Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Transferring Behavior to New Settings and Making It Last: Generality of Behavior Change Chapter 16

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Generality Trained behavior transfers from training situation to natural environment Training leads to development of new behavior that has not been specifically trained Trained behavior is maintained in the natural environment over time

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Stimulus Generalization Behavior becomes more probable in the presence of the stimulus or situation as a result of having been reinforced in the presence of another stimulus or situation –Physical similarity –Stimuli in common-element stimulus class –Stimuli in stimulus equivalence class

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Response Generalization Behavior more probable in the presence of a stimulus or situation as a result of another behavior having been strengthened in the presence of that situation –Considerable physical similarity of responses –Minimal physical similarity of responses –Functionally equivalent responses Different responses that produce the same consequences –Cooking dinner – different methods, food produced Behavioral momentum – as a result of reinforcement, probability of other functionally equivalent responses increases

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Programming Two important situations: –Training situation –Target situation – where we want the generality to occur The more physically similar the training and the target situations are, the more stimulus generalization will occur

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Programming Operant Stimulus Generalization Train in the target situation –Want the final stages to be in a situation as close to target as possible –Best way  train in target situation Vary the training conditions –Greater variety of stimuli during training means there is a greater probability that the stimuli will be present in target situation

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Programming Operant Stimulus Generalization Program Common Stimuli –Use stimuli that are present in both the training and target settings Train Sufficient Stimulus Exemplars –Training occurs in a large number of situations and to a large number of stimuli –General case programming

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Programming Operant Response Generalization Train sufficient response exemplars –EX: Programming for generality of plural Star, stars Apple, apples, plant, plants Vary the acceptable response during training –Creativity

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Programming Operant Behavior Maintenance Want behavior to last Depends upon whether behavior will continue to be reinforced Behavioral Trapping –Design program so it matches the contingencies available in natural environment –Behavior will be trapped – maintained – by natural environment

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Programming Operant Behavior Maintenance Change the behavior of people in the environment –Work with people in the environment to teach them to reinforce appropriate behaviors Intermittent schedules of reinforcements in target situation Give control to individual –Assess and reinforce own generalized behavior –Recruit a natural community of reinforcement Feedback from people around

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Pitfalls of Generality Some behaviors should not be generalized –May be inappropriate in some situations Sometimes learning fails to be generalized