Chapter 8 Flashcards by Mathilde Desjardins

TRUE or FALSE. The proper context between an instrumental response and the stimulus context in which the response is performed is not so important that the failure of appropriate stimulus control is not often considered abnormal.

FALSE.

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In 1961, Reynolds did an experiment by setting pigeons on a VI schedule of reinforcement. What did this experiment brought up as important ideas?

a) it shows how to theorize whether the instrumental behavior is demonstrated by variations in responding (differential responding) related to variations in stimuli and that the pecking behavior of each bird came under the control of a different stimulus.
b) it shows how to experimentally determine whether the instrumental behavior is not demonstrated by variations in responding (differential responding) related to variations in stimuli and that the pecking behavior of each bird came under the control of a same stimulus.
c) it shows how to experimentally determine whether the instrumental behavior is demonstrated by variations in responding (differential responding) related to variations in stimuli and that the pecking behavior of each bird came under the control of a different stimulus.
d) It shows that instrumental conditioning is irrelevant for pigeons and that I’m very tired.

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TRUE OR FALSE. Stimulus discrimination and stimulus control are two fundamentally different ways to consider the phenomenon of Reynolds’s experiment.

False. There are two ways to consider the same phenomenon. Without stimulus discrimination, the organism cannot come under stimulus control.

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What is stimulus discrimination?

a) Reacting negatively to a stimulus like in aversion training.
b) Treating 2 or more stimulus as separate entities, thus reacting differently to each.
c) Only one stimulus is responsible for the instrumental behavior while the other cannot elicit any behavior.
d) none of the above.

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Which problem is central in the analysis of stimulus control?

a) How organisms act in sexual conditioning.
b) how organisms identify different stimuli and how their behaviors correspond to the different stimuli.
c) How organisms perform different instrumental behaviors.
d) How organisms identify and distinguish different stimuli.

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What is stimulus generalization?

a) An organism responds in a similar fashion to two or more stimulus.
b) An organism is capable of producing the CR 10 times.
c) A stimulus that is the same for two or more experiments.
d) A stimulus that is biologically salient for two or more species.

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Guttman and Kalish, 1956, reinforced pigeons on a VI-schedule for pecking a response key illuminated by a yellow light with a wavelength of 580 nanometers then again at 570 nm and 590 nm. What effect did they demonstrated through this experiment?

a) Stimulus Generalization Effect.
b) Stimulus Gradient Effect.
c) Stimulus Generalization Gradient
d) All of the above refers to the same principle.

c. gradient of responding as a function of how similar each stimulus was to the original training stimulus.

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What kind of information does the Stimulus Generalization Gradient provides?

a) Precise information about how much a US needs to change for the organisms to respond differently.
b) general information about how organisms respond differently to the stimuli.
c) Information for the theory of the Law of Effect.
d) Precise information about how much of a change in a stimulus is required for the pigeons to respond differently.

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TRUE or FALSE. A steep generalization gradient indicates a strong stimulus control while a flat generalization gradient indicates a weak or non-existent stimulus control.

TRUE.

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what is the central issue in analysis of stimulus control?

a) what determines which of the numerous features of a stimulus situation gains control over the instrumental behavior.
b) what determines which precise feature of a stimulus situation does not gain control of the inst. behavior.
c) what determines the organisms to react to stimulus control of instrumental conditioning.
d) All of the above.

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TRUE or FALSE. Having the necessary organs to detect the stimulus being presented does not guarantee that the organisms’ behaviors will come under the control of that stimulus. Stimulus control also depends on the presence of other cues in the situation.

TRUE.

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What is Overshadowing?

a) When an organism gains power over another organism in instrumental conditioning.
b) how strongly an organism learn about one stimulus depends on how heavily other cues in the situation can become conditioned.
c) how strongly an organism learn about one stimulus depends on how heavily one cue in the situation can become conditioned.
d) how strongly an organism will not learn about one stimulus depends on how heavily other cues in the situation can become conditioned.

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A parent is trying to teach a child how to read. To do so, the parent makes their child follow along them as they read upon pages that have big pictures and small sentences. After a few times of reading the story, the parent asks the child to repeat it, they are pleased to see that the child has learned to read the book well. However, as they decide to move on to another book, the child seems to have lost all ability to read. What does the child exhibit?

a) Stimulus Generalization Gradient.
b) Stimulus Control
c) Overshadowing
d) Stimulus discrimination
e) none of the above

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TRUE or FALSE. The development of stimulus control does not depend on the type of reinforcement used in an experiment.

FALSE. It is dependent on the type of reinforcement.

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Force & Lolordo, 1973, took 2 groups of pigeons and trained them to press a foot treadle in the presence of a compound stimulus consisting of a red light and a tone whose pitch was 440 cps. For one group, the reinforcement was food and for the other, the reinforcement was the avoidance of shock. For the group paired with food, there was an increase of foot pressing when it was paired with the light and, for the group paired with the shock, they responded much more when it was paired with the tone as opposed of the light. What do these results indicate?

a) That stimulus control is irrelevant in avoidance training - all organisms respond more when paired with a tone.
b) That stimulus control of inst. behavior is determined only by the reinforcement that is used.
c) That stimulus control of inst. behavior is determined in part by the reinforcement used.
d) That stimulus control of inst. behavior is not possible for pigeons

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___ predominates when the CS acquires positive or appetitive properties and ____ predominates when the CS acquires negative or aversive properties.

a) Visual control and auditory control.
b) Visual control and Shock control.
c) Light control and Tone control
d) Sugary food control and Salty food control

What is the difference between Stimulus-element Approach and Configural-Cue Approach?

a) Stimulus-Element Approach treats a compound stimulus as an integral whole while the Configural-Cue Approach treats a compound stimulus in its different elements constituting the stimulus.
b) Stimulus-Element Approach and Configural-Cue Approach are two theories that are essentially the same thing; they both treat a compound stimulus in its different elements.
c) Stimulus-Element Approach is about the instrumental behavior of stimulus control while Configural-Cue approach treats a stimulus compound in its integral whole.
d) Stimulus-Element Approach treats a compound stimulus in its different parts while Configural-Cue Approach treats a compound stimulus in its integral whole.

TRUE or FALSE. In the Configural-Cue approach, stimulus elements are important because their individualities and not because of the way they contribute to the entire configuration of stimulation provided by the compound.

False.

The fact that certain stimuli can be perceived does not mean those those stimuli will come to control behavior. On what are those stimuli depend if they are to come to control behavior?

a) They depend on individual preferences
b) They depend on aggregates of behavior.
c) They depend on what the individual has learned about those stimuli.
d) They depend on all of the above.

What did Lashley and Wade say about stimulus generalization?

a) It only occurs under specific circumstances.
b) It reflects the absence of learning rather than the transfer of learning and occurs only if the organisms has learn to distinguish the differences among the stimuli.
c) That Pavlovian conditioning can never show stimulus generalization.
d) That stimulus generalization is only present in drug taking behaviors.

Campolattaro, Schnitker and Freeman, 2008, took laboratory rats in a eyeblink conditioning procedure. For half of the procedure, a tone of 8 000 cps was introduced with the US and for the remaining half, a tone of 2 000 cps was introduced without the US. Responding to the CS+ was quickly learned and rapid whereas responding to the CS- increased at first while not quick and decreased over time. What does this experiment use as its procedure to elicit such responses?

a) Stimulus discrimination training.
b) Stimulus Generalization training.
c) Sign-tracking training.
d) Appetitive reinforcement

What 2 important conclusions did Jenkins and Harrison provide in their experiment?

a) it shows that discrimination training decreases the stimulus control of behavior and a particular stimulus dimension (such as tonal frequency) is most likely to gain control over responding if the S+ & S- differ along that stimulus dimension.
b) it shows that discrimination training increases the stimulus control of behavior and general stimuli dimensions is most likely to gain control over responding if the S+ & S- differ along that stimulus dimension.
c) it shows that discrimination training increases the stimulus control of behavior and a particular stimulus dimension (such as tonal frequency) is most likely to gain control over responding if the S+ & S- differ along that stimulus dimension.
d) it shows that discrimination training decreases the stimulus control of behavior and a particular stimulus dimension (such as tonal frequency) does not gain control over responding if the S+ & S- differ along that stimulus dimension.

Jenkins and Harrison examined how auditory stimuli differ in pitch can come to control the pecking behavior of pigeons reinforced with food. What did Jenkins and Harrison found out through the experiment?

a) the behavior of pigeons can come under the control of auditory cues.
b) the behavior of pigeons can not come under the control of auditory cues.
c) the behavior of pigeons exhibited was typical sign-tracking behavior

What did the experiment of Jenkins and Harrison demonstrates?

a) That pigeons hear really good.
b) That pigeons can not exhibit goal-tracking behaviour.
c) that discrimination training can be used to bring behaviour under the control of environment that would not ordinarily have such influence.
d) that discrimination training cannot be used to bring behaviour under the control of environment that would not ordinarily have such influence.

TRUE or FALSE. Interoceptive cues are internal sensations produced by a psychoactive drug (or other physiological manipulation such as food deprivation). The detection of interoceptive cues are not associated with drug withdrawal and the stimulus control that such cues many exert are also not prominent components of modern theories of drug addiction.

FALSE.

What is positive patterning?

A discrimination procedure in which reinforcement is provided when 2 stimuli are presented simultaneously but not when those stimuli appear by themselves.

TRUE or FALSE. Negative patterning in which reinforcement is provided when the two stimuli are presented by themselves but not when they are simultaneous.

TRUE.

What strategies could an individual use to make sure that most of its responses were reinforced in discrimination training? a) 1. learn to respond whenever the S+ is present and not respond otherwise. 2. learn to suppress responding during S+ but respond whenever S+ was absent. 3. learn the significance of both S+ and S- by learning to respond S- and suppress responding to S+ b) 1. learn to respond whenever the S+ is present and not respond otherwise. 2. learn to suppress responding during S- but respond whenever S- was absent. 3. learn the significance of both S+ and S- by learning to respond S+ and suppress responding to S-. c) 1. learn to respond whenever the S- is present and not respond otherwise. 2. learn to suppress responding during S+ but respond whenever S+ was absent. 3. learn the significance of both S+ and S- by learning to respond S- and suppress responding to S+ d) none of the above.

What is the basic idea of Kenneth Spence's theory of discrimination training? a) elaborates on the impossibility to learn the significance of both S+ and S-, by learning to respond but without learning anything specific about the S+. b) elaborates on the possibility to learn the significance of both S+ and S-, by learning to respond but must have to learn something specific about the S+. c) elaborates on the impossibility to learn the significance of both S+ and S-, by learning to respond but must have to learn something specific about the S+ d) elaborates on the possibility to learn the significance of both S+ and S-, by learning to respond but without learning anything specific about the S+.

TRUE or FALSE. The theory of Kenneth Spence assumes that reinforcement of a response in the presence of the S+ conditions excitatory response tendencies to S-. By contrast, non-reinforcement of responding during S+ conditions inhibitory properties to S+ that serve to suppress the instrumental behavioral differential responding to S- and S+ reflects both conditioned excitation to S- and conditioning training does make S+ inhibitory.

False. The theory of Kenneth Spence assumes that reinforcement of a response in the presence of the S+ conditions excitatory response tendencies to S+. By contrast, non-reinforcement of responding during S- conditions inhibitory properties to S- that serve to suppress the instrumental behavioral differential responding to S+ and S- reflects both conditioned excitation to S+ and conditioning training does make S- inhibitory.

Kearns et., 2005, employed a summation test to determine if an S- comes to inhibit instrumental responding for cocaine following discrimination training. What do the findings suggest?

It suggests that negative discriminative stimuli (S- cues) can exert a powerful inhibitory influence on drug seeking and self-administration behavior. This inhibitory influence transfers to counteract the excitatory effects an S+ for drug administration.

What is intradimensional discrimination? a) discrimination between two behaviors that differ in terms of the value of 1 stimulus feature such as color, brightness or pitch. b) discrimination between two behaviors that differ in terms of multiple values of the behaviors such as salience, biological weak or strong. c) similarity between two behaviors that is similar in terms of the value of 1 stimulus feature such as color, brightness or pitch d) none of the above.

What is the Peak-Shift Effect?

Displacement of the highest rate of responding in a stimulus generalization gradient away from the S+ in a direction opposite the S-. The shift of the peak of the generalization gradient away from the original S+.

Hanson, 1959, examined the effects of intradimensional discrimination training on the extent to which various colors controlled pecking behaviors in pigeons. What did the results say? a) the pigeons responded the least to the S+ stimulus and responded progressively more as the color of the test stimuli deviated from the color S+. b) the pigeons responded the most to the S+ stimulus and did not respond at all when the color of the test stimuli deviated from the color S+. c) the pigeons responded the most to the S+ stimulus and responded progressively less as the color of the test stimuli from the color S+.

TRUE or FALSE. A gradient of responding that is observed when organisms are tested with a S+ from a discrimination procedure occurs to the S+; progressively less responding occurs to stimuli that increasingly differ from the S+, thus the gradient has an inverted U-shape.

TRUE.

TRUE or FALSE. The peak shift effect occurred after training in which the S- was considerably different from the S+.

FALSE. The peak shift occurred after training in which the S- was very similar to the S+.

How did Spence explain the Peak-Shift Effect?

Spence suggested that discrimination training leads to the learning of excitation to S+ and inhibition S-. Both of these were assumed to generalize to other similar cues, with the excitatory stimulus generalization gradient centered around S+ and the inhibitory gradient centered around S-.

Question about Alternative Accounts of Peak Shift...

Answer about Alternative Accounts of Peak Shift.