Unit 4 terminology

Question 1

Antecedent

Answer 1

A stimulus or event that precedes the target behavior.

Question 2

Arbitrary stimulus class

Answer 2

Antecedent stimuli that evoke the same response but do not resemble each other in physical form or share a relational aspect such as bigger or under.

Question 3

Behavior

Answer 3

The activity of living organisms, or what a person does and says

Question 4

Conditioned stimulus

Answer 4

A formerly neutral stimulus change that elicits respondent behavior only after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Question 5

Consequence

Answer 5

A stimulus change that follows a behavior of interest.

Question 6

Contingency

Answer 6

Refers to dependent and/or temporal relations between operant behavior and its controlling variables.

Question 7

Environment

Answer 7

The conglomerate f real circumstances in which the organism or referred part of an organism exists.

Question 8

Environmental variables

Answer 8

Variables that are relevant to describing the stimulus environment. These can include people and items present.

Question 9

Feature stimulus class

Answer 9

Stimuli that share common physical forms or structures or common relative relationships.

Question 10

Free operant

Answer 10

Any operant behavior that results in minimal displacement of the participant in time and space.

Question 11

Function-based definition

Answer 11

Designates responses as member of the targeted response class solely in terms of their common effect on the environment.

Question 12

Operant behavior

Answer 12

Behavior that acts on the environment to produce an immediate consequence and, in turn, is strengthened by that consequence.

Question 13

Operant conditioning

Answer 13

Occurs when a behavior in a particular situation is followed by a reinforcing consequence, thus making the behavior more likely to occur in similar circumstances in the future.

Question 14

Repertoire

Answer 14

All of the behaviors that a person can do, or a set of behaviors relevant to a particular setting or task.

Question 15

Respondent behavior

Answer 15

Behavior that is elicited, or induced, by antecedent stimuli.

Question 16

Respondent conditioning

Answer 16

A process in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus, which elicits an unconditioned response.

Question 17

Response

Answer 17

A single instance of an occurrence of a specific class or type of behavior.

Question 18

Response class

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Stimulus

Answer 19

An environmental event that can be detected by one of the senses.

Question 20

Stimulus class

Answer 20

A group of stimuli that all have the same functional effect on a particular behavior. For example, each stimulus class may function as a discriminative stimulus for a particular behavior.

Question 21

Target behavior

Answer 21

The response class selected for intervention

Question 22

Temporal extent

Answer 22

Refers to the fact that every instance of behavior occurs during some amount of time.

Question 23

Temporal locus

Answer 23

Refers to the fact that every instance of behavior occurs at a certain point in time with respect to other events.

Question 24

Topography

Answer 24

The physical form or shape of behavior.

Question 25

Topography-based definition

Answer 25

Defines instances of the targeted response class by the shape or form of the behavior.

Question 26

Unconditioned stimulus

Answer 26

The stimulus component of an unconditioned reflex; a stimulus change that elicits respondent behavior without any prior learning.