Chapter 11 – Responding at the Right Time and Place

Operant Stimulus Discrimination and Stimulus Generalization

Darcy, the sister of one of the authors, was a child back in the time when there were just traditional landline telephones. Behavior that is reinforced increases. Behavior that is not reinforced decreases. However, any behavior is valuable only if it occurs at the right times and in appropriate situations. When a behavior is reinforced in the presence of a particular stimulus but not others, that antecedent stimulus begins to exert control over the occurrence of that behavior. People and animals are likely to perform a behavior in a new situation if that situation is like the one in which they learned the behavior. Consider a case that is familiar to many parents: an infant learns to say “doggie” to a large, hairy, four-legged creature with floppy ears and a friendly bark. A common-element stimulus class is a set of stimuli, all of which have one or more physical characteristics in common.