Psych 4080 Generalization and Maintenance (Exam 2)

Process of Generalization

when behavior change persists in contexts that are not identical to the training context; behavior persists in natural environment

We say behavior-change generalized....

whenever it persists despite the change in context

Generalization Example

a child is taught in a lab how to honor others' personal space by maintaining a distance.

- A new researcher arrives, and the child continues to maintain an appropriate distance from them

- Later, the child continues to maintain distance from strangers in the grocery store and at school

Evaluating Generalization

Evaluate how behavior change looks in non-training contexts before, after, and during treatment/intervention

-We cannot conclude generalization without a pre-intervention baseline because we wouldn't know if the problem behavior was ever present in that context

Example of Evaluating Generalization

-A child is being taught to identify trees in a lab using different 2D pictures of 3 different kinds of trees.

-The researcher shows the child a tree outside before being shown the pictures (baseline), during intervention, and after inetrvention

3 Ways to Facilitate Generalization

1. Ensure variability/unpredictability

2. Make the training more like the naturalistic environment

3. Make natural environment more therapeutic

ensure variability example

have different therapists, different training settings (classroom, lab, outside), different SDs, different stimuli

Make the training more like the naturalistic environment example

-to alter classrooms behavior, make the clinic look more like the classroom

-to teach a child to identify trees, show the child real trees outside over pictures

Make natural environment more therapeutic Example

a child is learning to ask for playtime attention at more appropriate times

-researchers teach parents to better signify to child when they are open to play, such as leaving office door open when ready to deliver attention

Pure maintenance

the persistence of behavior change in the training context after the intervention has been removed.

Evaluating maintenance

Remove intervention or components of intervention following behavior change

Maintenance will be more likely:

the closer the type of reinforcement and the closer the schedule of reinforcement approximates the natural environment

Removal of intervention in maintenance

-never really means extinction, instead its usually change in type of reinforcement or the probability of reinforcement

Persistence is most influenced by

-the contingencies of reinforcement during the intervention

-how clear it is that the intervention has been removed

Facilitating Maintenance

1. Gradually thin the schedule of reinforcement

2. Gradually fade out artificial or arbitrary reinforcers

Why can't we assess generalization and maintenance together?

if we change context AND remove intervention components at the same time and behavior doesn't persist, we won't know if the failure of persistence is due to a failure of generalization (different context) or maintenance (lack of intervention)

Generalization Question

How do the effects hold up in the presence of non-identical stimuli/contexts begore/during/after acquisition in the intervention context?

Maintenance Question

How do effects hold up after intervention has been withdrawn?