Biological Dispositions in Learning Flashcards
preparedness
an innate tendency for an organism to more easily learn certain types of behaviors to associate certain types of events with each other
- may react faster, and can associate stimuli better than others
ex: a hatchling will know how to escape its prey without experience - its integrated with some genes allowing it to display certain behaviours to avoid its prey
preparedness in CC
fear conditioning: overcoming something difficult under great fear/distress
ex: people surviving swimming even not knowing how to swim - learning on the fly
Conditioned taste aversion (CTA)
a food item paired with a gastrointestinal illness becomes a condition aversive stimulus
- you become sick (UR) and avoid (CR) the bad food (CS)
it can be adaptive when we learn to avoid substances that make us ill, but sometimes we develop it for substances that are coincidentally associated with illness
Why is CTA an adaptive evolutionary trait for rodents
they aren’t able to vomit, so they are very picky to survive since they lack advanced features (vomiting)
CTA experiment
sweet water: xray radiation -> nausea
NS US UR
sweet water-> nausea
CS CR
- the rat avoided sweet water after the trial, only takes one trial
- very resistant to extinction
- will happen even if the window is very long
stim generalization, extinction, latent inhibition
generalization: The food items that taste similar to the aversive item are also perceived as aversive.
extinction: If the aversive food item is repeatedly ingested without further illness, the CS (food) may no longer elicit an avoidance response
latent inhibition: A familiar stimulus is more difficult to condition than an unfamiliar (novel) stimulus
- hard to poison a rat cause they avoid anything unfamiliar to them
Condoned Taste Aversion
bright noisy water vs. sweet water
foot shock (fear) or radiation (nausea)
- Rats drank sweet water paired with a light and a noise
- received a foot shock that elicited a fear reaction while other rats received a dose of x-ray radiation that made them nauseous
- Rats nauseous by x-ray radiation, avoided the sweet water and drank the bright noisy water
- nausea is more readily associated with taste than with any other stimuli
Rats that received the foot shock avoided the bright noisy water (visual)
CS-US Relevance
innate tendency to more readily associate certain types of stimuli with each other:
- nausea and taste
- painful events with visual+auditory
Species differences in CTA
ex: birds locate food by visual characteristics rather than taste
study with rats + quails
- Rats and quail drank dark blue sour water.
Followed by injection of hydrochloric acid (made nauseous)
- Later given choice of dark blue or sour water.
rats wanted dark blue water
- nocturnal, smell + foraging matters
quails wanted sour water
- daytime feeders, sight + foraging
Practical applications with CTA
1.Most women report that their sense of smell and taste is enhanced during the early stages of pregnancy
- the fetal organ systems develop during the first few months and the fetus is susceptible to damages from toxins at this stage which is why women are likely to develop and aversion to certain foods which is good so they can avoid and detect harmful substances
2.Nausea is a common symptom of chemotherapy and radiation treatment in cancer patients. CTA the lads to avoidance of certain foods can exacerbate weight loss
- Serving familiar foods can reduce the likelihood of developing CTA (latent inhibition)
Preparedness in OC
rats will readily learn to press a lever for food, freeze to avoid shock
- rats evolved dexterous fingers/paws useful for eating
birds will readily learn to peck a lever for food, flap wings to avoid shock
Species-specific defense reaction
Avoidance response elicited by the aversive stimulus. Effective in escaping threat in the animal’s natural environment
ex: A rat easily learns to stop/freeze to avoid painful stimulation cause they are behaviours that are naturally elicited in dangerous situations. The tendency to freeze can be detrimental if it’s so strong that it may not move and get hurt by the shock
Operant-respondent interactions
SSDR is one example of how it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between operant behaviors and respondent (or elicited) behaviors.
indistinctive drift
An instance of classical conditioning in which a genetically based, fixed action pattern gradually emerges and displaces the behavior that is being operantly conditioned.
ex: pigs will associate a coin with rooting because that is an action that gets them food naturally
coin: deposit coin in bank -> food
SD R SR
coin: food -> rooting
NS US UR
coin -> rooting
CS CR
fixed action patterns
A sequence of species-specific behavior elicited by a stimulus
- evolved to promote survival in the animal’s natural environment
- A classically conditioned FAP was emerging and interfering with the operant behaviour that was initially shaped
