U7: Stimulus Control and Discrimination: Supporting Maintenance and Generalization of Behavior

Stimulus Class:

A group of stimuli that share specific common elements along formal (size, color), temporal (antecedent/consequence), and or functional (discriminative stimulus) dimensions.

Antecedent Stimulus Class:

A set of stimuli that share a common relationship. All stimuli in an antecedent stimulus class evoke the same operant behavior or elicit the same respondent behavior.

Arbitrary Stimulus Class:

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 (e.g. Peanuts, cheese, and chicken are members of an arbitrary stimulus class if they evoke the response “sources of protein”.)

Feature Stimulus Class:

Stimuli that share common physical forms or structures (example: made from wood, four legs, blue) or common relative relationships (example: bigger than, hotter than, higher than, next to).

Stimulus Control:

A situation in which the frequency, latency, duration, or amplitude of a behavior is altered by the presence or absence of an antecedent stimulus.

Discriminative Stimulus (SD):

A stimulus in the presence of which responses of some type have been reinforced and in the absence of which the same type of responses have occurred and not been reinforced. This history of differential reinforcement is the reason an SD increases the momentary frequency of the behavior.

Stimulus Delta (S):

A stimulus in the presence of a given behavior has not produced reinforcement in the past.

Stimulus Equivalence:

The emergence of accurate responding to untrained unreinforced stimulus–stimulus relations following the reinforcement of responses to some stimulus–stimulus relations.

Reflexivity:

A type of stimulus-to-stimulus relation in which the learner, without any prior training or reinforcement for doing so, selects a comparison stimulus that is the same as the sample stimulus (ex. A = A).

Symmetry:

A type of stimulus-to-stimulus relationship in which the learner, without prior training or reinforcement for doing so, demonstrates the reversibility of matched sample and comparison stimuli (ex. A = B, then B = A).

Transitivity:

An untrained stimulus-stimulus relation that emerges as a product of training to other stimulus-stimulus relations. (ex. if A = B and B = C, then A = C)

Match to Sample (MTS):

A procedure for investigating conditional relations and stimulus equivalence. A match to sample begins with the participant making a response that presents or reveals the sample stimulus. With two or more comparison stimuli presented, the participant selects one of the comparison stimuli, where those that match the sample stimulus are reinforced.

Stimulus Generalization:

When an antecedent stimulus has a history of evoking a response that has been reinforced in its presence, the same type of behavior tends to be evoked by stimuli that share similar physical properties with the controlling antecedent stimulus.

Stimulus Discrimination:

The conventional procedure requires one behavior and two antecedent stimulus conditions. Responses are reinforced in the presence of one stimulus condition, the SD, but not in the presence of the other stimulus, S Delta - S)

Concept Formation:

A complex example of stimulus control that requires stimulus generalization within a class of stimuli and discrimination between classes of stimuli.

Response Maintenance:

The extent to which a learner continues to perform the target behavior after a portion or all of the intervention responsible for the behavior's initial appearance in the learner’s repertoire has been terminated.

Response Generalization:

The extent to which a learner emits untrained responses that are functionally equivalent to the trained target behavior.

Setting/Situational Generalization:

The extent to which a learner emits the target behavior in a setting or stimulus situation that is different from the instructional setting.

Instructional Setting:

The environment where instruction occurs; includes all aspects of the environment, planned and unplanned, that may influence the learner’s acquisition and generalization of the target behavior

Generalization Setting:

Any place or stimulus situation that differs in some meaningful way from the instructional setting and in which performance of the target behavior is desired.

Generalization across subjects:

Changes in the behavior of people not directly treated by an intervention as a function of treatment contingencies applied to other people.

Naturally existing contingency:

Any contingency of reinforcement or punishment that operates independent of the practitioner’s efforts; includes socially mediated contingencies contrived by other people and already in effect in the relevant setting.

Contrived Contingency:

Any contingency of the reinforcement or punishment designed and implemented by a practitioner to achieve the acquisition, maintenance, and/or generalization of a targeted behavior change.