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Karen Siyuan Chen
 Stimulus
 Any event or object in the environment to which an organism responds
 Reflex
 An involuntary response to a stimulus
 Eye blink to a puff of air
 Conditioned reflex
 A learned involuntary response elicited by an unconditioned
stimulus
 Salivate at the sound of rattling
 Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
 Stimulus that elicits a specific unconditioned response without
learning
 Food
 Loud noise
 Light in eye
 Puff of air in eye
 Unconditioned response (UCR)
 Response that is elicited by an unconditioned stimulus without prior
learning
 Salivation
 Startle
 Contraction of pupil to light
 Eye blink response
 Conditioned stimulus (CS)
 Neutral stimulus that, after repeated pairing with an
UCS, becomes associated with it and elicits a CR
 The tone which caused the salivation
 Conditioned response (CR)
 Learned response that comes to be elicited by a CS as a
result of its repeated pairing with an UCS
 The salivation which was produced by the tone
 Fear can be produced
and also can be
generalized.
 Pay attention to horror
movies or ghost stories.
 Opposite to generalization, which means that it only
response to the original conditioned stimulus, but not
to similar stimuli.
Smell and taste are closely associated because the
smell of a particular food is a signal for its taste
and the physical sensation associated with eating
it.
You can imagine how the fresh bread smells, tastes,
and its texture by viewing the picture.
 What happens when you smell food?
 Stomach rumbles due to digestive processes that
typically follow the smell and taste of food
 Pancreas responds to counteract conditioned rise
in blood sugar after a sweet taste on the tongue
 Dental visits
 Sound of the drills and suction
 Smell of the office
 Sight of the chair and light
 Drug use
 The CS associated with drug use lead individuals to seek out those
substances
 Counselors urge recovering addicts to avoid any cues (people, places, and
things)
 Taste aversion
 Intense dislike and/or avoidance of a particular food that has been
associated with nausea or discomfort
 Chemotherapy
 Chemotherapy treatments can result in a conditioned taste aversion
 Providing a “scapegoat” target can help patients maintain a proper diet
 Operant
Conditioning
 satisfying
consequences
 A type of learning in which the
consequences of behavior are
manipulated in order to:
 Increase or decrease the frequency of
a response
 Shape an entirely new response
 Operant
 Voluntary behavior that accidentally
brings about a consequence
 Reinforcer
 Anything that:
 Follows a response and strengthens it
 Increases the probability that it will
occur
 Generalization
 The tendency to make the learned response to a stimulus similar to that for
which the response was originally reinforced
 A pigeon trained to peck a yellow disk will peck similarly-colored disks
 The less similar the color the lower the rate of pecking will be
 Discriminative stimulus
 A stimulus that signals whether a certain response or behavior is likely to be
rewarded, ignored, or punished
 Children misbehave with a grandparent because the discriminative stimuli
(parents) are not present
 Successive Approximations
 A series of gradual steps, each more similar to the final desired response
than the one before
 Reward disruptive children for very short periods of good behavior, then
expecting them to gradually work for longer and longer periods
 Extinction
 The weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response as
a result of withheld reinforcement
 Shaking a vending machine that fails to deliver soda or candy before giving
up and walking away
 Positive reinforcement
 Any pleasant or desirable consequence that:
 Follows a response
 Increases the probability that the response will be repeated
 Roughly the same as a reward
 You smile as you walk down the street
 People smile back at you and say nice things
 You want to smile at everyone
 Negative reinforcement
 Termination of an unpleasant condition after a response
 Increases the probability that the response will be
repeated
 Turning on air conditioning to avoid the heat
 Tie your seatbelt and stop the bee-noise
 Heroin addicts will do almost anything to get another fix and
avoid the pains of withdrawal
 Primary Reinforcer
 A reinforcer that fulfills a basic physical need for survival and does
not depend on learning
 Food
 Water
 Sleep
 Secondary Reinforcer
 Acquired or learned through association with other reinforcers
 Money
 Praise
 Applause
 Fixed-Ratio
 Seller will get bonus when they reach the goal
 Variable-Ratio
 Gambling
 Fixed-Interval
 Your monthly payroll
 Variable-Interval
 Quiz in class
 The removal of a pleasant stimulus or the application of an
unpleasant stimulus, thereby lowering the probability of a
response
 Can you tell me some examples of punishment in
harry potter movies?

Timing
Don’t kick the dog today for what it did yesterday --- it won’t connect the punishment with the
misdeed.
 If delay is necessary, the punishment should remind them of the incident and explain why it
was inappropriate.
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Intensity
Unnecessarily severe punishment leads to adverse side effects.
Purpose of punishment is NOT to vent anger but to modify behavior.
If too mild, it will have no effect.
Gradually increasing the intensity of the punishment causes the perpetrator to adapt and the
unwanted behavior will persist.
 To suppress a behavior, the punishment must be more punishing than the misbehavior is
rewarding.
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A $200 ticket is more likely to suppress speeding than a $2 ticket.
Consistency

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Parents can not ignore misbehavior one day and punish the same act the next day.
Both parents should react to the same misbehavior in the same way.
An undesired response will be suppressed more effectively when the probability of
punishment is high.

Most people will not speed when a police car is in the rear-view mirror.
 Best effect: immediate
reinforcement
 The longer it delays, the
lower they response
 Lose weight
 Complete homework on time
 Do not waste money
 Not getting angry easily
 Make good use your spare time
 Attend to community service
 Go to church every Sundays
 Get up regularly in school days
 Do exercise in Gym