Classical Conditioning Flashcards
Classical Conditioning involves whats learning processes
allows us to associate 2 related events
Classical Conditioning
The learning of a contingency between a
particular signal and a later event that are paired in time and/or space
Unconditional Stimulus (US)
any stimulus or event that occurs naturally, prior to any learning
According to Pavlov what is an example of the US
ex. food placed in a dogs mouth: will naturally trigger a response without any training being necessary
Unconditional Response (UR):
the response that occurs after the unconditional stimulus
According to Pavlov what is an example of the UR
ex. food elicits an unconditional response of salivation in the dogs
mouth
Conditional Stimulus (CS)
paired with the unconditional stimulus to produce a learned contingency
According to Pavlov what is an example of the CS
ex. Pavlov paired a CS of the sound of a metronome with a US of placing food in the dogs mouth
Conditioned Response (CR)
the response that occurs once the contingency between the CS and the US has been learned
According to Pavlov what is an example of the CR
ex. the sound of the metronome will eventually come to elicit a conditional response of salivation just as the food presentation did too
Acquisition:
the process by which a contingency between a CS and a US is learned
What stimulus typically occurs before the unconditional stimulus
the conditional stimulus typically appears before the unconditional stimulus
normally contingencies are learned…Fast or slow?
slowly, taking many trials before the unconditional and conditional stimuli are effectively paired
most of the learning happens …..
during the early trials
There are special cases where just one trial is sufficient
rats can learn the contingency between food and sickness in a single trial
Extinction
the loss of the CR when the CS no longer predicts the US
How does extinction work?
involves presenting the CS alone repeatedly over many trials,
without the US, with which it had been previously paired
- at first, the CS will elicit a conditional response, but over several
trials, this response will become weaker and weaker
if extinction leads to new learning, there exists 2 learned processes:
the original learned response to the CS,
and the new inhibitory response to the CS
Spontaneous Recovery:
a sudden recovery of a conditional response following a rest period after extinction
Spontaneous Recovery suggests what about extinction
it creates a new inhibitory response
what happens if the CS is presented once more after extinction and a rest period
it once again elicits a conditional response
Stimulus Generalization
the process by which stimuli similar to the CS will also elicit a CS
Generalization Gradient:
shows the relationship between the degree of change in the original conditioning stimulus and response strength
stimulus generalization adds
flexibility and efficiency to classical conditioning
