Punishment, Generalisation, Discrimination & Stimulus Control (OC II) Flashcards
What are the two types of punishment?
• Positive punishment: giving a punisher to reduce
behaviour
• Negative punishment: removing a pleasant stimuli to
reduce a behaviour
For example: if we need to discipline a child
- Positive Punishment = smacking
- Negative Punishment = removing toys or privileges
What types of behaviours can be punish? (4)
• Intrinsic punishment: punishment is an inherent aspect
of the behaviour
• Extrinsic punishment: not an inherent part of the
behaviour, but just follows the behaviour
• Primary (unconditioned): innately punishing
• Secondary (conditioned): something that has been
associated with an another perhaps innate punishment
e.g. a disapproving look means that you have done something bad
What are five problems with punishment?
- Escape or avoidance of the punishment
- Aggression towards the punisher
- Apathy or suppression of all behaviour
- Abuse
- Immitation of the punisher
What is timeout?
A type of negative punishment-
The loss of access to positive reinforcers for
a brief period of time following a problem behaviour
What is response cost?
A type of negative punishment-
The removal of a specific reinforcer
following a problem behaviour
Punishment of maladaptive behaviour doesn’t directly
__________ the occurrence of adaptive behaviour
Strengthen
The person delivering the punishment could become a
SD for punishment such that the unwanted behaviour is
only supressed when that person is present. T/F?
True
List three benefits of punishment.
- Punishment can sometimes lead to an increase in
social behaviour - Punishment sometimes results in an improvement in
mood - Punishment can increase attention to the environment
To be effective when punishing, punishing should be (6):
- Immediate
- Consistent
- Intense enough to supress the target behaviour – but
balanced so that it is not abusive - Negative punishment is preferable to positive punishment
- Combined with an explanation (where possible)
- Combined with positive reinforcement for appropriate
behaviour
What are some alternatives to punishment?
• Response prevention: altering the environment to
prevent a behaviour from occurring.
• Extinction: stopping all reinforcement for a behaviour
in order to reduce its frequency.
• Differential reinforcement: combining both nonreinforcement of the unwanted behaviour with
reinforcement of an alternative behaviour.
- Differential reinforcement of alternative behaviour (DRA)
- Differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviour (DRI)
- Differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL)
Variables effecting punishment (7)
A number of factors may impact the experience of a punishment. Including: • Contingency • Contiguity • Punisher Intensity • Introductory Level of Punisher • Reinforcement of the Punished Behaviour • Alternative sources of reinforcement • Motivating operations
How does contingency effect punishment?
The degree to which a punishing event is
dependent on the behaviour.
• The stronger the correlation, the more effective the punishment and the faster a behaviour will change.
How does contiguity effect punishment?
The gap between a behaviour and its consequence
• In general, the longer the delay, the less effective the punisher will be.
How does punisher identity effect punishment?
The stronger the punisher is the more effective it is in
reducing an unwanted behaviour.
How does introductory level of the punisher effect punishment?
Is it better to start with the strongest intensity of a
punisher or begin with a small or weaker punisher and
build up the intensity if the behaviour continues?
Both can be problematic.
- If we build up the intensity, it can increase the threshold that the subject can withstand.
- If we start with a strong punisher we have no way of knowing the exact appropriate level.
How does reinforcement of punished behaviours effect punishment?
The association between the punished behaviour and any reinforcement must be removed
How does alternative sources of reinforcement effect punishment?
If the subject can find other ways of reinforcement (e.g. with more appropriatebehaviours) the punishment and suppression of unwanted behaviour may be more efficient
What is a motivating operation? Does it effect punishment?
Yes it does effect punishment. It is anything that changes the effectiveness of a
consequence, either in terms of increasing or
decreasing its effectiveness
What are the five theories of punishment?
- Two-prcocess theory
- One process
- Conditioned Suppression
- Avoidance theory
- Penmark’s theory
What is the two-process theory?
Punishment involves both operant and classical.
What is the one-process theory?
Punishment only involves operant conditioning.
What does conditioned suppression theory posit?
Punishment does not weaken a behaviour but instead produces an emotional response that interferes with the occurrence of the behaviour
What does avoidance theory posit?
Punishment involves a type of avoidance conditioning
What does Penmark’s theory posit?
A low-probability behaviour can be used to punish a high probability behaviour
Running on a wheel —-> Food
(LPB) (HPB)
Eating Food —> Running on a wheel
(HPB) (LPB)
What is generalisation?
The tendency for the effects of a learning
experience to be transferred to other situations or environments.
What are the four types of generalisation?
- Generalisation across people (also called vicarious generalisation)
- Generalisation across time (response maintenance)
- Generalisation across behaviours (response generalisation)
- Generalisation across situations (stimulus generalisation)
What does the generalisation gradient show us?
Shows the tendency for a behaviour to occur in situations that differ systematically from the training situation.
Describe the Little Albert experiment
• Watson & Rayner (~ 1920) • ‘Little Albert’ • A healthy 11 month old infant • Conditioned fear response demonstrating generalisation** • Rabbit • Fur coat • Dog • Santa Claus mask • Maintained at 30 days though diminished
Do all behaviours generalise?
No
How can we increase generalisation?
- Providing the training across a variety of settings
- Vary the consequences
- Reinforce generalisation
What is Stimulus discrimination?
The tendency for behaviour to occur in certain situations but not others.
To establish discrimination we use a special procedure- what is it called?
To establish discrimination we use the procedure
of Discrimination Training.
How do we SD in CC?
One CS (CS+) is regularly paired with the US and another CS (CS-) regularly appears alone.
How do we SD in OC?
One stimulus (S+) is associated with reinforcing consequences, and another is not (S-).
What is simultaneous discrimination training?
The discriminative stimuli are presented at the same time.
What is successive discrimination training?
The S+ and Salternate, usually randomly
What is matching to sample?
Where the subject is shown a sample and must select the comparison disk in order to receive reinforcement.
what is oddity matching/mis-matching?
The subject is shown a sample and must select the opposite disk in order to receive reinforcement.
SD (Discriminant Stimulus) signals ______
availability of reinforcement to increase probability of response
What does Stimilus control do?
Describes the relationship through which a discriminant stimulus reliably affects the probability of the behaviour
We often examine stimulus control through complex
schedules, what are these schedules?
• Multiple schedules consist of two or more
independent schedules presented in sequence –
order can change but reinforcement occurs in each
(differs from chained schedules)
• Stimulus control evidenced through different
response patterns for each schedule
What is behavioural contrast?
Change in rate of reinforcement on one part of multiple
schedule results in opposite change in rate of response in another part
What is the positive contrast effect?
Decrease in rate of reinforcement (or use of punishment) on one leads to increase in rate of response on other component
1 component = -
2 component= +
What is the negative contrast effect?
• Increase in rate of reinforcement on one leads to decrease in rate of response on other component
What is ancipatory contrast?
Change in rate of responding in anticipation that there
will be a change in the rate of reinforcement
Human & animal applications of stimulus control
- Medication compliance
- Study environment and specific cues to study
- Sleep
- Overeating
What are the theories of generalsation & discrimination? (3)
- Pavolv’s theory
- Spence’s theory
- Lashley-Wade theory
What did Pavolv’s theory posit?
• Discrimination training produces physiological changes
in the brain.
• The CS+ is associated with an area of excitation in the
brain and the CS- is associated with an area on
inhibition.
• If a novel stimulus is similar to the CS+ it will excite an area
of the brain near the CS+ area and elicit the CR.
• If a novel stimulus is similar to the CS- it will excite an area of
the brain near the CS- area and inhibit the CR.
What did Spence’s theory posit? Define with regard to excitatroy and inhibitory strength.
The tendency to respond to any given stimulus is a result of the interaction between the increased and decreased tendencies to respond as reflected by a gradient curve
• Excitatory Strength is increased when a response to
a specific stimulus is reinforced
• Inhibitory Strength is increased when a response to
a specific stimulus is not reinforced
• The tendency to respond to any stimulus is based upon its Net Excitatory Strength
What did Lashely-Wade’s theory posit?
• Prior experience with stimuli similar to those used in
training impacts the generalisation gradients.
• Discrimination training increases the steepness of the
gradient because it teaches the subject to tell the
difference between the target stimulus and other stimuli.
• Generalisation occurs because a subject has not had
much experience with the stimuli involved and as such is
not able to discriminate between them.
What is learned helplessness?
Learned helplessness is a decrement in learning ability
that results from repeated exposure to uncontrollable
aversive events.
Seligman & Maier
What did Seligman & Maier learn about learned helplessness with their experiment on dogs?
• Dogs that were repeatedly forced to escape
eventually recovered their ability to escape on their
own
• In therapy environments the use of graded tasks can
help individuals overcome learned helplessness in a
range of areas
