Ch. 12

Question 1

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

Ex: backwards conditioning

Answer 1

_{Fear conditioning is one form of classical conditioning in which preparedness seems to play an important role.}

backward conditioning —> the US precedes the NS typically produces little if any conditioning.

However, under some circumstances, backward conditioning can be achieved, such as when the NS is a “biologically relevant” stimulus for fear.

Some proposed that many species of animals (including people) have an inherited predisposition to fear certain types of events.

Question 2

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

taste aversion conditioning,

Answer 2

a form of classical conditioning in which a food item that has been paired with gastrointestinal illness becomes a conditioned aversive stimulus.

Simply put, an animal that becomes sick after ingesting a food item associates the food with the illness and subsequently finds it distasteful.

Taste aversion conditioning involves many of the same processes found in other forms of classical conditioning.
— For example, stimulus generalization often occurs when food items that taste similar to the aversive item are also perceived as aversive.

A conditioned taste aversion can be extinguished if the aversive food item is repeatedly ingested without further illness.

Question 3

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

overshadowing

Answer 3

In keeping with the overshadowing effect, the strongest-tasting item in a meal is most likely to become associated with a subsequent illness.

As well, a food item that was previously associated with illness will likely block the development of aversive associations to other items in a meal.

Question 4

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

latent inhibition

Answer 4

We are more likely to associate a relatively novel item, such as an unusual liqueur, with sickness than we would a more familiar item such as beer.

Question 5

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

preparedness

Answer 5

The term preparedness refers to an innate tendency for an organism to more easily learn certain types of behaviors or to associate certain types of events with each other.

Question 6

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

Although taste aversion conditioning is in many ways similar to other forms of classical conditioning, there are also major differences.

Answer 6

1. The Formation of Associations over Long Delays.
   _{—In most classical conditioning procedures, the neutral stimulus (NS) and uncond itioned stimulus (US) must occur in close temporal proximity, separated by no more than a few seconds.
   —By contrast, taste aversions can develop when food items are consumed several hours before the sickness develops.
   —ability to associate food with illness after lengthy periods of time is highly adaptive. If animals were unable to form such delayed associations, they would be at great risk of repeatedly consuming a poisonous food item and eventually perishing.}
2. One-Trial Conditioning.
   _{—Strong conditioned taste aversions can usually be achieved with only a single pairing of food with illness, particularly when the food item is novel.
   — this sometimes occurs in other forms of conditioning, especially fear conditioning, but not as consistently as it does in taste aversion conditioning.
   —is highly adaptive insofar as it minimizes the possibility of a repeat, possibly fatal, experience with a poisonous substance.}
3. Specificity of Associations.
   _{—When you feel nauseous following a meal, do you associate the nausea with that episode of American Idol you are watching (even though, given the quality of some of the singing, that might seem appropriate), or with the meal? —> the meal
   —seems to be a strong, inherited tendency to associate a gastrointestinal illness with food or drink rather than with any other kind of item
   —This type of preparedness is sometimes referred to as CS-US relevance, an innate tendency to more readily associate certain types of stimuli with each other.}

Question 7

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

excellent example of the role of CS-US relevance in taste aversion conditioning by Garcia and Koelling

Answer 7

In this experiment:
<sub>- rats initially drank sweet water that was paired with a light and a noise (each time they licked the water tube, they heard a click and saw a light flash). (compound stimulus)
- some of the rats received a slight foot shock that elicited a fear reaction.
- while other rats received a dose of X-ray irradiation that made them nauseous
- Finally, all of the rats were given a choice between two water bottles</sub>

Conditioning trial:
Bright, noisy, sweet water (NS): X-ray irradiation (US) -› Nausea (UR)

Test trial:
Sweet water (CS) -› Nausea(CR)
Bright, noisy water (NS) -› No nausea (—)

• Rats made nauseous by the X-ray irradiation avoided the sweet water and
  drank the bright, noisy water.
• rats that received a foot shock avoided the bright, noisy water but not the sweet water.
  _{—they developed a fear of the noise and lights that had been combined with the water, but not the taste, and were therefore quite willing to drink the sweet water.}

Conditioning trial:
Bright, noisy, sweet water (NS): Foot shock (US) -> Fear (UR)

Test trial:
Bright, noisy water (CS) -> Fear(CR)
Sweet water (NS) -› No fear (—)

• rats have a predisposition to readily associate nausea with taste and a predisposition to associate actually painful events with visual and auditory stimuli.

Question 8

Preparedness in Classical Conditioning

Distinctive features of taste aversion conditioning, compared to other types of classical conditioning, include the fact that the associations can be formed over ___ delays, typically require ___ pairing(s) of the NS and US, and ___ specific to certain types of stimuli.

In the experiment on taste aversions in quail and rats, the rats avoided the ___ water, while the quail avoided the ___ water.

Answer 8

1. long
2. One
3. Are
4. Sour
5. Blue

Question 9

Preparedness in Operant Conditioning

Answer 9

1. Chaffinches easily learn to associate perching with the consequence of hearing a song and pecking with with the consequence of obtaining food.
   _{—biologically prepared to associate}
2. Rats are biologically prepared to learn to avoid a painful stimulus by running, while pigeons are biologically prepared to learn to avoid a painful stimulus by flying.
   _{—Biological dispositions for certain types of avoidance responses}
3. According to Bolles, these types of avoidance responses are species specific defence reactions (abbreviated) SSDR that are naturally elicited by the aversive stimulus.
   _{—in the natural environment is often effective in countering danger
   —some avoidance responses are actually not operants (in the sense of being controlled by their consequences) but are instead elicited behaviors (that are controlled by the stimuli that precede them.}

Question 10

Instinctive Drift

Answer 10

which is a type of classical conditioning in which an innate fixed action pattern gradually emerges and displaces a behavior that is being operantly conditioned.

Question 11

In the experiment with the raccoon, the coin became a ___that elicited a(n) ___
of washing and rubbing.

Marian and Keller Breland were former students of Skinner’s.

Answer 11

1. CS/S^D
2. CS:CR

They encountered some rather interesting limitations in what certain animals could be taught.
_{—attempted to train a pig to deposit a wooden coin in a piggy bank. Using processes of shaping and chaining, which went smoothly at first
— pig no longer simply deposited the coin in the bank but started tossing the coin in the air and then rooting at it on the ground. Eventually, the tossing and rooting became so frequent that the coin never made its way to the bank.}

For pig:
Coin (SD): Deposit coin in bank (R) - > Food (SR)

Coin (NS): Food (US) - >Rooting (UR)
Coin (CS) —> rooting (CR)

Question 12

sign tracking

Answer 12

In sign tracking, an organism approaches a stimulus that signals the presentation of an appetitive event.

The approach behavior seems very much like an operant behavior because it appears to be quite goal directed, yet the procedure that produces it is more closely akin to classical conditioning.

Thus, sign tracking is yet another way in which classical and operant conditioning appear to overlap.

Question 13

autoshaping

Answer 13

a type of sign tracking in which a pigeon comes to automatically peck at a response key because the key light has been associated with the noncontingent (response-independent) delivery of food.

Thus, a behavior that starts off as an elicited behavior (controlled by the stimulus that precedes it) becomes transformed into an operant behavior (controlled mostly by its consequence).

_{Autoshaping is one type of classical conditioning that fits well with Pavlov’s stimulus-substitution theory.}

_{Because of its association with food, the key light appears to become a substitute for food, with the bird attempting to consume it.}

Question 14

negative automaintenance

Answer 14

pigeons will peck a lit response key that signals food delivery even though the act of pecking prevents the delivery of food.

Question 15

Adjunctive behavior

Answer 15

is an excessive pattern of behavior that emerges as a by-product of certain types of intermittent schedules of reinforcement for some other behavior.

In other words, as one behavior is being strengthened through intermittent reinforcement, another quite different behavior emerges as a side effect of that procedure.

Adjunctive behavior is sometimes referred to as schedule-induced behavior.

Question 16

Falk (1961)

Answer 16

first person to systematically investigate adjunctive behavior in animals.

Question 17

schedule-induced polydipsia

Answer 17

An excessive pattern of drinking that is produced by exposure to an intermittent schedule of food reinforcement is called schedule induced polydipsia

(polydipsia means “excessive thirst or drinking”)

During a three-hour session, the rats drank almost three-and-a-half times the amount they would normally drink in an entire day. Some up to half their body weight

Question 18

Studies of adiunctive behavior typically employ fixed interval (FI) or fixed time (FT) schedules of reinforcement.

Answer 18

This is because adjunctive behavior tends to occur during a period of time in which there is a low probability of reinforcement.

It is during such interreinforcement intervals that adjunctive behavior occurs.

_{Unlike extinction induced aggression, which often grows weaker over time, this type of schedule-induced aggression tends to remain strong and persistent.}

Question 19

adjunctive behavior features

Answer 19

1. Adjunctive behaviour typically occurs in the period immediately following consumption of an intermittent reinforcer.
   _{—start of the interval between food pellets, therefore, tends to be dominated by drinking. The end of the interval, however, as the next pellet becomes imminent, tends to be dominated by food-related behaviors, such as lever pressing for the food}
2. Adiunctive behavior is affected by the level of deprivation for the scheduled reinforcer. The greater the level of deprivation for the reinforcer, the stronger the adjunctive behavior that emerges as a by-product.
3. Adjunctive behaviors can function as reinforcers for other behaviors.
   _{— This is in keeping with the Premack principle, which holds that high-probability behaviors can often serve as effective reinforcers for low-probability behaviors.}
4. There is an optimal interval between reinforcers for the development of adjunctive behavior.

Question 20

Evidence that humans engage in adjunctive behavior includes

Answer 20

the fact that studies of adjunctive-type behavior patterns in human subjects usually find an optimal time interval between reinforcers for producing such
behaviors.

_{Certain behavior patterns in humans, such as smoking and nail biting, are often associated with periods of enforced waiting, which agrees with the notion that these may be adjunctive behaviors.}

_{It has also been noted that substance use disorders are most likely to develop in environments in which economic and social reinforcers are infrequently available, which agrees with the notion that these may be adjunctive behaviors.}

Adjunctive processes may play a particularly important role in the development of an addiction during its early stages.

Question 21

displacement activity

Answer 21

an apparently irrelevant activity sometimes displayed by animals when confronted by conflict or thwarted from attaining a goal.

_{Why would a tendency to develop adjunctive behaviors ever have evolved? What purpose do such activities serve, especially given how self-destructive they sometimes are?}

_{Falk (1977) has proposed that adjunctive behaviors represent a type of displacement activity}

To the extent that adjunctive activities facilitate the attainment of a(n) delayed reinforcer, they can facilitate our efforts at self-control.

Question 22

displacement activity benefits

Answer 22

1. they provide for a more diversified range of behaviors in a particular setting, and a diverse range of behavior is often beneficial.
2. is that they help the animal remain in a situation where a significant reinforcer might eventually become available. _{—Periods of little or no reinforcement can be aversive and anything that can alleviate the aversiveness of these intervals will heighten the probability of attaining the delayed reinforcer.}

Adjunctive behavior can therefore be seen as a natural tendency to do something else while waiting for a reinforcer. To the extent that it enhances the individual’s ability to wait out the delay period, it thus constitutes a sort of built-in self-control device.

Question 23

activity anorexia (or activity-based anorexia)

Answer 23

is an abnormally high level of activity and low level of food intake generated by exposure to a time-restricted schedule of feeding.

_{It is the combination of food restriction and the opportunity to run that is so devastating.}

The basic procedure for the development of activity anorexia in rats is the presentation of one meal period(s) each day along with access to a running wheel during the between-meal period.

Question 24

anorexia nervosa

Answer 24

Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder in which patients refuse to eat adequate amounts of food and as a result lose extreme amounts of weight.

A sharp increase in activity is often associated with a(n) decrease in food intake, which in turn can result in a(n) decrease in food intake, which in turn can result in a(n) increase in activity.

_{individuals who engage in high levels of activity appear to be at high risk for developing anorexia.}

_{Anecdotal evidence suggests that, as with anorexia in humans, rats with activity anorexia are often quite interested in food.}

_{Similar to anorexia nervosa in humans, activity anorexia in rats is more easily
induced in adolescent rats.}

_{Activity anorexia in rats is most similar to the restricting type anorexia in humans rather than the binge-eating/purging of anorexia.}

Question 25

Underlying Mechanisms

Answer 25

Endorphins are a class of morphine-like substances in the brain that are associated with pain reduction. These substances have been implicated in the feeling of pleasure that is sometimes experienced following prolonged exercise, and which is also reported by patients with anorexia.

This finding suggests that both activity anorexia in rats and anorexia nervosa in humans may be maintained by a(n)
endorphin high.

From an evolutionary perspective, increased activity in response to decreased food intake could facilitate contacting a new food supply.

This evolutionary perspective is supported by evidence that the activity anorexia cycle can be broken by suddenly providing continuous access to food.

Question 26

The activity anorexia model suggests that therapists should focus as much on establishing normal ___ levels as they presently do on establishing normal eating patterns.

Answer 26

1. Activity

Suggestions for minimizing the risk of anorexia in humans who may be susceptible to the disorder include eating several per day, increasing exercise levels slowly, and eating a diet that is well balanced.

Question 27

behavior systems theory

Answer 27

An animal’s behavior is organized into certain innate systems (such as feeding, mating, and avoiding predators), with each system becoming activated in relevant situations.

_{Boer (1990) found that by adjusting the amount of food eaten by the rats, as opposed to the length of the meal period, he could precisely control the amount of wheel running.}

In terms of this theory, Bolles’s notion of specific defense species reactions (SSDR) is concerned with responses that would be driven by the defense-against-predators system.

In the sign-tracking experiment with dogs, the light that predicted food seemed to activate the social component of the dog’s feeding system.