Active desensitization - Answers The process of training an animal to become comfortable to new stimuli
using reinforcement.
Animal care - Answers Providing and maintaining the overall physical health and mental well-being of
the animals under our care.
Antecedent - Answers Environmental conditions or stimulus changes that exist or occur prior to the
behavior of interest
Antecedent Control Procedure - Answers An action to modify the environmental events that occur
before a behavior in order to affect the probability of it being performed
Antecedent Stimulus - Answers A stimulus that precedes or accompanies a behavior and may exert
discriminative control over that behavior. A stimulus that precedes or accompanies a behavior and may
exert discriminative control over that behavior.
Antecedents - Answers Environmental events that occur before a behavior
Appeasment - Answers Also called submissive behaviors or deference behaviors, these are behaviors
other than flight escape behaviors that tend to minimize the likelihood of aggressive escalation in an
encounter.
Appetitive stimulus - Answers Usually, a positive reinforcer, especially one the effectiveness of which lit
is modifiable by deprivation.
Applied Behavior Analysis - Answers The science in which tactics or methods derived from the principals
of behavior are applied to improve socially significant behavior, and experimentation is used to identify
the variables responsible for the behavior change
Appraisal - Answers Evaluation of events that cause specific reactions
Approximation - Answers Approximation means any behavior that resembles the desired behavior.
Attitude - Answers Emotions often based on appraisal, which predispose an animal to respond in a
particular way to objects, other animals, and events.
Automatic reinforcement - Answers A behavior-reinforcement relation that occurs without the
presentation of consequences by other people
Aversive Control - Answers The use of unpleasant stimuli to change undesirable behavior.
Aversive Stimulus - Answers The kind of stimulus we commonly call unpleasant or painful. Technically,
any stimulus whose presentation decreases the probability of responding or whose removal is
reinforcing. Sometimes called punisher or negative reinforcer.
, Avoidance Behavior - Answers Behavior which postpones an aversive event and thus provides escape
from conditioned aversive stimuli.
Avoidance Conditioning - Answers Associating the desired response with the cancellation or
postponement of the presentation of an aversive stimulus, in response to a warning that the aversive
stimulus will be presented
Avoidance contingency - Answers A contingency in which responding delays or prevents the
presentation of a stimulus
Backward Chaining - Answers The establishment of the final link in a stimulus-response chain, with the
addition of successive links until the first link is acquired.
Baseline - Answers Repeated measures of the strength or level (e.g., frequency, intensity, rate, duration,
or latency) of behavior before an experimental variable (treatment, intervention, or procedure) is
introduced
Behavior - Answers The activity of living organisms
Behavior Change - Answers Refers to any transformation or modification of behavior
Behavior Modification - Answers Interventions that are designed to change behavior in a precisely
measurable manner.
Behavior Science - Answers A branch of science with a focus on animal behavior as an adaptation for
functioning and interacting with their environment.
Behavioral - Answers Studying and precisely measuring physical events rather than perceptions or
descriptions of events
Behaviorism - Answers The scientific philosophy of behavior analysis.
Biological Preparedness - Answers The evolutionary history and biological status of an organism
contribute to it's ability to perform specific-behaviors.
Blocking - Answers An attenuation of respondent conditioning with one stimulus because of prior
conditioning with another.
Bootleg Reinforcement - Answers Reinforcement that is not part of, and tends to undermine, an
intervention.
Bridge - Answers A marker signal that connects the behavior to the reinforcement.
Capturing - Answers Reinforcing a behavior when it occurs without contrived trainer prompting or
cueing.