L7 - The Conditions of Conditioning Flashcards

1
Q

Temporal contiguity

A

Occurs when two stimuli are experienced close together in time and, as a result an association may be formed.

  • In Pavlovian conditioning the strength of the association between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) is largely affected bytemporal contiguity.
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2
Q

General Rule of temporal contiguity

A

The amount and speed of conditioning decreases as temporal separation of CS and US increases.

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3
Q

Why would taste aversion conditioning take longer than eyeblink?

A

The brain isn’t just mindlessly learning two things that work together, it is discounting what is biologically implausible, food takes longer to digest and for the effects to happen so there is more of a delay

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4
Q

Relative vs Absolute contiguity

GIbbon et al (1977)

A

Effect of trial spacing, how much you pair these things in time also affects how much you learn

Space trials more = more learning

Massed vs spaced learning
- cramming is bad

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5
Q

How to work out temporal contiguity ratio

A

time between trials divided by trial duration (CS-US duration)

  • What is important in learning is the ratio of the inter trail interval and the time between CS US delay
  • You want a very large ratio
    e. g. large spacing between trials and short time between US-CS
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6
Q

How did rescorla make a truly random schedule?

A

The US occurs at random times with respect to the CS, no correlation positive or negative.

  • Still contiguity but this brakes the confound of correlation in time so produced no conditioning, much better control
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7
Q

Overshadowing

A

When two or more stimuli are present, and one stimulus produces a stronger response than the other because it is more relevant or salient.

Called overshadowing as one stimulus detracts from the others learning.

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8
Q

Salience

A

how noticeable a stimulus is

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9
Q

Example of overshadowing

A
  • Tone 1 predicts sucrose pellet and green light does individually
  • In overshadowing condition when both are presented at the same time, when tested individually both are lower and light is particularly low
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10
Q

How did Mackintosh show salience impacted learning?

A

○ 3 conditions (light is always the same

  1. Light
  2. Light + quiet tone
  3. Light + loud tone

If the light is presented in isolation with the shock you learn a lot and with soft noise you do too

Key loud noise overshadows and learns less about the light

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11
Q

What is the range of the repression ratio?

A

0 repression ratio is a lot of learning, 0.5 is learning nothing at all
- 0-0.5 range

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12
Q

Kamin’s Blocking Effect

A

When pairing two USs with a CS, if one CS is already conditioned to the US this will reduce the learning for the other CS when paired all together

Blocking stimuli I pre-conditoned

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13
Q

How did Kamin show the blocking effect

A

Phase 1:
CS1 = shock lots of trials

Phase 2:
CS1 = shock
CS2 = shock
(played at the same time

With the blocked condition learning CS2 is not learnt well

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14
Q

Pigeons and relative contiguity

A

Pigeons had a CS duration of 4, 8, 16 or 32 seconds before the food would be delivered to the pigeon.
The group that had the light come on for 4 seconds learned the fastest, to associate the light with food.
Whereas the 32 second group took over 100 trials to make the association between the light and food.

However the groups that had the longer time intervals between trials learnt quicker than those that had shorter time intervals between trials

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15
Q

Name the 4 things that affect the strength of conditioning (all time related)

Name 4 ways of associating stimuli by manipulating spacing trails

A
  1. Delay conditioning - the CS comes on and then ends with presentation of the US; this is an excellent way to produce conditioning.
  2. Trace conditioning - where the CS and US are separated by a gap; can produce ok learning, but conditioning gets worse as the trace interval increases.
  3. Simultaneous conditioning - arrange the CS and US in time to present them both simultaneously; weak conditioning because the CS doesn’t signal the US.
  4. Backward conditioning - when the CS comes after the US in time; produces weak conditioning
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16
Q

What is the spacing of trials

A

The space between the US’s and it affects learning

17
Q

Is TC the only factor important for learning?

A

No - trial spacing has a separate effect

18
Q

What ratio shows best learning and how do we attain it?

A

A large ratio signals the best learning

We get a large ration when the interval between US’s is big and small CS duration

19
Q

Who came up with the unconfounding control experiment to test whether TC is sufficient enough for learning?

A

Rescorla

20
Q

Suppression ratio

A

The measure of the extent to which the CS suppresses responding

the rate of responding in the presence of the CS divided by the sum of the response rate in the presence of the CS and in the absence of the CS.

If A is the response rate during CS and B is the response rate in the absence of the CS (usually measured immediately prior to CS presentation) then the suppression ratio is A/(A+B)

With this formula a CS which completely suppresses responding will score 0.0, one that has no particular effect will score 0.5.

0.5 because it it respond the same amount with and without it e.g. 100 / (100+100)

Big suppression (responds way less with it) 2/ (2 + 100)
A - 2
B - 100