classical conditioning Flashcards
what are the three stages of classical conditioning?
habituation, acquisition & extinction
what is habituation in classical conditioning?
The CS is presented alone (eg. a new stimulus such as a sound of a bell ringing may catch your attention)
what is acquisition in classical conditioning?
the CS and US are repeatedly paired together and behaviour increases (eg. a pc start sound is paired with a mint, creating associated behaviour where the sound causes foul taste in mouth)
What is extinction in classical conditioning?
the CS is repeatedly presented alone, and the behaviour slowly decreases (eg. a patient with a fear of spiders is repeatedly exposed to images of a spider and their fear response decreases over time)
Why is habituation the first stage of a typical classical conditioning experiment?
to ensure there is no already present CR with the CS which may interfere with experimental results.
what is the conditioned stimulus?
a neutral stimulus that becomes the trigger for a conditioned response (eg. a dog barking results in learnt avoidance of walking nearby a neighbouring house)
what is an unconditioned stimulus
a natural response to stimuli that cannot be caused by conditioning (salivating at the sight of food)
what is a conditioned response
a learnt behaviour caused by associations between stimuli that are otherwise unrelated (eg. dog drooling at the sound of a bell after learning to associate the sound with food)
what is classical conditioning?
the process of learning via association of neutral stimuli (bell) paired with unconditioned stimuli (food) to create conditioned response (salivation)
what is an unconditioned response?
a natural response to stimuli (flinching at loud noises)
What is the acquisition curve?
the statistical representation of phases of classical conditioning
What factors may influence the acquisition curve?
US intensity (eg. the volume of a noise), CS & US relative timing (eg. symptoms of food poisoning show later)
What is taste aversion?
a learned association between the taste of a particular food and illness
What is excitatory conditioning?
CS predicts the occurrence of a US (eg. if A= light: A-US, A-US, A-US)
what is inhibitory conditioning?
CS predicts the absence of the US (eg. if B= beep & A= light: A-US, A-US, AB, A-US, AB)
what is blocking?
a slowing of learning; less is learned about the relationship between stimulus & response if paired in the presence of a second stimulus that has previous establishment as a reliable predictor of that behaviour.
what is contiguity?
the principle that states the more two stimuli are paired, (eg. appear close together in time) the stronger the association
What is contingency?
conditioning changes trial to trial in a regular way (CS starts to predict US)
What is superconditioning?
faster learning; when a neutral stimulus and inhibitory stimulus are paired with the US
What is the free energy principle?
a formulation of how adaptive systems (brains) resist natural tendency to disorder by reducing surprise or uncertainty through predictions
