Chapter 3

Question 1

What is Classical Conditioning?

Answer 1

object learning:
-associating one feature of an object with another pairing is founded on the pairing of two stimuli
-studying associative learning requires that each of two stimuli must be able to be manipulated independently of one another

Question 2

What are the different stimulus/responses of Classical conditioning?

Answer 2

-unconditioned stimulus (US): not depend on conditioning; food or sour taste
-unconditioned response (UR): not depend on conditioning; salivation elicited by food/taste alone
-conditioned stimulus (CS): depends on pairing with US; tone/light
-conditioned response (CR): depends on pairing with US; salivation via tone/light

Question 3

What is the fear conditioning study?

Answer 3

-Watson & Rayner study materials: Albert, 9 month old infant; friendly white rat; steel bar that was struck with a hammer to make a loud noise
-methods: Albert presented with various furry animals, including a friendly white rat; the white rat is presented again, but paired with loud, startling noise of the hammer hitting a steel bar (5 repetitions

Question 4

What is an Aversive US?

Answer 4

-aversive US is often a mild, brief, shock delivered to a rodent via the cage floor shock is startling and hence aversive
-it is paired with a CS such as a light of tone
-many animals show fear by freezing (staying still)

Question 5

What is the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)?

Answer 5

-the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) connects to limbic structures including the PFC
-ACC is involved in many higher level functions (attention, decision-making, anticipation of reward, etc.)

Question 6

How does amygdala get information?

Answer 6

-amygdala gets info via thalamus (fast path); cortex (slow path); input enter amygdala’s lateral nucleus; the latter projects directly to central nucleus as well as to the basal, basolateral, and accessory nuclei and to the medial nucleus
-amygdala nuclei can be modulated by brain structures known to influence emotions (hippocampus, PFC, hypothalamus)

Question 7

What are the nuclei involved in the eyeblink reflex?

Answer 7

-Reticular formation
-Red nucleus
-Pontine nuclei

Question 8

What are the functions of Reticular Formation?

Answer 8

-spine to brain connectivity;
-critical to arousal;
-regulates consciousness, respiration, cardiac rhythm;
-participates in movement control through connections to cerebellum and spinal cord

Question 9

What are the functions of Red nucleus?

Answer 9

-located in the midbrain
-involved in motor control, notably reaching movement

Question 10

What are the functions of Pontine nuclei?

Answer 10

-ventral part of pons;
-cortex descending tracts (corticopontine) project from pons to the cerebellum to form the middle cerebellar peduncles (bundles of axons);
-send mossy fibers (axons) to both the cerebellum and interposed nucleus;
-functions include sleeping, respiration, error correction

Question 11

Where is the pons located and what are cerebellar peduncles?

Answer 11

-the pons is a part of the brainstem. it is located above the medulla and below the midbrain, and is anterior to (in front of) the cerebellum
-fibers from the cortex travel to neclei in the pons (pontine nuclei)
-the cerebellar peduncles are simply large groups of axons/fibers that connect the pons and cerebellum
-these peduncles are key pathways for information traveling from the cortex and brainstem to the cerebellum

Question 12

What are the impacts of lessions on the cerebellum?

Answer 12

-conditioned response depend on the cerebellum (CB)
–lesion of removal a cerebellar nucleus known as the interposed nucleus –> abolishes conditioned response of the ipsilateral eye
–lesions of the inferior olive nucleus –> prevents acquisition of the conditioned response by the contralateral eye

Question 13

What are the Cerebellum functions?

Answer 13

-involved in motor learning
–balance, walking, bicycle riding, etc.
–axons called climbing fibers
—enter the CB instruct learning by signaling the occurrence of movement errors.
—signals are believed to correct future movement

Question 14

What is Eyeblink Conditioning?

Answer 14

-biological neural memory stored in localized brain region
-neural circuitry for eyeblink reflex lies in the brainstem and cerebellum
–UR (eyeblink) elicited by puff of air to the eye mediated by trigeminal nucleus neurons projecting from the brainstem

Question 15

What is the neural circuit for eyeblink reflex?

Answer 15

-the neurons project to reticular formation then to cranial motor nuclei: where behavioural output is organized
-CS input targets brainstem pontine nucleus (in pons); then, CS ascends via mossy fibers to the CB
-US signal relayed to CB via climbing fibers
-CS and US signals meet in the CB
–coincidental results is synaptic alteration
–climbing fibers (US) act as teachers
-output mediated by neurons projecting from interpostus (interposed nucleus; where CR develops) to red nucleus to cranial motor nuclei

Question 16

What is Sign & Goal Tracking?

Answer 16

-goal track: tracking object goal
-sign tracking in the lab
-considerable variation in which animals develop sign tracking and degree of sign tracking they exhibit
-individual differences (genetically based) in sign tracking correlated impulsivity and vulnerability to drug abuse
–sign trackers show greater sensitization to cocaine, greater activation of the dopamine reward circuit

Question 17

What is the Reward System?

Answer 17

Dopaminergic Pathway:
-mainly involved in reward called the mesolimbic (midbrain to limbic) system
-formed by projections (axons) of midbrain dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA)
-VTA neurons project to several limbic structures including the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, striatum, PFC, hippocampus

Question 18

What are learning taste preferences and aversions?

Answer 18

-each time you eat is a conditioning trial (US)
-food cues come to signal (what, when, how much )
-taste preference is learned (if flavour paired with nutritional fulfillment or other positive consequences)
-conditioned taste aversion learned (if ingestion of novel flavour followed by aversive consequence; even when sure food didn’t cause digestive issues)
-aversion can dramatically disappear after 24 hours

Question 19

What is the Excitatory Pavlovian Conditioning?

Answer 19

-organisms learn relationship between CS and US
-excitatory: normal, forward-type conditioning, where CS is paired with US and CR comes to resemble unconditioned response (CS predicts CR)
-learning induces CS neural activity related to US neural activity but in absence of US

Question 20

What is Trace and Backward Conditioning?

Answer 20

-Trace conditioning procedures can have same CS-US interval as delayed conditioning procedures
–CS is turned off a short time before the US occurs (trace interval)
-Backward Conditioning procedures mixed results
–some observed excitatory responding with backward pairing of a CS and US, others reported inhibition of conditioned responding with backward conditioning

Question 21

What is the most effective/best conditioning procedure?

Answer 21

-no “best” procedure for Pavlovian conditioning; instead of just learning CS-US association, when the US occurs in relation to the CS may be the most important to learning
–temporal learning hypothesis: learning involves not only what to expect but when to expect it

Question 22

What is temporal coding experiement?

Answer 22

-classical conditioning experiment paid particular attention to when to expect US (mild electric current delivered to outer corner of eye)
-CS tone
-two sets of 20 trials
–in one set of 20 trials, US occurred 150ms (.15s) after onset of CS
–in other set of 20 trials, US occurred 500ms (.5s) after onset of CS
-result: CS to US interval first with 150ms US delay at day 4; by day 6, CS response also when US 500ms after CS

Question 23

What is Inhibitory Pavlovian Conditioning?

Answer 23

-learning to predict the absence of the US
-research shows that exposure to unpredictable aversive stimuli results in greater stress than exposure to predictable/signaled aversive stimuli; predictability is beneficial even in a panic attack (heart palpitation)

Question 24

What is an example study of Inhibitory Conditioning?

Answer 24

-panic attacks: before attack, anxiety similar whether attack was predictable or not
-but anxiety significantly increased after unpredicted panic attack and decreased after predicted attack
-distress generated by experience of panic attack occurs primarily due to unpredictability

Question 25

What is the prerequisite of conditioned inhibition?

Answer 25

-US must occur periodically
–this US in question should have an excitatory context; signal (like CS) for absence of event
–ex signals for absence of US: closed sign at store; ATM out of order (unexpected things)

Question 26

What are the procedures for inhibitory conditioning?

Answer 26

Trial type A
–a stimulus labelled C+ (tone) precedes the US
–provides excitatory context for development of conditioned inhibition
Trial type B
–a stimulus labed C+ (tone) is presented with C- (light) and US does not occur
–CS- is conditioned inhibitor or signal for absence of US
-repeated trials of CS+ followed by US and CS+/CS- without the US; CS- gradually acquires inhibitory properties
-Type A and Type B trials presented repeatedly in random alteration; procedure effective in conditioning inhibitory properties to the CS-

Question 27

What is Negative CS-US Contingency or Correlation?

Answer 27

-negative CS-US contingency/correlation involved just CS that is negatively correlated with the US
–US is less likely to occur after CS than at other times
–CS signals reduction in probability that US will occur
-US is periodically presented by itself
–differs from Pavlov’s conditioned inhibition, where the US always occurs at end of CS+ but never occurs with the CS+/CS- presentation
-each occurrence of CS is followed by predictable absence of the US for a while

Question 28

What is an example of negative CS-US Contingency/Correlation?

Answer 28

-Child bullied when teacher is out of room (i.e., periodically receiving US)
-when teacher returns, child can be sure he/she will not be bothered
–teacher is CS that signals freedom from harassment/absence of US
–note that the context, with teacher as CS predicting absence of US (bullying) is excitatory element

Question 29

Are responses directional?

Answer 29

-Response systems can change in opposite directions from baseline or normal (ex: HR, respiration, temperature)
-Behavioral responses can also be bidirectional
–conditioned excitation results in a change in one direction; conditioned inhibition results in a
change in the opposite direction
-but many responses are not bidirectional
–conditioned excitatory stimulus (e.g., CS tone or light followed by US like shock) can elicit
freezing; but a conditioned inhibitor will not produce activity at or above normal

Question 30

What is the Compound-Stimulus test/Summation Test?

Answer 30

-used to measure conditioned inhibition
-to observe conditioned inhibition, measure how the presentation of a CS– disrupts or suppresses responding that would normally be
elicited by CS+
-demonstrates that a conditioned inhibitor or safety signal can reduce stressful effects of an aversive experience
–panic attack patients have had catastrophic ideation reduced when with a conditioned fear inhibitor; the presence of a trusted individual or some other source if safety/security

Question 31

What is the Retardation of Acquisition Test?

Answer 31

-Another method to measure conditioned inhibition
–if stimulus actively inhibits particular response, it is especially difficult to turn that
stimulus into a conditioned excitatory CS.
–so if a CS was previously established as a conditioned inhibitor (like X)
–rate of excitatory conditioning (e.g., light presented that ends in shock) should be
delayed or retarded
–conditioned inhibition can be difficult to distinguish from other behavioral processes.