Chapter 4- Pavlovian Applications

Question 1

Describe how ohman and his colleagues conditioned fear responses to pictures of snakes

Answer 1

Had college students look at pictures of snakes until they had habituated or until the pictures had no emotional effect as measured by the galvanic skin response. Then the researchers paired pictures with electric shock to the hand which created a fear response to the sock, and soon the pictures also evoked a response even when the CS once again appeared alone

Question 2

The use of Pavlovian conditioning to reverse the unwanted affects of prior conditioning

Answer 2

Counterconditioning

Example: pairing something that scares someone such as dogs with something pleasant or positive such as positive music

Question 3

A procedure in which a phobic person imagines a very weak form of the frightening CS while relaxed.

A counter conditioning procedure in which feared stimuli are placed on a hierarchy or scale from least to most fearful. The therapist then gives the fearful individual relaxation training and prompts the client to imagine the least fearful stimulus in the hierarchy, while remaining relaxed. The therapist presents the feared stimuli and progressively more intense forms, encouraging the client to maintain a state of relaxation. The goal is for the feared stimulus to become a CS for relaxation

Answer 3

Systematic desensitization

Question 4

A similar procedure to systematic desensitization except that real feared stimuli, rather than imagined stimuli, are presented

Answer 4

In vivo desensitization

Question 5

A reduction in the rate of responding due to the non-contingent presentation of an aversive CS

Answer 5

Conditioned suppression

Provides a convenient measure of fear, the more a behaviour is suppressed by the conditional stimulus, the greater is the fear

Lever pressing that is paired with an electric shock as well as a tone will decrease the rate of lever pressing when the tone is present

Question 6

Describe how Staats and Staats examine the development of ethnic prejudices due to Pavlovian conditioning and provide a theoretical example of a sentence or two from a hypothetical new story that could induce ethnic prejudices

Answer 6

College students watched as ethnic words, such as German, Italian, and French, flashed on the screen and repeated words spoken by the experimenter, some that were unemotional, but some ethnic words were paired with positive words, while other ethnic words were paired with negative words. For other students these words were reversed. Afterwords students rated each nationality on a scale and they found that certain words depended on the emotional value of the words with which they had been paired. If the word Dutch had appeared positive words such as happy and sacred, it got a more positive rating then when it appeared with negative words such as bitter and ugly.

It may be that much of the prejudice directed towards certain ethnic groups is a result of naturally occurring conditioning resembling this experiment.

Hypothetical news story headline: Two Christian students from Edmonton kill classmates spurred by hate

Emotionally charged words such as hate and kill are paired with the words designating a particular group, Christians, affecting our feelings towards members of that group

Question 7

Explain how advertising uses Pavlovian conditioning methods.

Answer 7

Advertising agencies are interested in making objects arouse feelings of fondness on the assumption that people are more likely to buy things they like. Advertisements regularly pair products with stimuli that reliably elicit positive emotions. They may also pair competing products with items that arouse negative emotions

Question 8

Describe Gorn’s study of the effects of musical advertising stimuli on product choice. Identify the US, the UR, the CS, and the CR in the study

Answer 8

College students listen either to a tune from the film Grease, which he assumed students would enjoy more, or to classical Indian music well viewing a slideshow of either a beige or a blue pen. When allowed to have one of the pens later those students who listened to the popular music (79%) chose a pen of the same colour they had seen while listening to the music; 70% of those who would listen to the Indian music chose a pen different in colour from the one they had seen on the slide

US: music
UR: enjoyment of music
CS: Colour of pen
CR: color of pen chosen

Question 9

Describe the method and results of Stuart study of toothpaste advertising and identify the US, the UR, the CS, and the CR in the study

Answer 9

Had a college student view a number of slides, some depicting various fictitious products, and others depicting a variety of scenes that were known either to be neutral or two around positive feelings. For some students, the conditioning group, scenes that aroused good feelings regularly followed brand L toothpaste; for the other students, the scenes that followed brand L toothpaste were almost always neutral. After evaluating the students feelings about brand L toothpaste with four rating scales, students in the conditioning group rated brand L more positively than students in the control group and the more times the toothpaste and pleasant scene appeared together, the more positively the students felt about the product. They were also much more likely than controls to indicate a willingness to buy brand L toothpaste

US: scenes
UR: feelings aroused by scene
CS: Brand L toothpaste
CR: positive feelings about brand L

Question 10

Incorrect love. Disapproved sexual activities

Answer 10

Paraphilias

Question 11

Describe the Freudian interpretation of the reasons why people become sexually aroused by unusual stimuli

Answer 11

Thought it was due to mysterious unconscious forces

Question 12

Describe Pavlov study in which an aversive stimulus was established as a CS

Answer 12

Followed and electric shock with food, and the dog soon salivated in response to the shock. The shock became a CS for salivating. It is possible that masochism has a similar origin

Question 13

A form of counterconditioning in which a CS is paired with an aversive US, often nausea-inducing drugs

Answer 13

Aversion therapy

Question 14

Using Pavlovian conditioning terminology, explain how Maletzke treated exhibitionism

Answer 14

Has the patient imagine that he is about to perform the inappropriate behavior, and then present him with an extremely unpleasant odor. Treated 10 exhibitionist in this way. Just as the patient imagined that he was about to expose themselves, the therapist held the bottle of foul smelling acid under the patient’s nose and the result was a dramatic decline in the incidence of exhibitionism

US: acid
UR: aversion to acid
CS: exhibitionism
CR: reduced exhibitionism

Question 15

An aversion, acquired through Pavlovian conditioning, to foods with a particular flavour

Answer 15

Conditioned taste aversion

Question 16

Describe the Garcias taste aversion study with rats. In what two ways did Garcias study differ from standard demonstrations of Pavlovian conditioning?

Answer 16

Gave rats a choice between ordinary tapwater and saccharine-flavored water. The rats preferred the sweet-tasting water. Then exposed to some of the rats to gamma radiation while they drank the sweet-tasting water which caused nausea. These rats later avoided the sweet flavoured water and the higher the radiation level the rats were exposed to, the stronger there aversion was. Sweetwater had become a CS for nausea.

Differs from Pavlovian conditioning because:
The CS and US were paired only once, whereas most studies of conditioning involves many pairings
The interval between the CS and US was several minutes, where in most studies successful conditioning requires an interval of no more than several seconds

Question 17

Explain why the ability to acquire a taste aversion has survival value

Answer 17

Foods that can make an animal or human L might also kill it or make it vulnerable to attack or disease, so one try learning can mean the difference between life and death. Avoiding eating foods that causes problems makes that person or animal more likely to survive then one that must have 10 or 15 narrow escape before it learns a lesson.

The effects of a poisonous food are often delayed so those individuals or animals that acquire an aversion to a toxic food despite such delayed effects has a distinct advantage over an animal that learns only if it becomes ill immediately after eating

Question 18

How do most people acquire conditioned taste aversions? Are we more apt to develop a taste aversion to familiar foods or two novel foods?

Answer 18

Many people have conditioned taste of versions traceable to illnesses following eating. These aversions generally involve foods with which the person has had little experience before becoming ill. Thus, becoming ill after eating a kind of food we have eaten many times before is not likely to result in a taste aversion

Question 19

Describe the Berenstein’s study on the acquisition of conditioned taste aversions in people undergoing chemotherapy

Answer 19

Was interested in whether experiences with eating and nausea inducing chemotherapy produced conditioned taste aversions. Studied children undergoing treatment for cancer and ask them about their diets and found that those who are undergoing chemotherapy were more likely to report taste aversions than those not. She divided the children into three groups, 18 a novel flavoured ice cream before treatment and one had ice cream but no chemotherapy. Later when the children were given a choice between eating the novel ice cream and playing a game, those who ate ice cream before chemotherapy, only 21% chose the ice cream; those who had ice cream but no chemotherapy, 73% chose the dessert

Question 20

What is a conditioned allergic reaction? Provide an example of such a reaction in which you identify the US, the UR, the CS, and the CR

Answer 20

A person who is allergic to a substance may become allergic to things frequently associated with it

Example: a person who always plays badminton outside near bales of hay which they are allergic to, may develop an allergic reaction to badminton

US: hay
UR: allergic reaction
CS: badminton
CR: allergic reaction

Question 21

Describe the Bovbjerg Study that examines the changes in functioning of the immune system associated with conditional stimuli in the hospital environment

Answer 21

Found that women receiving chemotherapy for ovarian cancer showed decreased immune functioning when they returned to the hospital for treatment. The hospital itself had become a CS for conditioned immunosuppression

Question 22

How might it be possible to boost immune system function through Pavlovian conditioning procedures?

Answer 22

If a neutral stimulus can be paired with a drug or procedure that facilitates immune functioning, that stimulus might be ome a CS for conditioned immuno-facilitation

Question 23

An emotional response to a stimulus that is acquired through Pavlovian conditioning

Answer 23

Conditioned emotional response