Stimulus Control

Stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning in which an organism behaves one way in the presence of a given stimulus and a different way in its absence, because that stimulus, called a discriminative stimulus (or a stimulus delta when it signals the absence of reinforcement), has come to reliably signal whether a particular behavior will be reinforced. A commonly used example is a stop sign at an intersection: its presence increases the probability that a driver will brake, not by physically forcing the behavior but as the direct result of the driver's own history of reinforcement for stopping at such signs, distinguishing it from a reflexive response elicited automatically through classical conditioning. Some theorists, including B. F. Skinner in his analysis of verbal behavior, have argued that essentially all behavior is under some form of stimulus control, with even complex behavior such as speech shaped by a variety of controlling stimuli.