A pigeon learns to peck at a disk lighted green to receive reinforcement,but not at a disk lighted red.This means that,for the pigeon,the color of the disk is a
A) reinforcer or nonreinforcer
B) punisher or nonpunisher
C) generalization stimulus
D) discriminative stimulus

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The fact that the pigeon learns to peck at the disk lighted green suggests that it has come to associate this particular color with the presence of reinforcement. Therefore, the green disk serves as a discriminative stimulus (D) that signals when pecking behavior is likely to lead to reinforcement. In contrast, the fact that the pigeon does not peck at the red disk suggests that it has learned that this particular color does not result in reinforcement, and it does not serve as a discriminative stimulus. The other choices - A) reinforcer or nonreinforcer, B) punisher or nonpunisher, and C) generalization stimulus - are not as accurate in this context, as they do not describe the role of the color of the disks in the learning process.

A Pigeon Learns to Peck at a Disk Lighted Green