Conditional and Stimulus Discriminations

Conditional and Stimulus Discriminations

1. Conditional Discrimination

   • Estabished by reinforcing responses to particular stimuli if and only if they are preceded or accompanied by particular additional stimuli
   • 4 term contingency
     • Conditional stimuli
       • antecedent stimuli
         • responses
           • consequences

2. Stimulus Discrimination

   • procedures in practice usually involve reinforcing responses to
   • Narrowing stimulus control
     • involves teaching discriminations between progressively finer and fewer properties of a stimulus until stimuli having all of the critical features of the SD control the response
   • A behavior results in one consequence in a particular setting and another consequence in other settings.
   • Effective through differential R+

3. Discrimination is evident when

   • A particular behavior occurs in the presence, but no in the absence, of a particular stimulus of stimulus property

4. Stimulus Generalization

   • the occurrence of an established behavior under novel stimulus conditions
     • SD's share physical properties
   • loose stimulus control
   • Bx evoked by an SD in the presence of irrelevant stimuli
   • Setting/stimulus generalization

5. Response generalization

   • topographical variations in behavior that are functionally equivalent to the trained topography.
   • variations in bx that contribute to shaping new behaviors.
   • response induction

6. Response Maintenance

   • the continued occurrence over time of a trained behavior once training has been discontinued

7. Generalization gradient

   • the highest response rates are associated with the original stimulus
   • As the stimuli becomes less and less similar to the original stimulus, response rated also decrease.
   • evident by a diminished rate off responding due to a property of a stimulus varying from the original SD.
   • Stimulus change decrement
   • Shown on the x-axis as the range of values over which a parameter of SD changes
   • y-axis:
     • an amount of behavior, such as rate or percent of intervals