{"id":217,"date":"2011-11-07T15:57:16","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T22:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/?p=217"},"modified":"2011-11-07T15:57:16","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T22:57:16","slug":"what-is-a-stimulus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/what-is-a-stimulus\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Stimulus?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">In this short article I would like to address the definition of the behavior science term \u201cstimulus.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">The term is defined in Webster\u2019s as:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201c\u2026 [S]omething that rouses or incites to activity \u2026 an agent (as an environmental change) that directly influences the activity of a living organism or one of its parts (as by exciting a sensory organ or evoking muscular contraction or glandular secretion)\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">Not the easiest of definitions to understand, so let\u2019s try the \u201cstudent\u201d definition, also from Webster\u2019s Online:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><span style=\"font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;\">1.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">Something that rouses or stirs to action : INCENTIVE<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><\/em><em><span style=\"font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;\">2.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">Something (as an environmental change) that acts to partly change bodily activity (as by exciting a sensory organ) &lt;heat, light, and sound are common physical stimuli&gt;<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">Basically a stimulus is some event or thing in the environment that elicits behavior or an event or thing that follows and has some effect upon behavior; something an animal reacts to.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">I will limit the discussion in this article to those stimuli that occur immediately after a behavior and serve to either increase, maintain, or decrease the strength of the behavior.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">A stimulus that follows a behavior and serves to increase or maintain the strength of that behavior is called a <em>reinforcer<\/em>. They are things that the animal\/bird will work to gain.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">A stimulus that follows a behavior and serves to reduce its strength is called a <em>punisher.<\/em> These stimuli are things the animal\/bird will work to avoid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">The procedures of Reinforcement and Punishment will be covered in a future article.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">Sid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this short article I would like to address the definition of the behavior science term \u201cstimulus.\u201d The term is defined in Webster\u2019s as: \u201c\u2026 [S]omething that rouses or incites to activity \u2026 an agent (as an environmental change) that directly influences the activity of a living organism or one of its parts (as by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,41,16,13,7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aba","category-behavior-science","category-punishment","category-reinforcement","category-sid-price","category-training"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avianambassadors.com\/BirdTraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}