Animal Learning

Question 1

what is learning

Answer 1

knowledge through experience revealed through changes in behaviour

Question 2

potential applications of learning

Answer 2

helps understand likes and dislikes, anxiety disorder and treatment, neural bases of learning and memory

Question 3

non-associative learning

Answer 3

type of learning where an animals behaviour/physiology/brain changes following repeat exposure to a stimulus

it includes habituation and sensitisation

Question 4

habituation

Answer 4

decrease in response amplitude, frequency, and duration as a consequence of repeated experience with a stimulus

respond less the more the stimulus is experienced

• most common
• usually stimulus specific

Question 5

Gandhi et al. (2021) skin conductance - habituation

Answer 5

skin conductance responses to a metronome in adults with autism
- responded less with this disorder

Question 6

Benito et al. (2018) treatment outcomes of habituation in OCD

Answer 6

• more habituation, produced more treatment outcomes
• total number and duration of exposure did not predict outcome
• most important factor was degree to which exposure provides potent learning experience

Question 7

Holz et al. (2021) measured neural response to emotional faces in amygdala

Answer 7

• decreased amygdala activity after habituation
• lifetime ADHD weakly associated with habituation of amygdala response
• amount of maternal stimulation affected habituation of amygdala response to emotional faces but only in those who came from families with disorders

no paternal care + high risk family = high habituation risk

Question 8

extinction learning

Answer 8

association between CS and US is weakened by presentation of CS without US

Question 9

exposure therapy

Answer 9

patients confronted with fear-related cue in the absence of overt danger

Question 10

sensitisation

Answer 10

increase in response amplitude, frequency or duration as a consequence of experience with stimulus
- not stimulus specific

respond more with more experience

Question 11

Rankin and Carew (1987) siphon reduction response

Answer 11

animals given tail shocks, siphon reduction response to water jet stimulus lasts longer
- it has been sensitised

Question 12

Bedecarrats et al., 2018 Fish shock sensitisation

Answer 12

aplysia shocked five times, tested 24 hours later for siphon reduction response

RNA taken and injected into new animals
- animals with injected RNA have similar results, as if transferring memory to new animals

they measured the shock to a different stimulus making it not stimulus specific

Question 13

amphetamine study sensitisation

Answer 13

measuring neural responses to repeated injections of amphetamine, the dopamine release in striatum
- more activity after 2 week abstinence, releasing more dopamine the second time exposed to amphetamine
- 5th week there was more sensitisation compared to the first week

Question 14

CS, CR, US, UR

Answer 14

CS - neutral stimulus not eliciting a response
CR - learned response
US - biological stimulus
UR - innate response

Question 15

Pavlov Study on Experimental Neuroses

Answer 15

if dog sees a black circle he gets food, occurs until the black circle makes the dog salivate

then forced to discriminate between the circle and an oval of the same colour that predicts no food
- eventually stops salivating at oval

makes shapes harder to discriminate
- eventually learns difference

makes it extremely hard
- eventually gets upset and neurotic because it can’t find which time it is getting food, even though it is getting the same amount of food as any other test
- his world is unpredictable, greater unpredictability may mean more psychopathology

Question 16

Pavlov Study in Emotional Reactions

Answer 16

blue square stimulus predicts shock (CS+), the red one predicts no shock (CS-)
- larger electrodermal response on skin to the CS+ than CS-
- also measured neural response to two stimuli in amygdala and found that the CS+ activated

Question 17

Fillion and Bass (1986) - smell of mother

Answer 17

rats were reared by a mother that smelled citral or normal

pups seperated at 21 days, male offspring were tested when they were 100 days old

placed in chamber with unfamiliar female sprayed with citrus or water
- ejaculation was faster when ever they smelt like the mother

Question 18

Sullivan - pairing odour with electric shock in rats

Answer 18

odour (CS) paired with electric shock (US) in rats

• found that they avoided odour and take route away from the odour
• at a younger age they preferred the odour despite the shock, may help suggest about infant attachment to an abuser
• 12 day old rats show preference for odour when mother is present during odour shock pairings

Question 19

Fields - massage therapy

Answer 19

massage therapy in premature human infants to understand why the release of growth hormones occur

• infants massaged 3 times a day grew faster, greater advances in cognitive ability, discharged from hospital 6 days sooner
• improves postpartum depression in mothers that partake in massaging

Question 20

Tottenham et al. - pairing shape to screams

Answer 20

first trained that a shape sometimes will predict an aversive loud scream (CS+)

different shape never predicted aversive loud scream (CS-)

• with mother they are more likely to go to CS+, only relevant in early development

Question 21

Gao et al. (2010) - trained kids in fear conditioning task

Answer 21

trained kids on fear conditioning
CS+ = shock
CS- = no shock

tested later, with people convicted of a crime later in life,
- after shock they should expect sweating
- control group had expected response
- experimental group didn’t respond to CS+ or CS-
- children were impaired in their skin conductance response

Question 22

Birbaumer et al., 2005 - fear conditioning in psychopaths

Answer 22

measured subjects ratings of if they expected pain to occur in faces that elicited it and faces that did not

• they expected it the same in others
• but in skin conductance responses, they didn’t increase in sweating, no emotional reaction
• neural activity showed less activation of the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex
• but when the shock happened to them they have the same response as the controls,

they don’t show response to signals of pain in others

Question 23

instrumental conditioning

Answer 23

dependent on animals behaviour, there has to be a contingency between the response and the outcome

Question 24

reinforcement and punishment

Answer 24

more behaviour - positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement

less behaviour - positive punishment and negative punishment

add outcome - positive
remove outcome - negative

Question 25

Johanson & Hall, 1979 - rewarding rats

Answer 25

there are holes in sides of a styrofoam cup has paddles

each time the paddle is pressed the rat can tip a sippy cup down that has milk in it

another group only gets milk every time the first group gives milk to themselves

• rewarded pups press more and more during the 24hrs
• wasn’t milk that influenced data, it was the behaviour to lift the paddle

Question 26

Ostlund & Balleine, 2009 - rats trained for food

Answer 26

they press button to get one food, another button a different food
- for 10 days

then on test day they are given a lot of one food

• when given opportunity to decide, the food that they already ate a lot of was devalued to them
• presses lever of non de-valued food

then, groups trained for 10 days and 40 days
- animals with more training don’t change behaviour to get different food, they still want the food they had a lot of
- habits less sensitive to reward value of outcome

Question 27

Papastrat et al. (2024) - odour, friend or cocaine

Answer 27

rats are in a box and if they press a bar they get food

one group has their olfactory bulb removed one group has it fake removed (to assure that they are just testing the olfactory bulb and not any other part of the brain that was effected), one control group

then they were trained to press a bar to see a friend

• fake surgery, liked contact with friend, pressed a lot
• surgery, still pressed for food, just not for friend

then food, friend and cocaine options
- learn to press a lot even without an olfactory bulb, valued over friends

Question 28

two ways of thinking about extinction learning

Answer 28

“unlearning” or new learning

Question 29

Rudy, 2008 New Learning

Answer 29

questioned the unlearning hypothesis for extinction learning

• found that they learn something new that opposes what they had already learnt, the second thing that they learnt inhibits the first thing they learnt

Question 30

renewal

Answer 30

recovery of responding when subject is tested in a context different from where extinction occurred

Question 31

reinstatement

Answer 31

recovery of responding when subject is tested after a non-signalled US presentation

Question 32

clinical relevance of renewal and reinstatement

Answer 32

patients still relapse after therapy is assumed to work

• new stressful events, potentially not related to disorder may spark a return of symptoms

Question 33

Masella et al, 2004 Changes in Environment

Answer 33

rats sit in a controlled environment for 5 minutes, get shocked 3 times in the next 5, then put every time they are put back into this environment they are uneasy
- CS is environment
- would tense 40% of time before a shock

• found elevated levels of protein in extinction success group
• found altered levels of glutamate receptors in extinction success and failure groups
• protein and glutamate receptors are important for protein and learning

Question 34

strategy to enhance extinction learning

Answer 34

if extinction learning is recognised as new learning, a drug that enhances learning should help

for example
- use D-cycloserine at NMDA receptors (glutamate) because it is an NMDA agonist
- found that it enhances extinction learning in monkeys, as well as slowed down their reacquisition of learning as well

Question 35

King et al., 2018 - individual differences in extinction of learned fear

Answer 35

seperated groups of rats into fast and slow at extinction learning, changed location of training after conditioning occurred to make sure that the only difference is the amount of trials it takes to lose fear and not an environment

• found that DCS enhances extinction learning in fast learners only

Question 36

observational learning

Answer 36

experience can also be indirect, i.e witnessing something occur

Question 37

Olsson & Phelps, 2007 - extra study

Answer 37

also had a person watching another person get shocked when a blue square appeared
- when the blue square was presented to the observer, they exhibit comparable learning

• found that amygdala activity increased just by watching

Question 38

social learning impaired in people with alcohol abuse - Bakkali et al, 2023

Answer 38

observer sees someone get shocked when they see a certain shape
- found that alcoholics have less skin conductance responses as they are less reflexive to their environment

Question 39

Selbing et al, 2024 - social learning influence after it is extinguished

Answer 39

group 1 learns they will never get shocked with blue and yellow shapes, group 2 watches

both groups given a new task with the same CS+ and CS- and responded in fear, the same as the people that didn’t learn that blue and yellow shapes were harmless