Classical and operant conditioning

Question 1

What is the learning process called?

Answer 1

Acquisition

Question 2

What are unlearned associations?

Answer 2

Automatic responses to experiencing stimuli, such as the geese’s instinct to sit on any object they think are eggs.

Question 3

What were the US and UR in Pavlov’s experiment?

Answer 3

UR: salivating
US: food

Question 4

Why do unconditioned stimuli elicit unconditioned responses?

Answer 4

Because US have motivational value, they are either considered nice or nasty (such as moving your hand if you touch something hot). Because they are involuntary, they could either be overt muscular responses or internal (such as like/dislike preferences).

Question 5

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 5

Classical conditioning involves an association forming between a conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. The US is named so because it is already associated with an unconditioned response (UR). When the CS and US become mentally associated, the UR can be elicited with either. Indirectly (not directly!) associated with this response.

Note: Classical conditioning is NOT stimulus-response stimulus. The CR is NOT directly associated with the CS. It’s via the US.

Question 6

What did Hull and Thorndike believe?

Answer 6

all leaning was S-R learning, and all learning required a response and a reinforcer

Question 7

What is a conditioned response?

Answer 7

An indirect elicitation of the unconditioned response

Question 8

What is autoshaping?

Answer 8

A classically conditioned procedure where the animal conditions itself to elicit a response to a certain stimulus.W

Question 9

What is shaping?

Answer 9

Getting someone to actually make the responses required to experience the contingency in instrumental conditioning. Example: putting food pellets on the level so the animal is encouraged to pull the lever.

Question 10

What is stimulus substitution?

Answer 10

When a conditioned response mirrors the unconditioned response. Because the CS makes you think of the US, the CS acts as a substitution for that.

Question 11

What is evaluative conditioning?

Answer 11

When stimulus substitution applies to the value of the unconditioned stimulus. The motivational properties of the US transfer to the CS. Branding is a good example.

Question 12

What is second-order conditioning?

Answer 12

Chains of associations. For instance, if you like the purple quality street chocolates. You form an association with the purple wrappers and the sweet you like. Then, you form another association of the quality street box and the chocolate, so you begin associating the box with the chocolate that you like

Second-order conditioning occurs when you form the motivational link first (if you get bitten by a dog, and then learn that a house contains a dog and make the association)

Question 13

Does classical conditioning require reinforcement?

Answer 13

No. It would if it were S-R learning, but it is not.

Question 14

Does classical conditioning require an observable behaviour?

Answer 14

No, it can occur silently.

Question 15

What is sensory preconditioning?

Answer 15

Sensory preconditioning is when you first learn that two neutral stimuli are paired. Neither are of any importance to you, which is why you don’t change your behaviour at all.
Like associating a house with a dog before being bitten at all. Once you’re bitten, you associate that house with fear.

Question 16

Give an example of sensory preconditioning

Answer 16

In a Skinner box experiment, you might put a rat in a box and pair a tone with a light. The rat will keep doing its thing and start making the associations mentally without changing its behaviour (classical conditioning). If you then pair the light with food, you will see that the animal makes an association between light and food as well, despite the lack of response and reinforcement in the first stage.

Question 17

What is appetitive reinforcement?

Answer 17

The process of strengthening or increasing a behavior through the delivery of a rewarding or desirable stimulus after the behavior occurs.

Question 18

What is aversive reinforcement?

Answer 18

Aversive reinforcers are negative and slightly frightens the animals in certain experiments (such as a shock).

Question 19

What is stimulus generalisation?

Answer 19

Reactions to non-stimulus sounds as well. It was discovered by Pavlov.

Question 20

What is the conditioned emotional response?

Answer 20

A measure of conditioned suppression, and it can be measured by how much a behaviour reduces.

Question 21

What is the suppression ratio?

Answer 21

Rate of responses during the CS / (rate before + rate CS)

Question 22

What is extinction?

Answer 22

If you remove the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response dissipates.

Question 23

Does extinction mean that the association has completely gone?

Answer 23

NO. Testing the animal again demonstrates the conditioned response again, though to a much lesser degree.

Question 24

What is conditioned inhibition?

Answer 24

The opposite to classical conditioning. When a conditioned inhibitor signals the omission of the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 25

Give an example of extinction

Answer 25

In extinction, you train a tone (CS) to mean food (US), but then the food gets taken away. So the expected stimulus no longer happens. So the tone that used to predict the food now predicts the absence of the expected food. You’re not removing the original association, but you’re superimposing an additional inhibitory association on to it. Now the tone predicts both food and no food, and what you see during extinction is the growing inhibition counteracting the excitation. If you assume that the inhibitory association is more volatile and is more easily destroyed with the mere passing of time, then if you wait a bit, the inhibitory association becomes weakened as compared to the excitatory association. Extinction taking away the US doesn’t return you to your original state, but it just superimposes more learning.

Question 26

Do inhibitors have motivational value?

Answer 26

Yes. Inhibitors for positive things have negative emotional value. Motivational states associated with inhibitors can also be positive or negatively associated.

Question 27

What is another name for instrumental conditioning?

Answer 27

Operant conditioning

Question 28

What type of learning underpins anxiety and fear-based disorders?

Answer 28

Instrumental/operant learning

Question 29

How do we form an operant association?

Answer 29

Two mental representations are linked, but the response is paired with the stimulus and not the other way around

Question 30

Why do animals do the response required for operant conditioning?

Answer 30

Due to goal-directed behaviour (wanting food if they’re hungry, for example). It is a voluntary action aimed towards a goal.

Question 31

What are the similarities between instrumental and classical conditioning?

Answer 31

They both use appetitive unconditioned stimuli (such as food) or aversive unconditioned stimuli (such as shocks).

Question 32

What is the key difference between classical and instrumental?

Answer 32

What predicts the first event. In operant, the learner is in control.

Question 33

Thorndike believes…

Answer 33

If an action brings a reward, the action becomes stamped in the mind

Question 34

What is the law of Effect?

Answer 34

Thorndike (and Skinner!) believed that there is always stimulus present in the environment (Discriminative stimulus: Sd). In the presence of this Sd, the animal makes a lot of different responses, but the one that is strengthened is the one that produces a reward. Once the stimulus-response learning has been encoding, the reward no longer plays a role. According to this theory, the animal would still make the response even if they weren’t hungry or were happy in the box. S-R theorists would often make a lot of reaches to justify this theory. No longer considered to be a driver of instrumental conditioning.

Question 35

What is the current belief about operant conditioning?

Answer 35

We form an association between the response and the outcome.

Question 36

Types of reinforcement?

Answer 36

Positive: Giving something nice
Negative: Taking something bad away

Question 37

Types of punishment?

Answer 37

Positive: Giving something nasty
Negative: Omitting something nice

Question 38

Types of avoidance?

Answer 38

Passive, active, and signalled

Question 39

What is passive avoidance?

Answer 39

The animal has to stay where it is to avoid shock

Question 40

What is active avoidance?

Answer 40

Animal has to move to avoid shock

Question 41

What is signalled avoidance?

Answer 41

An explicit conditioned stimulus is associated with a shock, such as a buzzer.

Question 42

What is Sidman avoidance?

Answer 42

A procedure in which brief, inescapable aversive stimuli are presented at fixed intervals (shock-shock intervals) in the absence of a specified response. If the response is made, the aversive stimulus is postponed by a fixed amount of time from that response.

If the animal responds at a steady rate, the aversive stimulus can be postponed indefinitely.

Question 43

What is the clinical relevance of avoidance behaviour?

Answer 43

Avoidance is a key component of mental health disorders such as phobias. Daily life can be made more difficult by having to avoid certain things.

Question 44

What leads to the most avoidance behaviour, according to Kamin (1956)?

Answer 44

Eliminating the aversive stimulus as well as the CS associated with it leads to more responses than simply eliminating one or the other. Led to the most learning.

Question 45

What is a conditioned inhibitor?

Answer 45

It is an action that signals the end of a good thing. It is directly parallel to avoidance responses, where performing an action removes the bad thing (thus becoming rewarding).

Question 46

How are avoidance responses rewarded?

Answer 46

Through negative reinforcement. The avoidance response is rewarded by following it with something nice (which is the lack of a bad thing).

Question 47

What is an interval schedule?

Answer 47

If a response is rewarded only every now and then.

Question 48

Different types of interval schedules?

Answer 48

Fixed intervals: The response only occurs at the time of reinforcement.
Variable intervals: Low steady rates of responding. Is often used in experiments.

Question 49

What is superstitious behaviour?

Answer 49

Associating something unexpected with the positive outcome.