Terms PSYCH 311

Appetitive stimulus: A pleasant or satisfying stimulus that can be used to positively reinforce an instrumental response.

Aversive stimulus: An unpleasant or annoying stimulus that can be used to punish an instrumental response.

Behavioral contrast: A change in the value of a reinforcer produced by prior experience with a reinforcer of a higher or lower value.

Continuous Reinforcement (CRF): A schedule of reinforcement in which every occurrence of the instrumental response produces the reinforcer.

Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior (DRO): Reinforcement is provided for any behavior except the target behavior.

Discrimination: Differential responding in the presence of two or more stimuli.

Escape: A behavior that leads to the termination (end) of an aversive stimulus.

Extinction: The process of reducing a previously reinforced behavior by withholding reinforcement.

Extinction Burst: An increase in the frequency of responding when an extinction procedure is initially implemented.

Fixed Interval (FI) schedule: The first response after a fixed amount of time has elapsed is reinforced.

Fixed Ratio (FR) schedule: Reinforcement is delivered after a fixed number of responses.

Generalization: Responding to test stimuli that are different from the cues that were present during training.

Instrumental Conditioning: A type of learning in which the consequences of a behavior determine the likelihood of that behavior being repeated.

Magnitude of Reinforcer: The size or intensity of a reinforcer.

Negative punishment: An appetitive stimulus is removed as a result of a target behavior, leading to a decrease in the future probability of the behavior.

Negative reinforcement: An aversive stimulus is removed following a target behavior, leading to an increase in the future probability of that behavior.

Omission training (negative punishment): An instrumental conditioning procedure in which the instrumental response (behavior) prevents the delivery of a reinforcing stimulus.

Operant conditioning: A type of learning where behavior is controlled by consequences.

Partial Reinforcement (Intermittent Reinforcement): A schedule of reinforcement in which only some of the occurrences of the instrumental responses are reinforced.

Positive punishment: An aversive stimulus is added as a result of the target behavior, leading to a decrease in the future probability of the behavior.

Positive reinforcement: A preferred or appetitive stimulus is provided (added) as a result of the target behavior, leading to an increase in the future probability of the target behavior.

Premack Principle: A principle stating that a high-probability behavior can be used to reinforce a low-probability behavior.

Primary reinforcer (unconditioned): A stimulus that is inherently reinforcing (e.g., food, water, sex).

Punishment: A consequence that decreases the future probability of the behavior it follows.

Reinforcer: Any consequence that increases the future probability of the behavior it follows.

Reinforcer devaluation: A procedure that makes a reinforcer less attractive.

Reinstatement: The reappearance of an extinguished response produced by exposure to the US or reinforcer.

Renewal: Reappearance of an extinguished response produced by a shift away from the contextual cues that were present during extinction.

Resistance to extinction: The extent to which responding persists during extinction.

Response allocation approach: An approach to understanding reinforcement that considers the broad range of activities that are always available to an individual.

Response deprivation hypothesis: An explanation of reinforcement according to which restricting access to a response below its baseline rate of occurrence (response deprivation) is sufficient to make the opportunity to perform that response an effective reinforcer.

Resurgence: The reappearance of an extinguished response caused by the extinction of another behavior.

Secondary reinforcer (conditioned): A stimulus that becomes an effective reinforcer because of its association with a primary unconditioned reinforcer (e.g., money, praise).

Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance of an extinguished response after a period of time has elapsed since the extinction procedure.

Stimulus control: The extent to which behavior is influenced by the presence or absence of specific stimuli.

Stimulus discrimination: The ability to respond differently to different stimuli.

Stimulus generalization: The tendency to respond in a similar way to stimuli that share similar features with the original stimulus.

Stimulus generalization gradient: A graph that shows the strength of responding to different stimuli that vary along a particular dimension.

Superstitious behavior: Behavior that increases in frequency because of accidental pairings of the delivery of a reinforcer with the occurrences of the behavior.

Temporal contiguity: The occurrence of two events, such as a response and a reinforcer, at the same time or very close together in time.

Temporal relation: The time interval between an instrumental response and the reinforcer (consequence).

Variable Interval (VI) schedule: The first response after a variable amount of time has elapsed is reinforced.

Variable Ratio (VR) schedule: Reinforcement is delivered after a variable number of responses.