Foundational Knowledge

Question 1

Behavior

Answer 1

the activity of living organisms; what organisms do; refers to a class of responses

Question 2

Response

Answer 2

a single instance or occurrence of a specific class or type of behavior; an action of an organism’s effector

Question 3

Response Class

Answer 3

a group of responses of varying topography, all of which produce the same effect on the environment

Question 4

Environment

Answer 4

the conglomerate of real circumstances in which the organism or referenced part of the organism exists; bx cannot occur without an environment

Question 5

Stimulus

Answer 5

an energy change that affects an organism through its receptor cells

Question 6

Stimulus Class

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Stimulus Equivalence

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

Reflex (US-UR)

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Respondent Conditioning (CS-CR)

Answer 9

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)

Question 10

Operant Conditioning

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Respondent-Operant Interactions

Answer 11

many times respondent and operant conditioning occur concurrently and therefore create both conditioned reinforcers and conditioned punishers

Question 12

Unconditioned Reinforcement

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Conditioned Reinforcement

Answer 13

the condition in which a stimulus change functions as a reinforcer because of prior pairing with one or more other reinforcers

Question 14

Examples of ‘Behavior’

Answer 14

Hitting, kicking, spitting to get away from someone; umbrella terms for all of the responses of hitting, kicking, spitting

Question 15

Examples of ‘Response’

Answer 15

school - student hitting his head against table

life - husband turning the channel on the tv

single instance of hitting to get away from someone

Question 16

Examples of ‘Response Class’

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Examples of ‘Environment’

Answer 17

school - classroom, gym, hallway

life - home, mall, car

Question 18

Examples of ‘Stimulus’

Answer 18

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?)

Question 19

Examples of ‘Stimulus Class’

Answer 19

school - ???

life - waving, saying ‘hello’, saying ‘hi’

Question 20

Examples of ‘Stimulus Equivalence’

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

Examples of ‘Reflex’

Answer 21

something gets in nose, sneezes; touch hot stove, pull hand away

Question 22

Examples of ‘Respondent Conditioning’

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Examples of ‘Operant Conditioning’

Answer 23

child asks for cookie, parents gives cookie…as a result, child will be more likely to ask for a cookie in the future

Question 24

Examples of ‘Unconditioned Reinforcement’

Answer 24

hungry student performs task requested by the teacher and, as a result, gets a piece of candy (UR)

Question 25

Examples of ‘Conditioned Reinforcement’

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Attitudes of Science / Philosophical Assumptions

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Reflexivity

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Symmetry

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Transitivity

Answer 29

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