stimulus generalization
- noun
- /ˈstɪmjələs ˌdʒɛnərəlɪˈzeɪʃən/
- Specialized
:
generalización del estímulo
- Learning about generalization can aid educators in understanding how students might react similarly to different learning situations.
Examples
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The concept of generalization helps explain why people might feel anxious in situations resembling their past fears.
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The fear of stimulus generalization may be unjustified by the fact that the problem behavior was already occurring at steady rates in the classroom, suggesting that it was under the control of relevant stimuli in the classroom prior to functional analysis.
Academic text (2014) -
In psychology, stimulus generalization occurs when a dog responds to a sound similar to the one it was trained on.
Synonyms
1
6.3
A learned reaction to one thing that also happens with similar things
How Generalized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built: applying 'generalization' to a 'stimulus' yields the idea that responses to one stimulus extend to similar stimuli, so a learner who knows both words can infer the basic gist. However, the expression is a technical psychological term whose precise conditioned-response sense and usage are domain-specific and may not be fully predictable to an average B1 learner, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Stimulus generalization comes from simple learning tests: when an animal or person learns to respond to one stimulus (a sound or sight), they often also respond to other things that look or sound similar — this spreading is the generalization. So the phrase means 'responding to things that are like the original one'.