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Stimulus discrimination is a term used in bothclassical and operant conditioning.
It involves the ability to distinguish between one stimulus and similar stimuli.
This article discusses how stimulus discrimination works, when it occurs, and how it can affect behavior.
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It also covers how it differs from stimulus generalization.
At a Glance
Stimulus discrimination is an important concept in classical and operant conditioning.
It involves being able to distinguish between a specific stimulus and other similar ones.
Instead of presenting the sound of the tone, let’s imagine that he sounded a trumpet.
Not just any noise will produce a conditioned response.
Because of stimulus discrimination, only a very particular sound will lead to a conditioned response.
They would salivate in response to the circle, but not when they saw the ellipse.
Discrimination in Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioningis a form of learning that relies onrewardsandpunishmentsto teach new behaviors.
In operant conditioning, stimulus discrimination refers to responding only to the discriminative stimulus and not to similar stimuli.
Another example might be the pop in of behaviors that are appropriate in one situation but not in another.
Stimulus Discrimination vs.
Stimulus Generalization
Stimulus discrimination can be contrasted with a similar phenomenon known asstimulus generalization.
Summary
Stimulus discrimination plays an important role in the learning process.
Stimulus discrimination also occurs in real life outside of experimental lab prefs.
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