Classical Conditioning

Question 1

What are instances of single stimulus learning?

Answer 1

Habituation and Sensitisation

Question 2

What is associate learning?

Answer 2

When two events occur together and we learn about the relationship between them

Question 3

What sorts of associative learning are psychologists primarily interested in?

Answer 3

When the second event is biologically important such that survival may depend on being able to predict this event.

Question 4

What is the first form of associative learning?

Answer 4

Pavlovian or classical conditioning

Question 5

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 5

A stimulus that reliably elicits a characteristic response without prior training

Question 6

What is an unconditioned response?

Answer 6

The connection between the stimulus and response is unlearned, innate or reflexive.

Question 7

What is a conditioned stimulus?

Answer 7

Any stimulus that does not initially evoke the unconditioned response

Question 8

What is a conditioned response?

Answer 8

Response that occurs as soon as the conditioned stimulus is presented.

Question 9

What is a conditioning trial?

Answer 9

Pairing of the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus

Question 10

What is the most common way to measure the level of conditioning

Answer 10

To occasionally intersperse trials with a test trial where the neutral stimulus is presented to see if it produces a conditioned response

Question 11

What is second order conditioning?

Answer 11

When a conditioned stimulus has been fairly well conditioned, the CS itself can serve as the Us and support a new conditioning

Question 12

What is Sensory preconditioning

Answer 12

Two neutral stimuli are first paired, and then one is separately paired with an US. In the test phase the stimulus that was not paired with the US s presented to see if it will elicit a CR.

Question 13

What is Appetitive Conditioning?

Answer 13

The unconditioned stimulus is a desirable or appetitive stimulus (e.g food)

Question 14

What is an aversive conditioning

Answer 14

The unconditioned stimulus is an unpleasant or aversive event e.g. shock

Question 15

What is Autoshaping?

Answer 15

First reinforcing a response vaguely similar to the target behaviour, then reinforcing a somewhat closer approximation and so on.

Question 16

What is sign tracking

Answer 16

A form of appetitive conditioning in which a localised stimulus serves as the CS and as a result the subject comes to approach/track and sometimes manipulate this stimulus

Question 17

What is eyeblink conditioning

Answer 17

When exposed to a brief light or tone CS that is paired with a US that consists of either a puff of air to the corner of the eye or a mild electric shock delivered near the eye that causes a blink. With more pairings, the CS elicits the eyeblink just before the US is about to occur. With typical procedures the conditioned response itself begins to happen regularly after a few hundred CS-US pairings.

Question 18

What is taste aversion learning?

Answer 18

A form of classical conditioning in which a food item that has been paired with illness becomes a conditioned aversive stimulus

Question 19

Is taste aversion common or uncommon?

Answer 19

Common

Question 20

How strong or rapid is taste aversion?

Answer 20

Very strong- can be acquired after a single trial. Can also continue despite long delays between food exposure and symptoms. can happen unconscious

Question 21

When conditioned stimulus aversions occur when are they acquired extremely rapidly?

Answer 21

When the CS food or taste is novel.

Question 22

When conditioned stimulus aversions occur when are they acquired retardedly?

Answer 22

When the organism has prior safe exposure to the food.

Question 23

What is the nature of an aversive unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 23

Has prototypically been a nausea-inducing drug or exposure to X-ray radiation.

Question 24

What did the study by Garcia and Koelling (1966) reveal?

Answer 24

Rats were allowed to drink a distinctly flavoured water solution for 20 mins and then exposed to x-rays that would make them ill. After rats recovered they were given choice between flavoured and normal water and flavoured was substanially reduced

Question 25

In the experiment with rats by Garcia and Koelling, what was the NS, US and UR

Answer 25

NS= flavoured water
US= Xray 
UR= Nausea

Question 26

In the experiment by Garcia and Koelling, what was the CS and CR

Answer 26

CS= flavoured water
CR= Nausea

Question 27

What was the limitation of the study by Garcia and Koelling

Answer 27

No direct measure of the conditioned response was available; the experimenters could only infer that the flavour make the animals feel ill based on the fact that they refused to drink it

Question 28

What was the study by Gustavson in 1974

Answer 28

Inducing conditioned aversions in coyotes by producing illness after eating meat. When they were again offered the meat they all avoided it and some vomited, suggesting the taste of meat elicited a conditioned state of nausea.

Question 29

What is the link between food aversion learning and cancer anorexia

Answer 29

Foods eaten before each treatment become aversive through conditioning, leading to a reduction in amount consumed.
This is supported by work done by Bernstein.
Nausea is the critical variable in the development of food aversion

Question 30

What are the implications of food aversion research

Answer 30

Having patients eat special diet before treatment

Question 31

What is the study by Broberg and Bernstein (1987)

Answer 31

Used candy as a scapegoat between meal and delivery of chemo to determine whether this would interfere with the development of aversions to meal items.
The scapegoat had a significant protective effect; children were twice as likely to eat some portion of their test meal at assessent if they had received the scapegoat at conditioning than when there had been no intervention.

Question 32

What are the difficulties with studying fear in animals?

Answer 32

The physiciological responses that measure fear such as heart rate are difficult to record.

Question 33

What is the conditioned emotional response?

Answer 33

A form of classical conditioning in which a CS acquires the capacity to elicit freezing and other fear related behaviours as a result of being paired with an aversive US.
A fear conditioning procedure is then introuced in which a 30 second tone is followed by a 2 second shock.
the UR may include several different behaviours indicative of dear.

Question 34

In relation to conditioned emotional responses, what happens with the CS (the tone)

Answer 34

When it is first presented, it may have little effect on the behaviour. However after a few pairings, the rats rate of lever pressing suddenly decreases as soon as the CS is presented because they are frozen.

Question 35

What is the suppression ratio?

Answer 35

The measurement of the conditioned response.
# of CS responses over # of CS responses+ # of pre-CS responses

Question 36

What is the experiement by Annau and Kamin (1961)

Answer 36

Trained rats to press bar to earn food and the occasionally presented a three minute noise followed by an electric shock and different groups received shock intensities that varied from 0.28 to 2.91 milliamps
Results suggest that more intense shocks produce stronger conditioning of fear and that fear is more likely to endure. With strong shocks, a single conditioning trial was suffieicent to compress almost completely.