Discrimination, Generalization and Fading

Behaviour are context dependent. What does this mean?

Behaviour is valuable only at the right time and appropriate situation

Successful behaviour change depends on

teaching/learning when and where a behaviour is appropriate

Antecedent

Events or interactions that happen before the behaviour occurs

Behaviour

behaviour or sequence which has occurred

Consequence

events or interactions which happen after the behaviour

operant behaviour always influenced by

Environment, including people, places, objects, etc

Stimulus Control

degree of correlation between a stimulus and subsequent response

Good or Effective stimulus control

High correlation between presentation of stimulus and likelihood of the response occurring

S^D – Discriminative Stimulus

Response has been reinforced only in the presence of a particular stimulus, Cue that a particular response will pay off

S^Δ - Extinction Stimulus

Response has been extinguished only in the presence of a particular stimulus, Cue that a particular response will not pay off

A stimulus may be simultaneously an SD for one response and an SΔ for another. Example?

Teacher is a discriminative Stimulus for raising their hand, but also a extinction stimulus because kids do not act out, speak out, ect

Stimulus Discrimination

Process by which we learn to emit a specific behaviour in the presence of some stimuli and not in the presence of other stimuli

Operant Stimulus Discrimination Training:

Procedure of reinforcing a response in the presence of an SD and extinguishing that response in the presence of an S∆

Unlearned stimulus generalization due to considerable physical similarity

Likely to perform a behaviour in a new situation if that situation is very similar to situation when behaviour was learned (e.g., D2L, Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas)

Learned stimulus generalization involving minimal physical similarity

Have to learn the stimulus class, or concept

Common-element stimulus class

Set of stimuli, all of which have some physical characteristic in common

Conceptual behaviour

emitting appropriate behaviour to all members of a common-element stimulus class, but not those that don't belong to the class

Contingency

if-then arrangement (press button on water fountain then water will come)

Two-term contingency

Behaviour-consequence

Three-term contingency

As and Cs of a B (explains what cues in the environment influence the behaviour)

Contingency shaped behaviour

developed through trial and error

Rule-governed behaviour

controlled by statement of a rule

Fading

Gradual change over successive trials of an antecedent stimulus that controls a response so that the response eventually occurs to a partially changed or completely new stimulus

Process of slowly removing prompts after behaviour is established

Dimension

any characteristic of the stimulus that can be measured on some continuum (loud to soft, heavy pressure to no pressure)

Fading occurs along

dimensions of stimuli

Prompt

a supplemental antecedent stimulus provided to increase the likelihood that a desired behaviour will occur, but that is not the final target stimulus to control that behaviour (physical, gestural, modeling and verbal)

Extra-stimulus prompts

something that is added (adding a sticky note or a parent pointing to a fork when asking a child to pass them the fork)

Within-stimulus prompts

alterations to the SD or S∆ to make them more noticeable and easier to discriminate