Exam 3 Flashcards
Stimulus control
Occurs when a response:
- Occurs in the presence of a stimulus and
- Does not occur in its absence
How does stimulus control develop?
Through differential reinforcement
- Reinforcement behavior in the presence of one stimulus. Sd: response -> Sr+ (Red light: peck -> food)
- Do not reinforce in the presence of another stimulus
S-
Stimulus that signals a punisher
Sd
Stimulus that signals reinforcement
S-delta
Stimulus that signals extinction (no reinforcement)
Other types of stimuli
Look it up somewhere (SD, S-, etc)
Parameters that affect SD effectiveness
- The potency of the reinforcer.
Exteroreceptive
External stimuli (public noises, sights, etc)
Interoreceptive
Private, internal stimuli (pain, full stomach)
What does a full bladder act as?
An Sd to go to the bathroom. Peeing is a negative reinforcer.
What can pain act as?
An Sd for finding pain relief.
What can drugs function as?
It can act as a discriminative stimulus. For instance, a rat can be trained to pick between two levels depending on whether they’ve had a drug or not.
Errorless discrimination
Slowly introduce the S-delta.
Benefits of errorless discrimination
- The S-delta does not become an aversive.
- S-delta doesn’t cause suppressive responses
- S-delta could not be used as conditioned aversive stimulus
- S-delta results in no peak shift in tests of generalization
Drawbacks of errorless learning
- Can take a great amount of time and programming to establish stimulus control.
- Skinner is attached to it.
Relational control
When a relative property is reinforced (e.g., larger).
Conceputal stimulus control
When a concept is reinforced
Delayed stimuls control
Sample stimulus is shown, it goes away, then another stimuli is presented (comparison stimuli). If it matches, pecking is reinforced. If not, there is no reinforcement.
Directed forgetting
A light (or other discriminative stimuli) indicates whether or not the comparison stimuli is going to be differential reinforcement or unconditional reinforcement.
What DMTS (delayed matching to sample) shows
- Tests for short-term memory
- The longer the delay, the worse the matching
- Evidence for “mediating” responses (behavior that causes the memory)
- How do we know that mediation happens
- You can disrupt it
- You can place forgetting under stimulus control (direct forgetting)
Phylogenic
Innate behavior - born with it (hardwired).
- Automatic
- In contrast to operant behavior which is voluntary
- Caused by stimulus
- Operants, conversely, are occasioned by stimuli
- S -> R
- Operant’s: R -> S (the consequence)
- The result of evolution
- Selection by reproductive fitness
- Operant: learning is selection by consequences
Reflex
A simple, stimulus-response relation of a gland, smooth muscle, or organ. Responses by parts of the body rather than the entire organism.
Properties:
- Inborn (likely)
- Automatic / involuntary (many do not involve the brain)
- Stimulus causes response
- Invariant (across species, individuals, time)
- Difficult to inhibit
- Usually smooth muscle or gland
- Has evolutionary survival value
- Examples: startle to a loud noise, salivation to food, pupil dilation, piloerection to cold, patellar reflex, eyeblink to irritant, coughing to irritant, removing hand from heat, infant reflexes (rooting (moving towards dark spots with mouth), sucking, moro (spreading arms and legs in response to loud noise)).
Law of threshold
A reflex law that holds that a reflex will only be activated after a certain stimulus threshold is met.
Law of intensity-magnitude
A reflex law that holds the response intensity is a function of the stimulus intensity
Habituation
A principle related to reflexes where a response decreases after multiple presentations of the stimulus.
Laws of habituation
- First response to first stimulus presentation is largest; decrements from there.
- Habituation re-acquires more readily with each habituation run (you relearn to be habituated the second time)
- Habituation proceeds more rapidly with weak stimuli
- Generalized to physically similar stimuli (habituation to gunshots can generalize to other loud noises, e.g.)
Sensitization
Increased response to a repetitive stimulus. Usually occurs when stimulus is meaningful to survival (getting better at hearing gunshots if you’re a soldier)
Tropisms
More complex innate behavior that involves the entire organism. Automatic movement of entire organism towards a stimulus.
* Eg: plants grow toward sunlight, some ant species follow upward.
Two types of tropisms
- Kinesis: random (non-directional) movement until the right stimulus conditions are found; reflexive “stoping (wood louse moves towards moist air)
- Taxis: directionally moving away from or towards a specific environment; reflexive “going”.
- Eg: Moths and light, ants can keep sun at a certain angle and change angle by 180 degrees to go home.
FAPs
Previously called instincts.
Properties
* Present at birth
* Induced by stimulus
* A largely inherited series of interrelated acts
* Rigid behaviors, often sequential (one behavior causes another)
* Species-specific
* Vary little in topography (how they look)
* Involves whole organism
* Triggered by “releasers”
* Many have survival value
* E.g.: courtship and mating, dogs digging, migration, spiders building webs, felines burying feces, lordosis, grooming, raccoons wash their food
What triggers a FAP?
“Releasers”
Do humans have FAPs?
Doesn’t seem like it but it’s hard to test. There might be some with younger kids.
GBTs
Individuals may inherit genes that may make a behavior more likely.
- GBT don’t mean destiny; environment still plays a role. However, genetic predispositions do play a role.
- E.g.:
- Aggression - certain genes can increase certain hormone levels
- Alcoholism - certain genes can make alcohol more reinforcing
- Obesity - certain genes might limit satiety hormone
Parameters that effect Sd effectiveness
- Potency of reinforcer
- Reliability in predicting reinforcer
- The immediacy of the reinforcer that the Sd predicts
Inhibitory gradient
Generalization w.r.t. inhibitory response (i.e., not responding in the presence of an S-delta or S-).
Peak shift
A shift in peaks that happens during intrademensional training where the relational aspect of the stimulus control influences the discrimination gradient.
Benefits of errorless learning
- S-delta does not acquire aversive properties
- No emotional behavior towards s-delta
- S-delta doesn’t have suppressive properties
- No peak shift in tests of generalization (because no relationship is established)
Drawbacks of errorless learning
Can take a lot of time to establish stimulus control.
