Stimulus Control and Discrimination
If a child only says "hello" when they see a familiar person because that behavior has been reinforced in the past, the response is said to be under....
Stimulus Control:
Stimulus control occurs when a behavior is more likely to occur in the presence of a specific antecedent stimulus due to a history of reinforcement.
Behavior that occurs more often in the presence of an SD than in its absence is said to be under stimulus control. Technically, stimulus control occurs when the rate, latency, duration, or magnitude of a response is altered in the presence of an antecedent stimulus" (Cooper et al., p. 396).
A client groups pictures of a "bus" and a "train" together as forms of transportation, despite them not sharing common features. What is this an example of?
Arbitrary Stimulus Class:
Stimuli composing an arbitrary stimulus class evoke the same response, but they do not share a common stimulus feature (i.e., they do not resemble each other in physical form, nor do they share a relational relationship) (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 402).
A stimulus that signals a reinforcement is NOT available for a specific behavior.
stimulus delta (SΔ) "sss delta"
In the presence of an SΔ, a particular response is less likely to occur because it has not been reinforced in the past. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 396)
A therapist puts a sticker on the correct button to press on a communication device, is an example of a ____ ______.
Stimulus prompt
Stimulus prompts involve highlighting or altering physical dimensions of stimuli to increase the likelihood of a correct response. Examples include movement, position, and redundancy of antecedent stimuli.(Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 404)
The procedure used to teach an individual to differentiate between stimuli by reinforcing responses to a specific stimulus while not reinforcing responses to other stimuli.
Stimulus discrimination training
Responses in the presence of one stimulus condition (SD) are reinforced, and responses in the presence of the other stimulus (SΔ) are not reinforced (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 396)
A teacher using different types of timers to let the know the children need to clean up is an example of a ______ _______ _________.
Antecedent Stimulus Class
A group of stimuli that involves sharing similar attributes and functions, and that comes before a behavior, potentially triggering it (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 402).
If A child only identifies their mother by her hair color and fails to recognize her when she wears a hat, they are said to be demonstrating ________ _______ ___________.
Overselective Stimulus Control
The focus on irrelevant characteristics of a stimulus rather than the whole stimulus itself, which makes learning the behavior difficult and overgeneralizing an issue. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 404)
When teaching a client to answer "what is your name?" The therapist first waits for a response, then provides a partial verbal prompt ("My name..."), and finally gives the full answer if needed. This is an example of____ _____ _____.
Least-to-Most Response Prompts:
When transferring stimulus control using least-to-most response prompts, the applied behavior analyst gives the participant an opportunity to perform the response with the least amount of assistance on each trial. The participant receives greater degrees of assistance with each successive trial without a correct response (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 406)
This describes a graphical representation which depicts the degree of stimulus generalization and discrimination by showing the extent to which responses reinforced in one stimulus condition are emitted in the presence of untrained stimuli.
(Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 397)
Stimulus Generalization Gradient:
A client is taught to identify all "round" objects (balls, plates, clocks). The shared ______ of roundness defines the ______.
Feature......class
Feature stimulus class
Stimuli in a feature stimulus class share common physical forms (e.g., topographical structures) or common relative relations (e.g spatial arrangement). (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 402)
This process involves highlighting a physical dimension (e.g., color, size, position) of a stimulus to increase the likelihood of a correct response. The highlighted or exaggerated dimension is faded gradually in or out. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 407)
Stimulus fading
When teaching a client to wash their hands. The therapist starts with full physical guidance, then reduces to a light touch, then to gestures, and finally to verbal instructions, is an example of what procedure?
Most-to-least response prompts:
To apply most-to-least response prompts, the analyst physically guides the participant through the entire performance sequence, and then gradually reduces the amount of physical assistance provided as training progresses from trial to trial and session to session. Customarily, most-to-least prompting moves from physical guidance to visual prompts to verbal instructions, and finally to the natural stimulus without prompts.(Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 406)
A client is taught to touch a picture of a "fork" when asked "touch the one you eat with" only when a picture of a plate is present. The plate's presence conditions the correct response indicating that_________ ____________ has been achieved.
Conditional Discrimination
A type of discrimination where the correct response to a stimulus depends on the presence of another stimulus. This involves understanding the context in which a particular stimulus is relevant. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 398)
A group of stimuli that elicit the same response but do not share any common features, meaning they do not look alike or have any relational similarities.
Arbitrary stimulus class:
Stimuli composing an arbitrary stimulus class evoke the same response, but they do not share a common stimulus feature.(Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 402)
If a teacher is trying to model how to say thank you, while another child is throwing a loud tantrum in the classroom, the tantrum is ____________ the instruction.
Overshadowing
Occurs when a competing stimulus or distracting stimuli interfere with the ability of the main stimulus to elicit a behavioral response. This phenomenon can lead to a diminished response to the primary stimulus due to the presence of the competing stimuli.(Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 405)
A systematic teaching method where a brief delay is introduced between an instruction and a prompt, gradually fading the need for prompts as the learner progresses is known as _____ _____. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 406)
Time Delay
When a child learns to touch a blue block when asked "touch blue" (SD) and not touch a red block when asked "touch blue, then________ _______has been achieved.
Stimulus Discrimination
The ability to differentiate between stimuli and respond only to the specific stimulus that has been reinforced.(Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 396).
A child learns the ______ of "fruit" by being shown various examples (apples, bananas, oranges) and learning to identify them as fruit, even when shown new examples.
Concept
A mental representation or category that encompasses a set of stimuli sharing common features. Concepts allow individuals to respond appropriately to new stimuli based on their learned experiences. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 401)
Is this an example of Stimulus Blocking or Overshadowing?
A student has learned to respond correctly to a teacher's verbal instruction "clean up." However, when the teacher gives the instruction while a fire alarm is sounding, the student does not respond. The loud alarm impacts their ability to respond to the instruction.
Stimulus Blocking:
In this example A previously learned stimulus is "blocked" by a new, competing stimulus. Essentially, learning has occurred, but a new stimulus prevents the learned response from happening.
In stimulus blocking (sometimes called masking), even though one stimulus has acquired stimulus control over behavior, a competing stimulus can block the evocative function of that stimulus. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020, p. 405)
A therapist uses a physical prompt (hand-over-hand) to guide a client to write their name is an example of a ______ _______.
Response Prompt
An invasive response and also an additional antecedent stimuli that involves directly modeling the behavior. (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020)