Question

Glen is attempting to use operant conditioning to train his dog, Thor, to fetch a ball upon command. To test Thor’s understanding, Glen throws the ball and yells, “Pineapple!” Thor does not fetch the ball. Which process of operant conditioning has Thor demonstrated?

Answer 1

Glen throws the ball and yells, “Pineapple!” Thor does not fetch the ball.

Here, the process of operant conditioning that Thor has demonstrated is- stimuli discrimination.

A stimuli or stimulus discrimination is a behavior which results in one consequence in a particular setting and another consequence in other settings.

Answer 2

Thor demonstrated a stimulus generalization for its operant conditioning. Stimulus generalization occurs when there are repeated stimuli resulting to similar responses. In the situation, the operant conditioning gave a stimulus for Thor to respond on the same way but when Glen yells "Pineapple!" then his dog did not respond because it is not the same as the previous stimulus.