Contingency and Conditioning Flashcards
What is contingency for conditioning?
Conditioning occurs when the occurrence of the CS is contingent on the occurrence of the US (dependent upon). Doesn’t need to be always.
What is contingency about?
Recognising some causality. There is some causal relationship between the CS and US. But some things can be signals and not causes
What is a positive contingency?
The probability of the US occurring is higher when the CS is present than when it is absent
What is zero contingency?
The same as Rescorla’s truly random condition: the probability of the US is the same whether the CS is present or absent
Who showed how contingency is related to conditioning?
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
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?
You will get no learning in the zero contingency condition
When does inhibitory conditioning occur?
During negative contingency conditioning - the CS occurs in the absence of the US. The CS is preventing the US occurring
How do we test for inhibitory conditioning?
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
Who introduced the idea of conditioning in terms of information
Gallistel
What did Gallistel look at?
How informative is the CS about the occurrence of the US. He introduced maths into conditioning research
Is a CS with a negative contingency informative?
YES
How did Gallistel quantify informativeness of a CS
in terms of how much uncertainty is reduced
What does comparative rate estimates refer to?
The ratio of inter-trial to CS duration, higher ratio -> faster learning
How did Gallistel try to show that animals are aware of the information content?
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
Based on comparative rate estimates should you punish a child frequently or infrequently for best disciplining?
Infrequently - longer intertrial interval.
Which experiment casted questions on contingency?
Durlach 1983
What did Durlach’s experiment show
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.
when did the modern era of conditioning research begin?
1960s - discoveries that we need the CS to provide INFORMATION about the US
What was Rescorla’s contribution
Occurrence of the US must be contingent on the presence of the CS
What was Gallistel’s input
conditioning in terms of information - animal estimates when or if important events occur
What were the two implications of Rescorla’s study on contingency?
- Pairings of a CS and Us are not sufficient to produce conditioning
- excitation and inhibition can be regarded as two ends of the same continuum
What is an Excitor in Rescorla’s experiment?
The tone in Group 1 - a CS that signals the increase in the probability of the US. relationship = positive contingency
What was an inhibitor in Rescorla’s experiment?
The tone in Group 3 - a CS that signals the decrease in the probability of the US. negative contingency
which two experiments encouraged the idea of information value in conditioning
Rescorla’s contingency experiment and Kamin’s blocking experiment
What happened in Kamin’s experiment
Group 1 had bad conditioning to the light because prior conditioning of tone - shock blocked learning about the light in phase 2
What happened to the suppression ratio in Kamin’s next experiment when he introduced a larger SHOCK in phase 2
The suppression ratio dropped - learning occurred because the light now predicts something new
