Psych 371 Chapter 9

Front 1

What is generalization?

Back 1

The tendency for learned behaviour to occur in the presence of stimuli that were not present during training.

Front 2

Why is generalization such an important topic? (pp. 303-304)

Back 2

Learning is of little value as adaptive mechanism if it only helps in precisely the same environment in which learing occurred.

Front 3

What is discrimination?

Back 3

The tendency to behave differently in different situations

Front 4

Why is discrimination a valuable ability? (pp. 303-304)

Back 4

It would be a problem if what we learned carried over to inappropriate situations. Ie. Trying to operate telephone like a candy machine.

Front 5

Provide and recognize original examples of generalization as it occurs in Pavlovian conditioning

Back 5

Dog conditioned to salivate to tunig fork vibrating at 1,000 cycles per second may be found to salivate at sound of tuning forks from 950-1100 cps. CR spreads to stimuli somewhat different from CS.

Front 6

Provide and recognize original examples of generalization as it occurs in operant conditioning

Back 6

Thorndike: cat that learned to escape from box A by clawing had greater tendency to claw at things in box C or G than it instinctively had at the start. Dog put into slightly varied boxes: more experiences it had excapting from boxes, the more quickly it learned to escape from new boxes. Pigeons peckings discs: conditioned to peck yellow, but also pecks other colours.

Front 7

How did Watson and Rayner demonstrate generalization of Pavlovian conditioning in their work with Little Albert? (pp. 304-305)

Back 7

Showed Little Albert a rabbit, raw cotton, and Santa Clause mask. LA was afraid of all, though they weren't present during conditioning.

Front 8

What is the difference between stimulus generalization and response generalization?

Back 8

stimulus generalization: same response from various stimuli. Response generalization: similar stimuli produce various responses.

Front 9

Stimulus generalization occurs

Back 9

when a response reinforced in the presence of a training stimulus causes that response to also occur with stimuli that are similar to the training stimulus. For example, children who are learning about frogs will often misidentify toads as frogs due to the similarity between the two.

Front 10

response generalization, which occurs

Back 10

when reinforcing a response class causes an increase in responses similar to that response. For example, if we train a child to dial his home phone number in preparation for possible emergency, the child's correct dialing responses increase along with dialing similar numbers (e.g., off by a single digit).

Front 11

Note on stimulus v response generalization

Back 11

the two types of generalization often occur at the same time. For example, operating a new type of computer system requires both stimulus and response generalization because on the new system it is necessary to respond to new, similar stimuli with new, similar responses.

Front 12

How can generalization be increased?

Back 12

provide training in a wide variety of settings

Front 13

Describe the results of Eisenberger and his colleagues in inducing the generalization of desirable behavioral tendencies.

Back 13

rewarding a high level of effort on one task increases the level of effort on other tasks

Front 14

What is learned industriousness?

Back 14

rewarding a high level of effort on one task increases the level of effort on other tasks

Front 15

Provide and recognize original examples of learned industriousness. (p. 305)

Back 15

Eisenberger did the original research. Reward somebody for working hard playing basketball and they are likely to work hard in school.

Front 16

The term: learned industriousness

Back 16

Comment: There is a tendency in psychology and other helping professions to invent names for problems and pathological conditions, as is done in medicine. The term “learned industriousness” is a refreshing exception to this general practice: it defines a desirable generalized behavioral tendency that educators should focus on as an instructional objective and a goal students should aspire to.

Front 17

Provide and recognize original examples of cases in which generalization is not helpful.

Back 17

Thorndike: cat learned to pull wire loop and escape continued pawing the spot when loop removed. College student of colour jokes may get big laughs in dorms but not at family dinner table.

Front 18

Describe Dweck and Repucci's (1973) study illustrating this aspect of generalization (where it is not helpful). (pp. 305-306)

Back 18

First: gave students unsolvable problems. Next: gave them solvable problems, and they couldn't. Introduce new teacher, and they could solve them.

Front 19

What is a generalization gradient?

Back 19

Plots the likelihood that a participant is to behave at though it were the training stimulus, using stimulu of varying similarity to the training stimulus.

Front 20

Provide and recognize original examples of generalization gradients.

Back 20

Hovland: paired tone with mild shock, UR was GSR. After 16 pairings, presented 4 different tones, including CS. Results showed that the CR diminised as the stimuli grew less like the CS

Front 21

Describe Guttman and Kalish's study of stimulus generalization in pigeons. (pp. 306-308)

Back 21

Trained pigeons to peck a coloured disk. Later, had opportunity to peck disks of various colours, including CS disk, for 30 seconds. Closer to CS, the more they pecked the disk.

Front 22

What is semantic generalization?

Back 22

When learned behaviour generalizes on the basis of an abstract feature.

Front 23

My addition: therapist problem

Back 23

Must train patients to generalize the behaviour they learn in a counselling session to their home and natural environments.

Front 24

Provide and recognize original examples of semantic generalization.

Back 24

Lacey: college students, paired farm words (corn) with electric shocks, CS produced raised heart rate. Presented semantically related words (cow, plow, tractor) and these also raised heart rate. Non-farm words did not.

Front 25

Describe Razran's (1939) study of the semantic generalization of Pavlovian conditioning. (pp. 308-310)

Back 25

Had 3 adults chew gum, lick lollipops, eat sandwiches to make them salivate. Meanwhile, they watched words "style, urn, frieeze, and surf" flash on a screen. Then, presented the words alone with cotton ball under mouth. Weight of cotton ball revealed salivation. Then, presented to sets of words: homonymns (stile, earn, frieze, serf) and synonyms (fashion, vase, chill, wave). Homonyms produced salivation, but synonyms produced more (meaning participants responded to meaning of the words more than the sound).

Front 26

Provide an original example of racial or nationality-based prejudice that is due to semantic generalization. Make sure that the generalization is based on a semantic dimension. (pp. 310-312)

Back 26

In WWII, "Japanese" was often paired with "dirty, cruel, sneaky, enemy" and produces negative CR to Japanese. This may generalize to words like "Asian" or "Oriental." Can also transfer to the people: a Chinese man was beaten because some men thought he was Japanese. AFter Sep 11, some Arab-Americans were assaulted.

Front 27

Can generalization of the effects of extinction and punishment occur? Explain.

Back 27

Youtz: trained rats to press horizontal lever for food, then extinguished it. This also affected tendency to press vertical lever by 63%. Same true when he tried the opposite. Hovland: extinguished tone/shock pairing. This also extinguished GSR from similar sounding tones. PUNISHMENT: Honig & Slivka:

Front 28

Provide and recognize original examples of excitatory generalization.

Back 28

Reinforce a child to be excited to see his oldest brother and he is likely to be more excited to see his younger brothers as well.

Front 29

Provide and recognize original examples of inhibitory stimulus

Back 29

Extinguish or punish Justin's attempts to steal pop and he is less likely to steal coffee as well.

Front 30

Describe Honig and Slivka's (1964) study of inhibitory stimulus generalization. (pp. 312-313)

Back 30

trained pigeons to peck many colours of disk, then punished one colour while reinforcing others. Pecking declined for punished colour and similar colours.

Front 31

Excitatory stimulus generalization

Back 31

occurs when strengthening a response to a stimulus during training also strengthens responding to similar stimuli. For example, if we reinforce a child's identification of birds as “birds,” this will likely also strengthen the child's identification of bats as “birds,” at least until we train the child to discriminate between birds and bats.

Front 32

Inhibitory stimulus generalization

Back 32

occurs when weakening a response to a stimulus during training also weakens responding to similar stimuli. Chance gives examples of this in the section on “Generalization Following Extinction and Punishment.” For example, suppose we use an extinction procedure to weaken a child's use of swearing at school, and as a result, the child's swearing among peers is also lessened. This would be an example of inhibitory stimulus generalization because the weakening effects of the extinction procedure in the school environment generalized to stimuli in the peer environment.

Front 33

What is discrimination?

Back 33

The tendency for learned behaviour to occur in one situation, such as presence of a red light, but not in another situation, such as presence of blue or green light.

Front 34

Provide and recognize original examples of discrimination.

Back 34

Stop for octogon shaped red sign but not for triangle shaped red sign.

Front 35

Explain how discrimination and generalization are inversely related. (p. 313)

Back 35

The more discrimination, the less generalization. Generalization gradients: flat gradient = little discrimination. Steep gradient = lots of discrimination.

Front 36

What is discrimination training?

Back 36

Any procedure for establishing a discrimination

Front 37

Provide and recognize original examples of Pavlovian discrimination training

Back 37

CS+ paired with US, CS- appears without US. E.g. Pavlov presented clockwise rotating object as CS+, counter-clockwise as CS- and dog soon discriminated. Also learned to discriminate between different volumes of sound, pitches of a tone, geometric forms, and different temperatures. One dog even learned to discriminate between metronome at 100 beats per minute and 96 beats per minute.

Front 38

Provide and recognize original examples of operant discrimination training. (pp. 313-317)

Back 38

rat receives food while pressing lever when light is on (S+) but not when it is off (S-). When rat only presses lever when light on, we say the rat discriminates.

Front 39

What are discriminative stimuli?

Back 39

Stimuli that are associated with different consequences of behaviour.

Front 40

What symbols are used to designate different types of discriminative stimuli? (pp. 313-317)

Back 40

Stimulus S+/SD (ess-dee superscript) means reinforcement. S-/Sdelta(triangle) means no reinforcing consequences.

Front 41

Pigeons and paintings

Back 41

Watanabe: pigeons learned to discriminate between Picasso and Monet paintings, and even between paintings they had never seen before. Were also able to discriminate between painters from the same school, or between Bach and Stravinsky.

Front 42

Define successive forms of stimulus discrimination training

Back 42

S+ and S- alternate, usually randomly. (e.g. red light on, press lever gets food. Green light on, press lever, no food).

Front 43

Define simultaneous forms of stimulus discrimination training.

Back 43

discriminative stimuli presented at the same time. (e.g. rat pushes lever under red light, gets food. Under green light, no food).

Front 44

Provide and recognize original examples of successive stimulus discrimination training

Back 44

Ask smiling mom for cookie, get a cookie. Ask a frowning mom for cookie, no cookie.

Front 45

Provide and recognize original examples of simultaneous discrimination training (p. 318)

Back 45

Mom smiling, dad frowning, ask each for cookie: mom gives the cookie, dad refuses.

Front 46

What is a matching to sample procedure?

Back 46

task is to select stimulus that matches the standard (the sample) from two or more alternatives (comparison stimuli). Comparison stimuli include S+ and one or more S-. E.g. disk on one wall (the sample) glows red or green, then turns of. Two comparison stimuli disks on other wall light up, red and green. If pigeon pecks the disk that matches the colour of the sample, reinforced with food. If not, not.

Front 47

Provide and recognize original examples of matching to sample. (p. 318)

Back 47

Teacher holds up a red card, class chooses from cards in their deck a red card (while blue and green also available).

Front 48

What is an oddity matching procedure?

Back 48

Requiring the subject to choose a comparison stimuli that is different from the sample.

Front 49

Provide and recognize original examples of oddity matching. (p. 318)

Back 49

Teacher holds up a red card, class must choose any other colour than that one from their cards (red, blue, and green).

Front 50

What is errorless discrimination training?

Back 50

Present S+ and reinforce, but present a weak form of S- for short periods, introduce slowly to minimizethe number of errors. Helps avoid negative emotional reactions.

Front 51

Provide and recognize original examples of errorless discrimination training. (pp. 319-320)

Back 51

Herbert Terrace (creator of EDT), gradually introduced vertical line (S+) on previous S+ red disk and S- horizontal line on S- green disk. Slowly faded lines in, colours out. Powers: preschoolers learned subtle color discrimation faster, with fewer erros with Terrace procedure than traditional method. Tradition: banged hard on S- lever and wandered around the room. Errorless: sat quietly when S- present, patient for S+

Front 52

What is the differential outcomes effect (DOE)?

Back 52

Reinforcer varied systematically with behaviour. Trapold: two levers on either side of light. Light red, press lever to right, get food. Light green, press lever to left, get water. Rats discriminated more quickly and achieved higher accuracy than when consequences were the same.

Front 53

Provide and recognize original examples of this effect. (pp. 320-322)

Back 53

Carlson and Wielkiewicz: tone or clicking sound. Tone: right lever reinforced. Clicker: left lever reinforced. Two groups of rats: 1. reinforcer varied consistently, one lever always brought one food pellet, the other lever, five pellets. 2. Control: correct presses sometimes produce one, sometimes five, regardless of the lever pressed. Concept even holds if one behaviour reinforced immediately and another behaviour's reinforement is delayed

Front 54

My addition: horse colors

Back 54

Horses do not see the color yello (Macuda and Timney 1999)

Front 55

Define stimulus control.

Back 55

When discrimination training brings behaviour under the influence of discriminative stimuli, the behavior is said to be under stimulus control

Front 56

Provide and recognize original examples of stimulus control. (pp. 322-326)

Back 56

Moving foot to brake when light turns red. Walk past a store that says "closed."

Front 57

My addition: pleas of stimulus control

Back 57

When someone says "everyone else was doing it!" They are claiming that they were under the control of that/those stimuli.

Front 58

My addition: weapons/violence

Back 58

Mere presence of a weapon increases the likelihood of violent acts (Berkoqitz, 1964 Berkoqitz & LePage, 1967) see p. 323 of text.

Front 59

Describe the following theories of stimulus discrimination/generalization:

Back 59

1. Pavlov's theory 2. Spence's theory 3. Lashley-Wade theory

Front 60

My addition: stimulus control and drugs

Back 60

One reason drug abusers relapse is there are cues (S+) for using drugs: drug peddlers, friends and neighbours shooting up,

Front 61

Describe the following theories of stimulus discrimination/generalization: (a) Pavlov's theory,

Back 61

Physiological changes in brain: area of excitation associated with CS+, inhibition associated with CS-. If novel stimulus similar to CS+, it will excite near CS+ area and irradiate to CS+ area and ellicit CR, and same with CS- But Pavlov never measured Brain activity, and there is no supporting evidence.

Front 62

Describe the following theories of stimulus discrimination/generalization: (b) Spence's Theory,

Back 62

Pairing CS+ with US, or conditioning response to S+ creates generalization gradient called excitatory gradient: increased tendency to respond to similar stimuli. CS- without US or S- without reinforcement decreases tendency to respond to the stimuli, this generaliation gradient is called inhibitory gradient. Tendency to respond to any stimulus was the result of interaction of increased and decreased tendencies to respond.

Front 63

My insertion: peak shift (prediction of Spence's theory of stimulus discrimination/generalization)

Back 63

Hanson: reinforced pigeons pecking yellowish-green disk (550 nm) (S+) but not slightly more yellowish (560 nm) disk. Control group only reinforced for 550 nm. Then, let pigeons peck disks of various colours, from yellow to green. Control group pecked 550 nm. Birds with discrimination training shifted away from S-, peak of responding was to stimulus about 540 nm.

Front 64

Describe the following theories of stimulus discrimination/generalization: (c) the Lashley-Wade theory. (pp. 326-331)

Back 64

Generalization occurs because organism has had too little experience with stimuli involved to be able to discriminate among them. Generalization gradients depend on prior experience with stimuli similar to those used in testing. Discrimination training increases the seepness of generalization gradient. Predicts that a colour naïve animal is trained to response to red disk, it will later response just as frequently to green disk. Conflicting results of experiments. Restricting experience with stimulus during training should be sufficient to suppor ttheory: Jenkins and Harrison: trained pigeons to peck disk. One group: tone sounded during periods of reinforcement. 2nd group: tone always sounding. Tested all for generalization: periodic tone were less likely to peck disk during silence, but also were able to generalize to different tones. Constant tone group pecked disk as much when tone on or off, and did not generalize pecking to other tones.

Front 65

What is a concept?

Back 65

Any class the members of which share one or more defining features. These features allow us to discriminate members of one class from another.

Front 66

What does it mean to understand a concept? (p. 332)

Back 66

Discriminating between stimuli that fall within concept class and those that fall outside.

Front 67

Concept learning and teachers (edited comment)

Back 67

Educators who understand concept learning and know how to apply it to K-12 education have been highly successful in boosting student achievement, even among disadvantaged students. (Becker & Englemann, 1971; Becker & Englemann, 1975).

Front 68

What is transposition?

Back 68

Kohler's term. Trained chicked to select the lighter of two gray squares. Tested them with the light gray square with a still lighter one. They chose the lighter one.

Front 69

Be able to provide original examples of transposition. (pp. 334-335)

Back 69

Spence trained chimpanzees to find food under one of two white, metal covers different only in size: 160 cm2 and 100 cm2. Food always under larger cover. After chose larger cover reliably, presented with 320 cm2 lid and 200 cm2 lid. Fujita: sameness concept in monkeys: press lever when two discs were same color (red or purple) not press when they did not match.Generalized to novel stimuli (two yellow or two green instead of 1 of each). Malott and Malott did the same with pigeons and key-halves.

Front 70

Describe a typical mental rotation experiment.

Back 70

Present an image at varying degrees of rotation, time how long it takes the subject to identify if the image matches the original.

Front 71

How can mental rotation be interpreted as generalization?

Back 71

The farther the image it has been rotated, the less it resembles the original, and the more difficult it is to generalize to that image.

Front 72

Describe how Phelps and Reit (1996) flattened the mental rotation “generalization gradient.” (pp. 335-337)

Back 72

Computer program to train students to deiscimate between shapes that did and did not match a sample. Items rotated by 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, or 300 degrees. 2nd experiemnt, with continued training the generalization gradients flattened.

Front 73

My insertion: smoking stat to know

Back 73

73,000 cigarettes/reinforcements per year for a pack a day smoker (moderate smoking). 730,000/10 years. Heavy smoker (2 packs a day) = about 1.5 million reinforcements in 10 years.

Front 74

Describe smoking and quitting smoking in terms of stimulus control relationships.

Back 74

Months after quitting, nicotine is gone, but influence of drug-associated stimuli can help maintain the habit and influence relapse. When do smokers smoke? Waking up, having coffee, after eating, during breaks, after stress, after physical exertion, after socializing, after sex, etc. These have become discriminative stimuli for lightin up.

Front 75

How can you use stimulus control principles to make it more likely that someone will quit smoking successfully? (pp. 337-339)

Back 75

R. E. Bliss and co (1989) found the presence of other people smoking led to relapse. T. H. Brandon and co studied people who had quit and then had a single cigarette in situation previously associated with smoking. 91% soon became regular smokers, nearly half within a day of the single cigarette. Two approaches: avoid situations where he has often smoked, or, undergo training to reduce the control these situations have over his behavior. The first is near impossible, the second is critical. Could do by gradually exposing to those situations while preventing him from smoking (ie. have coffee in therapist's office without smoking

Front 76

Describe the experimental neurosis in dogs that was initially discovered in Pavlov's laboratory.

Back 76

Dog learned to discriminate between circle and oval, then oval was made closer and closer to circle until dog could no longer discriminate. Dog freaked: abrupt change: hitherto quiet, squealed in stand, wriggled,used teeth and tore of apparatus for mechanical stimulation of skin, bit through tubes connecting animal's room with observer. Similar to nervous breakdown.

Front 77

Why did Pavlov label the experimental neurosis in dogs as a neurosis?

Back 77

Seemed similar to behavior sometimes seen in people who had nervous breakdowns.

Front 78

How is experimental neurosis similar to human instances of nervous breakdowns? Explain. (pp. 339-341)

Back 78

The text does not explain, but people do weird things they have never done before when they have nervous breakdowns, much like Pavlov's dog.

Front 79

My addition: subtle discrimination in teenagers

Back 79

Knowing their place vs accepting responsibility