Contingency and Conditioning

Question 1

What is contingency for conditioning?

Answer 1

Conditioning occurs when the occurrence of the CS is contingent on the occurrence of the US (dependent upon). Doesn’t need to be always.

Question 2

What is contingency about?

Answer 2

Recognising some causality. There is some causal relationship between the CS and US. But some things can be signals and not causes

Question 3

What is a positive contingency?

Answer 3

The probability of the US occurring is higher when the CS is present than when it is absent

Question 4

What is zero contingency?

Answer 4

The same as Rescorla’s truly random condition: the probability of the US is the same whether the CS is present or absent

Question 5

Who showed how contingency is related to conditioning?

Answer 5

Rescorla - using conditioned suppression in rats. He showed that the group who had the highest probability of getting a shock in absence of the CS - learned the least, despite the fact that they got TWICE as many shocks. The CS carried no information about the shock

Question 6

If I have a zero contingency condition but have twice as many CS-US pairings than a positive contingency condition, will I get more or less equal learning?

Answer 6

You will get no learning in the zero contingency condition

Question 7

When does inhibitory conditioning occur?

Answer 7

During negative contingency conditioning - the CS occurs in the absence of the US. The CS is preventing the US occurring

Question 8

How do we test for inhibitory conditioning?

Answer 8

Light -> Shock. Noise not paired with shock. Light + Noise compound elicits LESS fear. The noise reduces responding to the Light which says the US will occur

Question 9

Who introduced the idea of conditioning in terms of information

Answer 9

Gallistel

Question 10

What did Gallistel look at?

Answer 10

How informative is the CS about the occurrence of the US. He introduced maths into conditioning research

Question 11

Is a CS with a negative contingency informative?

Answer 11

YES

Question 12

How did Gallistel quantify informativeness of a CS

Answer 12

in terms of how much uncertainty is reduced

Question 13

What does comparative rate estimates refer to?

Answer 13

The ratio of inter-trial to CS duration, higher ratio -> faster learning

Question 14

How did Gallistel try to show that animals are aware of the information content?

Answer 14

By pointing to the evidence about comparative rate estimates. Same ratio -> no effect on learning speed because uncertainty is reduced by the same amount. Shannon’s Information Theory

Question 15

Based on comparative rate estimates should you punish a child frequently or infrequently for best disciplining?

Answer 15

Infrequently - longer intertrial interval.

Question 16

Which experiment casted questions on contingency?

Answer 16

Durlach 1983

Question 17

What did Durlach’s experiment show

Answer 17

Group 2 had both a tone and a light with each having contingency to the shock. The result was conditioning to BOTH the tone and light. The light rescues learning to the tone. Group 1 don’t learn because it is just zero contingency tone - shock. Group 1 learn association between the BOX and the shock.

Question 18

when did the modern era of conditioning research begin?

Answer 18

1960s - discoveries that we need the CS to provide INFORMATION about the US

Question 19

What was Rescorla’s contribution

Answer 19

Occurrence of the US must be contingent on the presence of the CS

Question 20

What was Gallistel’s input

Answer 20

conditioning in terms of information - animal estimates when or if important events occur

Question 21

What were the two implications of Rescorla’s study on contingency?

Answer 21

1. Pairings of a CS and Us are not sufficient to produce conditioning
2. excitation and inhibition can be regarded as two ends of the same continuum

Question 22

What is an Excitor in Rescorla’s experiment?

Answer 22

The tone in Group 1 - a CS that signals the increase in the probability of the US. relationship = positive contingency

Question 23

What was an inhibitor in Rescorla’s experiment?

Answer 23

The tone in Group 3 - a CS that signals the decrease in the probability of the US. negative contingency

Question 24

which two experiments encouraged the idea of information value in conditioning

Answer 24

Rescorla’s contingency experiment and Kamin’s blocking experiment

Question 25

What happened in Kamin’s experiment

Answer 25

Group 1 had bad conditioning to the light because prior conditioning of tone - shock blocked learning about the light in phase 2

Question 26

What happened to the suppression ratio in Kamin’s next experiment when he introduced a larger SHOCK in phase 2

Answer 26

The suppression ratio dropped - learning occurred because the light now predicts something new