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In behavioral psychology, stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning that occurs when an organism behaves in one way in the presence of a given stimulus and another way in its absence. A stimulus that modifies behavior in this manner is either a discriminative stimulus or stimulus delta .
Most behavior is under stimulus control. Several aspects of this may be distinguished: Discrimination typically occurs when a response is reinforced only in the presence of a specific stimulus. For example, a pigeon might be fed for pecking at a red light and not at a green light; in consequence, it pecks at red and stops pecking at green.
When a stimulus is detected by a sensory receptor, it can elicit a reflex via stimulus transduction. An internal stimulus is often the first component of a homeostatic control system. External stimuli are capable of producing systemic responses throughout the body, as in the fight-or-flight response.
Classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US). Usually, the conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a tuning fork), the unconditioned stimulus is biologically potent (e.g., the taste of food) and the unconditioned response (UR) to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response (e.g., salivation).
When the extinction of a response has occurred, the discriminative stimulus is then known as an extinction stimulus (SΔ or S-delta). When an S-delta is present, the reinforcing consequence which characteristically follows a behavior does not occur. This is the opposite of a discriminative stimulus, which is a signal that reinforcement will occur.
Cognitive control and stimulus control, which is associated with operant and classical conditioning, represent opposite processes (internal vs external or environmental, respectively) that compete over the control of an individual's elicited behaviors; [5] in particular, inhibitory control is necessary for overriding stimulus-driven behavioral ...
This mechanism of control occurs when a stimulus is at an extremely low or extremely high temperature. The organism's sensitivity to the stimulus increases, meaning the pain or itch elicited will be greater at those temperatures than they would be at room temperature. [ 15 ]
The antecedent stimulus occurs first in the contingency and signals that reinforcement or punishment is available on the contingency of a specific behavior. A discriminative stimulus, or S D, directly affects the likelihood of a specific response occurring. [2]