Final exam study guide Flashcards
What is an antecedent stimulus
An observable stimulus that is present before the behavior occurs.
What is discriminated operant behavior
operant behabior that is systematically influenced by antecedent stimuli
What is the definition of Sd
an antecedent stimulus that can evoke a specific operant response because the individual has learned that when the Sd is present that response will be reinforced
Example of sd
When the rat completes the behavior while the lights are on, it is rewarded with a pellet. (reinforced, ON)
What is the definition of S∆
an antecedent stimulus that decreases a specific operant response because the individual has learned that when the s delta is present, that response will not be reinforced (extinction).
Example of s∆
When the rat completes the behavior while the lights are off, it is not rewarded. (extinction, OFF)
What is the definition of Sdp
an antecedent stimulus that decreases a specific operant response because the individual has learned that when the SDP is present that the response will be punished.
Example of sdp
If you see a police car it signals to you that if you speed at that moment you’ll get a ticket.
Three terms of a 3-term contingency
The functional relation between antecedent behavior and a consequence.
Definition of discrimination training
a procedure in which an operant response is reinforced in the presence of an Sd and extinguished in the presence of an S∆
How has discrimination training been used to teach African rats to detect landmines?
TNT (the SD) or contains just dirt (the SΔ). When the rat lingers over the SD hole, a clicker is used to present a conditioned reinforcer, followed by a bit of tasty food. Between response opportunities, the location of the SD is randomly assigned. Rats soon learn to detect the smell of TNT, discriminating it from ordinary dirt.
Definition of generalization
when a novel stimulus resembling the sd evokes the response despite that response never having been reinforced in the presence of that novel stimulus.
Example of generalization
if a child learns how to zip up the jacket and is then also able to zip up the backpack, then the skill of using a zipper has been generalized
What is a stimulus-generalization gradient?
a graph depicting increases in responding as the novel antecedent stimulus more closely resembles the sd.
How are stimulus-generalization gradients shaped?
With a steep gradient.
What tactics are useful in promoting generalization?
- Teach behaviors that will contact natural contingencies of reinforcement
- Train diversely
- Arrange antecedent stimuli that will cue generalization.
What is a stimulus response chain?
Fixed sequence of operant responses, each evoked by a response produced SD.
- a series of responses that each trigger the next stimulus in the sequence: That is, Stimulus 1 (S1) leads to Response 1 (R1), which leads to S2, which leads to R2, which leads to S3, and so on.
How is a task analysis useful when teaching a stimulus-response chain?
teaching a task to an individual involves discrimination training with each stimulus-response component of the behavioral chain.
How is backward chaining used when teaching a stimulus-response chain?
teaching the final step of the task analysis initially and progressively teaching early components.
How is forward chaining used when teaching a stimulus-response chain?
teaching the links in the stimulus response chain the the order they will need to be emitted.
Definition of choice
voluntary behavior occurring in a context in which alternative behaviors are possible.
What are the four variables that affect choice?
- Reinforcement vs. No consequence
- Reinforcer size/ quality
- Effort
- Reinforcer delay
what do the letters mean in herrnstein’s matching equation?
B1 and B2 are the response rates for the two behaviors. R1 and R2 are the reinforcement rates for those behaviors.
“An organism’s relative rates of behavior will ‘match’ the relative rate of reinforcement”
What is on the left and right sides of herrnstein’s matching equation?
B1 and B2 are on the left, R1 and R2 are on the right.
What happens to choice when you manipulate the R1 and R2 variables?
Increase r1, decrease r2
- increase proportion of behavior allocated to B1.
What does the matching law have to say about drug abuse and white nationalism?
predicts outcomes and tells us how to prevent them.
-identify those who are failing in life and offer them assistance, friendship, and a source of reinforcement for engaging in socially appropriate behavior. In other words, increase the value of Rwest
How does the matching law apply to human attention?
humans choose to allocate more of their news-gathering activities to biased sources, either liberal or conservative.
What is a substitute reinforcer?
a reinforcer that is increasingly consumed when access to another reinforcer is constrained.
Contingency management of substance use disorders.
VR schedule of reinforcement
Definition of impulsitivity
Choosing the smaller-sooner reward and foregoing the larger-later reward.
Definition of self-control
Choosing the larger-later reward and foregoing the smaller-sooner reward.
What is the shape of the delay discounting function?
hyperbola
Steeply discounting delayed consequences is correlated with which human behaviors?
drug abuse, risky sexual behaviors
What are the findings of Rachlin & Green’s commitment experiment?
pigeons frequently committed themselves to this course of self-control.
-nearly always made the impulsive choice
Definition of mand speech
a verbal operant occasioned by a motivating operation and maintained by the verbally specified reinforcer
-asking for something that will satisfy an immediate need - water, a turn with a toy, or attention.
Definition of tact speech
- See something, label it.
- Evoked by non-verbal SD
- “cookie” in the presence of a cookie.
a verbal operant occasioned by a nonverbal stimulus and maintained by a variety of social reinforcers.
When “water” is a tact, it is said in the presence of water (a glass of water, a waterfall, a raindrop landing on the skin).
Definition of echoic speech
is a verbal operant in which the response resembles the verbal antecedent stimulus and is maintained with a variety of socially mediated reinforcers.
-they approximately or exactly repeat what someone else just said - they echo someone else’s response
Definition of intraverbal speech
a verbal response occasioned by a verbal discriminative stimulus, but the form of the response does not resemble that stimulus; intraverbals are maintained by a variety of social reinforcers.
-when asked “How are you”? we respond with the intraverbal: “I’m doing well; how about you?”
What is symmetric relational responding and what role does it play in human language?
the behavior of relating two stimuli as, in many ways, the same.
-the key ingredient in verbal behavior
What is multiple-exemplar training?
Training an individual to symmetrically relate arbitrary stimuli, over and over again, with multiple examples.
What is stimulus equivalence?
they treat all of the stimuli as, in many ways, equivalent to one another
-occurs when an individual demonstrates all of the untrained relations
Rule governed behavior
behavior influenced by a verbal description of the operative three-term contingency (antecedent-behavior-consequence)
ex: “You have always looked both ways before crossing a street, even though you have never been hit by a car or seen anyone else being hit by a car.”
Contingency shaped behavior
learned because of the reinforcement or punishment that the individual is exposed to by their actions.
Pliance behavior (rule following behavior)
Rule-governed behavior occurring because of socially mediated consequences (positive or negative reinforcers)
tracking behavior (rule following behavior)
rule-following occurring because the instructions appear to correctly describe operant contingencies (reinforcement, extinction, or punishment) that operate in the world.
“a person measuring their behavior, experiences, cognition, or other data points over time. Often, merely tracking a behavior can influence the likelihood or frequency with which a person performs the behavior or related ones.”
What is the “dark side of tracking”?
rules can suppress variability, and this leaves behavior unprepared for the inevitable changes in contingencies of reinforcement and punishment
What is ACT?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy- designed to therapeutically undermine the client’s rules about the causal nature of thoughts
How is ACT different that other forms of talk therapy?
-typically implemented by therapists outside of a research setting
-effective in treating anxiety and depression
-point out why the client’s “I must control my thoughts” rule is both impossible and leads to suffering
What does acceptance mean in ACT?
approaching the thought, so as to examine it flexibly, with a sense of curiosity.
What does commitment mean in ACT and how are values important in commitment?
- Accepting thoughts and recognizing that they are not incompatible with behaving in accord with one’s values are complementary skills acquired in ACT
- client-selected qualities of behavior that may be continuously emitted without reaching an end-goal.
prompt
an antecedent stimulus that facilitates or guides the desired response when it is not happening under appropriate discriminative stimulus control.
fading
gradual removal of a prompt as the response is increasingly emitted under discriminative stimulus control.
