L2: Classical conditioning part 2 Flashcards
taste aversion learning and the garcia effect?
Taste aversion learning is a form of classical conditioning where an organism learns to associate a particular food or drink with illness, leading to an avoidance of that food in the future.
Taste aversion- strong type of learning. If eat something, feel sick, learn that food is not good. No longer want to try again.
Lab set up - give radiation to rats that make them feel sick. If pair sweet taste before radiation animals interpret sweet taste was cause of nausea and so taste aversion.
Taste aversion: the Garcia effect (Garcia and Koelling, 1966)
* The time delay between the CS (taste of saccharin) and the US (nausea) can be several hours
* Strong taste aversion can develop only after a few (even a single) pairings
* Taste aversion is extremely resistant to extinction
* The Garcia effect: the remarkable facility with which rats (and other animals) learn about the relationship
between the taste of a particular food and subsequent illness
Also found if pair light and nausea?? Or radiation?? Not the same. Biologically programmed that some stimuli are easier to produce classical conditioning. Sweet = easy food aversion. Tone, light require more pairing. Could be intrinsic and important for species survival?
Taste aversion- specific type of learning
explanation of terms?
Unconditioned Stimulus (US): A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any prior learning (e.g., food causing salivation in a dog).
Unconditioned Response (UR): An automatic, innate reaction to an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., salivation in response to food).
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A previously neutral stimulus that, after being paired with the unconditioned stimulus, triggers a learned response (e.g., a bell that signals food and eventually causes salivation).
Conditioned Response (CR): A learned response to the conditioned stimulus that occurs after conditioning (e.g., salivation in response to the bell alone).
generalisation?
Key concepts in classical conditioning: generalisation
* Learning is efficient if it does not have to be repeated for
every stimulus…
* Explains how we can have a “learned reaction” to a
situation we have never encountered before
* Generalisation: during
extinction, similar tones will
produce similar but weakened
CR
Chatgpt explanation: Generalization during extinction occurs because the conditioned response (CR) has been learned not just in response to the specific conditioned stimulus (CS), but also to similar stimuli. During extinction, when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (US), the association weakens. However, the organism may still respond to similar stimuli due to stimulus generalization, which is the tendency to apply learned responses to stimuli that resemble the original CS.
discrimination?
Discrimination:
The learned ability to distinguish between similar stimuli and respond only to the specific conditioned stimulus (CS), ignoring others.
Example: A dog salivates only to the specific bell tone it was conditioned to, but not to other similar sounds.
discrimation?.
response may continue to generalize.
Key concepts in classical conditioning: discrimination
* Discrimination: caused by
prolonged training or
differential reinforcement
Discrimination in classical conditioning refers to the ability to distinguish between different stimuli and respond only to the specific conditioned stimulus (CS), while ignoring similar but irrelevant stimuli. It occurs when an organism learns that only a particular stimulus predicts the unconditioned stimulus (US), and similar stimuli do not.
conceptual categories?
Conceptual categories:
Conceptual knowledge is involved when humans generalise fear (Dunsmoor and murphy, 2014)
Conditioning at the category level of mental representation
Conditioned fear response generalized more easily to typical category members compared to atypical category members
E.g: strong aversion? To one animal could be extedned to other species
Semantic generalisation humans are conditioned to the meaning of the stimulus
For example, if CS=4, we are conditioned to the concept of ‘fourness’
Sqrt (16), 8/2, 2x2, 40/10 also produce CR (i.e similar reaction to variations of number 4)
Depends on level of language development (reiss 1946)
8 year old: if CS= visual presentation of the word right —> synonyms ‘rite’
11 year olds: generalised to antonyms (‘wrong’)
14 year olds synonyms: ‘correct’
(as time goes by becomes more refined and complex)
Humans: language (symbolic representation) = second signalling system
For example we respond to word ‘danger’ as we would respond to the actual cs thqat predicts the threatening situation
aquisition, extinction and spontaneous recovery?
Key concept in classical conditioning; aquisition
To produce the CR, the CS and the US stimulus
usually must be paired a number of times
* The CS is presented first
Key concepts in classical conditioning: extinction
If the CS is continually presented without the US… the
CR gradually disappears
Key concepts in classical conditioning: spontaneous recovery
* If after a period of time following extinction the CS is presented again, the CR will re-appear temporarily
(spontaneous recovery)
renewal effect, reinstatement?
- Renewal effect: when a response conditioned in one experimental context is extinguished in another
context. Upon return to original setting, the CS readily elicits the CR
- implications: addiction/phobia treatment - Reinstatement: After extinction, if the US is presented again, a CR is reinstated
(theres a graph to look at in the notes)
what does extinction involve?
What does extinction involve
Bouton (1993, 1994): contextual interpretation most parsimonious way to explain spontaneous recovery,
renewal, and reinstatement
* during extinction, nonreinforced presentation of the CS → new learning that interferes with previously
learned CS-US associations
* Original associations remain intact and co-exist with newly learned CS-extinction associations
* During extinction, the same contextual cues retrieve CS-extinction associations
* After extinction, the CS is ambiguous – contextual cues determine which response occurs
* Contextual factors (e.g. time, physical and spatial stimuli) serve as memory retrieval cues for CS-US
associations.
Example:
* Spontaneous recovery is reduced if a distinctive (non-CS) cue that was present during extinction is re-
introduced during tests for recovery (Brooks & Bouton, 1993)
higher order conditioning?
Key concepts in classical conditioning: higher order conditioning
- After a number of pairings of a neutral stimulus with the first CS, the neutral stimulus can become a
second CS and also elicit the CR. - The CS a now a secondary reinforcer, and the US becomes the primary reinforcer.
- As higher order conditioning is studied during extinction, it is hard to go beyond third-order conditioning
E.g: The CS (bell) becomes a secondary reinforcer, and the US (food) remains the primary reinforcer
Can stack behaviours. Now show bell with light, associate them together. Light elicits conditioned response. Light becomes second order stimulus.
E.g; first order signal- a song. Assocuate song with dancing with partner= pleasant feelings.
Second order: in car. Everytime theres this song- pleasant feeling. So whenever in car without song and dancing= pleasant feeling.
Happenes after pairing NS and CS and now ns becomes cs and elicits cr.
interval between CS and US?
- CS appears up to 0.5 sec before US
- CS stays on till US appears
But: - Oversimplification: e.g. taste aversion (several hours)
- Conditioning is not always certain even if timings are optimal
- Backward conditioning? What happens when the CS comes after the US?
See next section…
