviour with generalized response classes

Answer 62

Similar: both are defined in terms of features. In conceptual behavior, stimulus features rather than specific stimuli act as discriminative stimuli for a response. In a generalized response class, the learners able to engage in a variety of responses that have certain response features in common rather than one specific trained response. 
In both, the stimulus and response class members differ from each other in certain respects. In conceptual behavior, different conceptual class members different because they have different variable features. Likewise, in a generalized response class, responses can differ from each other, as long as they contain the critical response features that define the generalized response class. 
The tests for conceptual behaviour and generalized response classes are similar because they both require that the Leonard do something new. To show conceptual behavior, the learner must respond correctly to new stimuli that have the critical concepts features. To show a generalized response class, the learner must engage a new behaviours that have the critical features of the response class.

Question 63

Provide and recognize original examples in which conceptual behaviour and generalized response classes are learned in the same task

Answer 63

Example: solving a mathematics story problem requires that the learner make conceptual discriminations based on features of the problem, and engage in a generalized response class. They may have to set up an equation and perform mathematical operations

Question 64

A teaching method that is explicitly designed to teach both conceptual and generalized response classes at the same time. The basic strategy is to give the learner a range of teaching tasks in which the same basic stimulus and response features are present, but the specific stimuli and responses in each task vary.

Answer 64

General-case instruction or general case training

Question 65

Describe how defining the goal tasks influences the learning of conceptual behaviour and generalized response glasses

Answer 65

The first step is to define the target skills the learner is to acquire

Question 66

Describe how analyzing the critical stimulus and response features influences the learning of conceptual behaviour and generalized response classes

Answer 66

It is important to identify the critical and variable features of a concept in order to derive concept illustrations for teaching and testing purposes. A generalized response class will have critical response features that define response class membership and also variable features that will differ from member to member.

Question 67

Identifying common stimulus and response features that are present in tasks, and making this the basis for instruction

Answer 67

Sameness analysis.

By analyzing critical stimulus and response features, tasks can be divided into classes, and instruction can focus on teaching the same miss, the central stimulus and response features that make different tasks alike.

Question 68

Describe how providing rules that identify the critical stimulus and response features influences the learning of conceptual behaviour and generalized response glasses

Answer 68

Rules that inform the learner of what critical response features are required in a task will help the learner be able to acquire the generalized response class.

Rules are generally helpful in teaching learners about stimulus and response features because words and rules can identify critical stimulus and response features. Rules are useful in acquiring generalized response classes because they make use of words the learner has previously acquired

Question 69

Describe how using a variety of tasks influences the learning of conceptual behaviour and generalized response classes

Answer 69

It is important that the learner received training in a variety of tasks that sampled the stimulus and response variation that exists in the stimulus and response classes to be learned

Question 70

Describe how testing for stimulus and response class formation by requiring performance on novel tasks influences the learning of conceptual behaviour and generalized response classes

Answer 70

It is important to test the learner on tasks that require both responding to novel stimuli and novel responses. Only in this way can we determine if a class of stimuli and responses have been learned rather than specific responses to specific stimuli