THE QUANTAL NATURE OF CONTROLLING STIMULUS‐RESPONSE RELATIONS AS MEASURED IN TESTS OF STIMULUS GENERALIZATION¹

Abstract

This paper is a selective review of research that addresses the validity of two interpretations of stimulus generalization. One interpretation, referred to as the descriptive stimulus-control interpretation, proposes that during stimulus generalization a continuous relation exists between stimulus and response dimensions. The other interpretation, referred to as the quantal interpretation, proposes that a stimulus-response relation functions as a unit that may or may not occur. From the latter viewpoint, the continuity typically obtained during generalization tests is deemed to be artifactual and to result from averaging across multiple controlling stimulus-response relations. Studies examining the contribution of these multiple relations to generalization gradients are reviewed. With few exceptions, the quantal interpretation appears to better characterize the results of these studies. Implications for peak shift, selection of analytical level, and identification of the behavioral unit are discussed, as well as factors that may determine the acceptability of the quantal interpretation.

Some Things We Learned From Sidman and Some We Did Not (We Think)

“…Bickel & Etzel, 1985), stimulus control outcomes at levels less those desired by the experimenter/teacher indicate not weak control but rather (1) different control than was intended or (2) desired stimulus control relations mixed with undesired ones. In this conception, learning of stimulus control relations need not require the gradual strengthening suggested by learning curves but can occur virtually instantaneously after laying a foundation of prerequisite stimulus control relations.…”

Context generalization in Drosophila visual learning requires the mushroom bodies

“…For ef®cient learning in a continuously changing world, not only the context but also the conditioned stimulus has to be generalized to some extent 14 . We investigated whether the mushroom bodies might also be required for this type of processing.…”

Inhibition: A Cautionary Tale

“…The frequency distribution of the durations of these interresponse times provides a measure that is comparable to an ethogram-an exhaustive categorization of the responses within the organism's repertoire (see Palmer, Donahoe, & Crowley, 1985). Through the use of the interresponse-time distribution, a wide range of discriminative and generalization phenomena that were discussed previously in terms of excitatory and inhibitory processes may now be analyzed as the interplay among a variety of specific responses controlled by the various stimuli in the test environment (e.g., Crowley, 1979;Gray, 1976;Migler, 1964;Staddon, 1977; for reviews, see Bickel & Etzel, 1985;Donahoe & Wessells, 1980, pp. 176-196).…”