CONCEPT
Stimulus Discrimination
The behavioral procedure by which different responses come under the control of different stimuli — the Skinner volume's proposed intervention for restoring behavioral diversity in environments saturated with AI cues.
Stimulus discrimination is the procedure by which an organism learns to respond differently in the presence of different stimuli — responding in S^D (the signal for reinforcement availability) and not responding in S^Δ (the signal for reinforcement unavailability). The procedure produces stimulus discrimination as its outcome: a behavioral repertoire organized around environmental distinctions. The Skinner volume uses this concept in Chapter 5 and Chapter 8 to specify the structural intervention for AI's saturated stimulus environment: establish clear, consistent boundaries between contexts in which AI-assisted behavior is reinforced and contexts in which alternative behaviors are reinforced. The intervention is environmental rather than psychological, and its effectiveness is predicted by the same principles that established the problematic stimulus control it is designed to correct.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The experimental basis for stimulus discrimination is among the most thoroughly studied phenomena in behavior analysis. An organism placed in an environment in which responses produce reinforcement in the presence of one stimulus and not in