Chapter 10

Question 1

What is an aversive stimulus

Answer 1

Unpleasant stimulus

Question 2

What is avoidance

Answer 2

the target response prevents an aversive stimulus from occurring

Question 3

What is active avoidance

Answer 3

Safety is achieved by doing something

Question 4

What is shock-probe fear conditioning

Answer 4

• Animal in Skinner box
	• Approaches a probe
	• Receives a shock
	• Now avoids the probe to avoid the shock
An example of avoidance

Question 5

What is punishment

Answer 5

The target response produces an aversive outcome

Question 6

What is passive avoidance

Answer 6

Safety is achieved by not doing something

Question 7

Is there a positive or negative contingency between the instrumental response and the aversive stimulus in avoidance?

Answer 7

Negative: If the response occurs, the aversive stimulus is omitted

Question 8

Is there a positive or negative contingency between the instrumental response and the aversive stimulus in punishment?

Answer 8

Positive: If the response occurs, the aversive stimulus is administered

Question 9

What is the final result of both avoidance and punishment?

Answer 9

Less contact with the US

Question 10

What did Vladimir Bechterev do?

Answer 10

He focused on motor responses (called associative responses) - he developed his own procedure on dogs
• Tone was followed by a shock to the forepaw - reflex was to flex the forepaw - the dog avoided getting shock by flexing its paw as soon as he heard the tone (avoidance conditioning)
• Tone = CS (warning stimulus), shock = US, lifting/flexing forepaw = CR (associative response)

Question 11

What are the main differences between Bechterev and Pavlov’s procedures?

Answer 11

Pavlov: US aversive or appetitive, subjects cannot avoid US, response is to prepare for the US
Bechterev: US always aversive, could learn an avoidance response to avoid the US, response was to avoid the US

Question 12

What are the 2 types of trials included in the discriminated avoidance procedure?

Answer 12

1-Escape trials - occur early in training
• Participant fails to make the required response during the CS-US interval
• Scheduled shock delivered
2-Avoidance trials - occurs as training progresses
• Participant makes the target response before the shock is delivered
• The CS is turned off and the US is omitted on that trial

Question 13

What is two-way avoidance?

Answer 13

Animal shuttles back and forth between the 2 sides of the shuttle box

Question 14

What is one-way avoidance?

Answer 14

Only either side gives a shock; easier to learn avoidance

Question 15

What is the two-process theory of avoidance?

Answer 15

Basic concept: the absence of something (US) cannot be a reinforcer for a Instrumental response, therefore what reinforces the instrumental avoidance response?

Question 16

What are the 2 mechanisms involved in avoidance learning?

Answer 16

1-Classical conditioning of fear to the CS
2-Instrumental reinforcement of the avoidance response through fear reduction (reduction of fear induced by the CS, negative reinforcement)

Question 17

What is the reinforcer for the instrumental response?

Answer 17

The reduction of fear

Question 18

What are the 3 phases of the Escape from Fear procedure?

Answer 18

1. Condition fear to a CS with a pure classical conditioning procedure (association with CS and aversive US)
2. Escape from fear training - periodically exposed to the fear eliciting the CS and allowed to perform an instrumental response to turn off the CS
3. Escape from fear testing

Question 19

What is the goal of the Escape from Fear procedure?

Answer 19

demonstrating the contributions of CC and IC when not intermixed

Question 20

Is fear always present during avoidance behaviour training?

Answer 20

Once individuals learnt that their instrumental response could avoid the US, there was no more fear of the US
There was no more expectation of a shock in the group that learned an instrumental response that allowed to avoid it - however even in the absence of fear the avoidance response was performed

Question 21

How can we extinguish avoidance behaviour?

Answer 21

• Shuttle box is altered so that the avoidance response is blocked, “flooding” “implosive therapy” with the CS (avoidance behaviour persisted for a long time when subjects could terminate the CS)
• The more time they were blocked from doing the avoidance response to terminate the CS prematurely, the less time they took to reach the extinction criteria (EX: took more than 120sec to reach other side of box = extinction criteria)
• Longer exposures to the CS without the US lead to more successful extinction of avoidance responding

Question 22

What is nondiscriminated (free-operant) avoidance?

Answer 22

Unsignalled avoidance: no CS announces the US

Question 23

What is discriminated avoidance

Answer 23

There is a CS before the US, allows for avoidance

Question 24

What is the SS and RS intervals in free operant avoidance?

Answer 24

S-S interval (shock shock)
Interval between shocks in the absence of a response
R-S interval (response-shock)
Period of safety created by each response

Question 25

What is the safety signal hypothesis?

Answer 25

Both conditioned inhibitors (spatial cues and interoceptive cues) and positive reinforcement cues work together to reinforce the avoidance response

Question 26

What is the Reinforcement of Avoidance Through Reduction of Shock Frequency theory?

Answer 26

Avoidance responses prevent the delivery of shock and thereby reduce the frequency of shocks an organism receives - this is what motivates avoidance behaviour (NOT true)

Question 27

What are Species-specific defense reactions (SSDR)

Answer 27

What animals do in the first trials of learning (instinctive, and mostly dictated by surrounding stimulus (wont run if there is no obvious escape route)
• Freezing, running, burying, etc.
Instrumental response similar to those will be more quickly learned in conditioning (“instinctive”)

Question 28

What is the predatory imminence continuum?

Answer 28

Different defensive responses occur depending on the level of danger faced by an animal

Question 29

What is the expectancy theory of avoidance?

Answer 29

Encounters with aversive events trigger a conscious process of threat appraisal that generates expectations of future threat (or lack of threat) based on cues and responses (in humans)