_Conditions of Conditioning Flashcards
What happens if you increase time separating trials
Fewer trials are needed for learning to occur
What is the optimal temporal contiguity for taste aversion learning?
Longer. Short CS-US intervals do not produce good conditioned taste aversion
Is contiguity sufficient?
No if the CS-US occur close together this is not enough to produce learning. Shown by Rescorla who said correlation is also needed.
How does Overshadowing work?
Mackintosh - Loud noise overshadowed what the rats learned about the light
What effect does the interval : CS duration ratio have on learning?
If it is high (long time between USs relative to CS duration) then the number of trials needed for learning is lower.
How did Rescorla prove correlation is needed too?
He showed that a truly random trial will not produce learning where the CS-US have THREE PAIRINGS but there are also USs randomly scattered throughout the intervals. And a perfectly paired trial with THREE PAIRINGS will produce good learning!
What does a low suppression ratio tell us
A lot of learning has occurred - the animal fears the CS a lot
what does a stand for in △V=aB (L −Va)
Salience of the CS
what does B stand for in △V=aB (L −Va)
Salience of the US/ motivation
what does L stand for in △V=aB (L −Va)
How much the behaviour can be sustained? A tasty food pellet would have a high L and sustains a lot of learning. Usually 1 if food delivered every trial
what does Va stand for in △V=aB (L −Va)
The starting value, has conditioning already occurred? usually 0 in trial 1
What is delay conditioning?
the US is presented when the CS ends
What is the optimal interval for eye-blink conditioning
4 tenths of a second
Optimal interval for conditioned suppression
180 seconds
What is trace conditioning?
CS-US separated by a gap (a trace). It is some neural trace of the CS that is paired with the US
How do we know that conditioning gets worse as the trace increases?
If you add a second stimulus in the trace or intertrial interval, either stimulus will increase the conditioning that occurs to the CS
What is backwards conditioning
CS is presented AFTER the US. The CS can then come to signal ‘No US’ i.e. be a conditioned inhibitor. Or the CS can be associated with the offset of the US (for example it is associated with relief if the US is a shock)
What is simultaneous conditioning
CS and US presented at the same time - leads to weak conditioning
What makes simultaneous conditioning hard to measure
Most of responses help an animal deal with an upcoming US so this can lead us to UNDERESTIMATE the amount of learning that occurs in simultaneous conditioning
What is a spaced-trials procedure
When trials are spread out in time
What is a massed-trials procedure
When trials are close together in time
Why might spaced-trials result in better learning?
Because maybe learning requires the subject to rehearse the CS-US together in memory after each trial and a new trial would interrupt this
To improve learning could we increase intertrial interval and CS duration by the same factor?
No this would not work as the ratio is the same. We’d need a higher ratio - i.e. longer time between trials
