Responding at the Right Time and Place

This chapter defines stimulus control, discriminative stimulus (S^D), and operant stimulus discrimination training. It discusses the characteristics of common-element stimulus class, concepts, conceptual behavior, and stimulus equivalence class. A discriminative stimulus is a stimulus in the presence of which an operant response will be reinforced. An extinction stimulus or S^∆ is a stimulus in the presence of which an operant response will not be reinforced. Operant stimulus discrimination training refers to the procedure of reinforcing a response in the presence of an S^D and extinguishing that response in the presence of an S^∆. A common-element stimulus class is a set of stimuli, all of which have one or more physical characteristics in common. A stimulus equivalence class is a set of completely dissimilar stimuli—that is, have no common stimulus element—which an individual has learned to group or match together or respond to in the same way.