Foundational Knowledge Flashcards
Behavior
the activity of living organisms; what organisms do; refers to a class of responses
Response
a single instance or occurrence of a specific class or type of behavior; an action of an organism’s effector
Response Class
a group of responses of varying topography, all of which produce the same effect on the environment
Environment
the conglomerate of real circumstances in which the organism or referenced part of the organism exists; bx cannot occur without an environment
Stimulus
an energy change that affects an organism through its receptor cells
Stimulus Class
a group of stimuli that share specified common elements along formal (i.e size, shape, etc.), temporal (i.e. antecedent or consequent, and/or functional (i.e. discriminative stimulus) dimensions
Stimulus Equivalence
the emergence of accurate responding to untrained and nonreinforced stimulus-stimulus relations following the reinforcement of responses to some stimulus-stimulus relations; when stimulus generalization occurs
3 types of stimulus equivalence:
Reflexivity- Without training, learner matches stimulus to itself
(A=A)
Symmetry- Without training, learner demonstrates the reversibility of matched sample and comparison stimuli (if A=B, B=A
Transitivity- a derived stimulus-stimulus relation that occurs after training two other stimulus-stimulus relations
(if A=B, and B=C, then A=C)
Reflex (US-UR)
a stimulus-response relation consisting of an antecedent stimulus and the respondent bx it elicits; help protect against harmful stimuli, regulates the internal balance and economy of the organism, and promotes reproduction
Respondent Conditioning (CS-CR)
a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure in which a neutral stimulus (NS) is presented with an unconditioned stimulus (US) until the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that elicits the conditioned response. (aka Pavlovian Conditioning)
Operant Conditioning
the basic process by which operant learning occurs; consequences result in an increased/decreased frequency of the same type of bx under similar motivational and environmental conditions in the future
Respondent-Operant Interactions
many times respondent and operant conditioning occur concurrently and therefore create both conditioned reinforcers and conditioned punishers
Unconditioned Reinforcement
the condition in which a stimulus change increases the frequency of any behavior that immediately precedes it irrespective of the organism’s learning history with the stimulus
Conditioned Reinforcement
the condition in which a stimulus change functions as a reinforcer because of prior pairing with one or more other reinforcers
Examples of ‘Behavior’
Hitting, kicking, spitting to get away from someone; umbrella terms for all of the responses of hitting, kicking, spitting
Examples of ‘Response’
school - student hitting his head against table
life - husband turning the channel on the tv
single instance of hitting to get away from someone
Examples of ‘Response Class’
school - student wants to gain attention from teacher, so yells out, runs out of room, hits another student
life - husband tries to get out of doing dishes by saying has something else to do, procrastinating, complaining
Examples of ‘Environment’
school - classroom, gym, hallway
life - home, mall, car
Examples of ‘Stimulus’
school - work presented, entering a certain room
life - remote to turn on tv, leash means dog knows to go for a walk
(OR AM I CONFUSING THIS WITH SD?)
Examples of ‘Stimulus Class’
school - ???
life - waving, saying ‘hello’, saying ‘hi’
Examples of ‘Stimulus Equivalence’
reflexivity - matching two identical pictures of an apple, without training
symmetry - learned how to match photo of apple to Boardmaker picture of apple and, without training, can do the reverse
transitivity - if APPLE = apple, and apple = (pic of apple), then APPLE = (picture of apple)
Examples of ‘Reflex’
something gets in nose, sneezes; touch hot stove, pull hand away
Examples of ‘Respondent Conditioning’
cable box that, when turned on would give you a shock - even during times when did not get a shock, would quickly pull hand away due prior experience of getting a shock from the box
Examples of ‘Operant Conditioning’
child asks for cookie, parents gives cookie…as a result, child will be more likely to ask for a cookie in the future
Examples of ‘Unconditioned Reinforcement’
hungry student performs task requested by the teacher and, as a result, gets a piece of candy (UR)
Examples of ‘Conditioned Reinforcement’
hungry student performs task requested by teacher and, as a result, get a piece of candy and words ‘good job!’ from teacher. over time, candy is phased out and ‘good job!’ has become the conditioned reinforcer
Attitudes of Science / Philosophical Assumptions
Determinism - universe is lawful, orderly place
Empiricism - observation of phenomena of interest
Experimentation - systematic observation of IV and DV
Replication - repeating conditions within an experiment to determine reliability of effects and increase internal validity
Philosophical Doubt - truthfulness and validity of all scientific theory should be continually questioned
Parsimony - rule out simple, logical explanations before considering more complex or abstract explanations
Reflexivity
A=A, B=B
Stimulus to stimulus relation where learner, without prior training or reinforcement, selects a comparison stimulus that is the same as the sample stimulus.
EG: When shown a set of three BoardMaker pictures (tree, cat, house), student is presented with a BoardMaker picture of a tree and can match the tree to the tree.
AKA: Generalized identity matching
Symmetry
If A=B, then B=A
Stimulus to stimulus relation where learner, without prior training or reinforcement, demonstrates the reversibility of matched sample and comparison stimuli.
EG: Students presented with spoken word ‘car’ (sample stimulus A), to then select a picture of a car (comparison B). When then presented with the picture of a car (sample stimulus B), without additional training or reinforcement, student can select the comparison spoken word ‘car’ (comparison A).
AKA: Stimulus equivalence
Transitivity
If A=B and B=C, then A=C
Stimulus to stimulus relation that emerges, without prior training or reinforcement, as a product of training two other stimulus-stimulus relations.
EG: 1) If A (spoken word ‘bicycle’) = B (picture of bicycle) and
2) B (picture of bicycle) = C (written word bicycle)
then
3) C (written word bicycle) = A (spoken word ‘bicycle’)
AKA: Stimulus equivalence
