Question

You enjoy spending time with Bob, and you enjoy spending time with Dave, but Bob and Dave together aren't much fun at all. You maintain good relationships with each person individually, but quickly learn to avoid inviting them to your house at the same time. What kind of discrimination is evident here, , and how do learning models explain it?

Answer 1

The type of discrimination here is feature negative discrimination. This is a type of discrimination where the combined effect of two stimuli has lacking property of the one when presented individually. The fat that Bob and Dave are equally entertaining is a positive feature , however the removal or absence of this feature in compound stimuli or one which arise as a result of combination of these two stimuli is seen here.

This point can be best explained with configural theory of discrimination learning. In this learning type it is seen that the compound stimulus is represented in its entirety and it is this effect which gets paired with the unconditional stimulus to produce the response forcing us not to bring both stimuli together.