Unit 5 (Ch. 9 & Reading)

Question 1

Mental rotation data are evidence of

Answer 1

generalization

Question 2

S+ is also

Answer 2

CS+

Question 3

Simultaneous discrimination training

Answer 3

the S+ and S- are presented at the same time.

Question 4

Concept

Answer 4

Any class the members of which share one or more defining characteristics

Question 5

Critical features

Answer 5

Critical features are also called relevant, defining, or distinctive features. These are the features that must be present for the concept instance to count as an instance of the concept.

Question 6

Variable features

Answer 6

Variable features are those features of the stimuli in the class that do not define the concept and vary from one stimulus instance to the next.

Question 7

Concept learning

Answer 7

• Involves both discrimination and generalization.
• Learner must use generalization within the class to respond to all the members of the stimulus class in the same way. (ie different voting methods within democracy)
• The learner must also use discrimination between stimulus classes, to label what can be considered within the stimulus class, and what cannot (ie democracy versus oligarchy, theocracy, dictatorship, etc.)
• know both the stimuli that fall within the concept class, and those that don’t.

Question 8

Transposition

Answer 8

Carrying over the relational distinction to a new situation.

- 50 or 100, it’s 100. 100 or 200, it’s 200 (the bigger).

Question 9

Errorless discrimination training

Answer 9

To prevent errors, the S- is initially introduced in very weak form, then as subject learns not to choose it it’s strengthened.

Question 10

Learned industriousness

Answer 10

Robert Eisenberger found that rewarding a high level of effort on one task increases the level of effort on other tasks. This illustrates generalization.

Question 11

Oddity matching

Answer 11

In oddity matching, the task is to select the stimulus that is different from a standard, from two or more.
Oddity matching is a form of MTS in which reinforcement is contingent on selecting a stimulus that is different from the sample.alternatives.

Question 12

The flatter the generalization curve,

Answer 12

the greater the degree of generalization.

Question 13

Spence’s theory of stimulus discrimination/generalization

Answer 13

Spence’s Theory - Spence did a little better than Pavlov. He took Pavlov’s theory and recognized that he was actually observing how an animal responded to different stimuli– he dropped the physiology bit but kept the ideas around excitation and inhibition. (excitability gradient versus inhibitory gradient). Spence seems to be all about tendencies: increased tendencies and decreased tendencies.

Question 14

Successive discrimination training

Answer 14

The discriminative stimuli alternate.

Question 15

Semantic generalization

Answer 15

Sometimes a response generalizes on the basis of the meaning of a stimulus.

Question 16

Semantic generalization

Answer 16

Sometimes a response generalizes on the basis of the meaning of a stimulus.

Question 17

Stimulus generalization

Answer 17

Stimulus generalization occurs when a response reinforced in the presence of a training stimulus causes that response to also occur with stimuli that are similar to the training stimulus. For example, children who are learning about frogs will often misidentify toads as frogs due to the similarity between the two.

Question 18

Discrimination

Answer 18

Discrimination is the tendency to behave differently in different situations. This is important because behaviour learned in one situation is not always appropriate to carry over to other situations.

Question 19

Response generalization

Answer 19

Response generalization involves reinforcing a response, and that causing an increase in responses that are anything like that reinforced one. You’re going to get a response from a wider range of things.

Question 20

Excitatory stimulus generalization

Answer 20

Excitatory stimulus generalization occurs when strengthening a response to a stimulus during training also strengthens responding to similar stimuli.

Question 21

Inhibitory stimulus generalization

Answer 21

Inhibitory stimulus generalization occurs when weakening a response to a stimulus during training also weakens responding to similar stimuli.

Question 22

Discriminative stimuli

Answer 22

Discriminative stimuli is a term reserved for operant training, and refers to the S+ and S- distinction between stimuli that will have reinforcing behaviour and stimuli that won’t. This is useful in discrimination training, as the use of both types of stimuli helps the subject to learn the distinction/to discriminate.

S+ can also be SD
S- can also be S (delta)

Question 23

Discriminative stimuli

Answer 23

Discriminative stimuli is a term reserved for operant training, and refers to the S+ and S- distinction between stimuli that will have reinforcing behaviour and stimuli that won’t. This is useful in discrimination training, as the use of both types of stimuli helps the subject to learn the distinction/to discriminate.

S+ can also be SD
S- can also be S (delta)

Question 24

Differential Outcomes Effect (DOE)

Answer 24

The differential outcomes effect (DOE) is another way of improving the rate of learning: performance is improved in discrimination training as a result of different consequences for different behaviours. Subjects learn to make the appropriate discrimination more quickly and achieve a higher level of accuracy than when 2 behaviours produce the same consequence.

Question 25

Pavlov’s theory of discrimination and generalization

Answer 25

Pavlov’s Theory - this one is physiological (think dog drool, Pavlov started as a physiologist). Pavlov speculated that discrimination training produces physiological changes in the brain. (Establishes area of excitation associated with the CS+, and an area of inhibition associated with the CS-). A similar argument could be made to cover generalization and discrimination under operant learning. Big problem though: this has never been measured in the brain, there’s no independent validation of its happening.

Question 26

Lashley-Wade theory of generalization and discrimination

Answer 26

Lashley-Wade Theory - Generalization gradients depend on prior experience with stimuli similar to those used in testing. Discrimination training increases the steepness of the generalization gradient because it teaches the animal to tell the difference between the S+ and other stimuli. But the generalization gradient is not usually flat even in the absence of training, because the animal has undergone a kind of discrimination training in the course of its everyday life. The pigeon who pecks an orange disk had already had training to discriminate colours.

Question 27

Peak shift

Answer 27

Peak shift: if trained without discrimination, will stick to S+, but if you’ve had discrimination training, will shift a bit further away from S-, so the peak will shift a bit from the S+.

Question 28

Experimental neurosis

Answer 28

The equivalent of a nervous breakdown when discrimination training gets closer and closer until the (dog) is looking at such minute differences that it eventually snaps.

Question 29

Describe the relation between concepts and words.

Answer 29

Many concepts have labels that are called words.

Question 30

What are the common factors between conceptual discrimination and stimulus discrimination that make them each effective?

Answer 30

Conceptual discrimination is a type of stimulus discrimination. Factors such as active responding, pretraining procedures, similarity of the stimuli, relationship between the training and goal stimuli, similarity of required responses, rate of stimulus presentation, and the order of stimulus presentation all contribute to the effectiveness of conceptual discrimination as well as stimulus discrimination.

Question 31

What contributes to effective concept discrimination?

Answer 31

• defining the goal of concept discrimination through concept analysis (lions vs elephants or tigers)
• Defining the concept
• Training discrimination skills with examples and non-examples

Question 32

Concept analysis

Answer 32

Concept analysis is a specific means of defining the goal of conceptual discrimination. A concept is broken down into its critical and variable features, allowing a teacher to construct concept example and non-examples for teaching purposes.

Question 33

How do errors of misconception happen?

Answer 33

Errors of misconception, or “misrules”, happen when there is too much difference between examples and non-example, and so the learner makes false assumptions about what are the critical features of the concept.

Question 34

Generalized response class

Answer 34

When a learner is trained to engage in a response that has a set of specified features, and this training allows the learner to engage in new responses that have those features, we say that the learner has acquired a generalized response class.

Generalized response classes are also called operations or (or one an operant), and the training that produces a generalized response class is sometimes called operations training.

Question 35

How to use examples and non-examples in concept learning

Answer 35

a. Focal examples promote long-term retention of the conceptual discrimination, since they give abstract material a concrete representation.
b. Using a broad range of examples allows learners to understand just how much variation is involved in the conceptual stimulus class, and what that looks like.
c. Using minimally different non-examples is important to prevent misconception about what are the critical features.

Question 36

What helps with the learning of conceptual behavior and generalized response classes?

Answer 36

• Define the goals
• Sameness analysis
• Define the critical stimulus and response features
• Using a variety of tasks
• Have the learner perform novel tasks