Lecture 13: Operant-Pavlovian Interactions Flashcards
What motivates instrumental responding?
- More than just interaction b/n response and reinforcer
- Includes associative structure of instrumental learning
What did the associative structure of instrumental learning originate with?
- Thorndike’s attempts to identify a role for associative processes in instrumental learning
- Employed methods that originated to investigate Pavlovian conditioning
What perspective does the associative structure of instrumental learning take?
- Molecular perspective
- Focusing on individual responses and specific stimulus antecedents and response outcomes
What is context in operant conditioning?
- Behaviour occurs within a context
- Context (S) forms an association with behaviour (R)
- Outcome (O) ‘stamps in’ S-R association
- According to Thorndike, S-R associations solely responsible for instrumental behaviour
What is the antecedent stimulus usually?
- Most of the time, isn’t surprising/unexpected (ex. turning on car)
What is the S-R association?
- Key component of Thorndike’s Law of Effect
What is the basic motivation for instrumental behaviour?
- Activation of S-R association
- Stimulus triggers response
What is the function of the outcome in S-R association?
- Only function of the outcome is to strengthen S-R association
- R-O association is not relevant to Law of Effect
What is the underlying mechanism for habitual behaviour?
- S-R association
- Strongly reinforced by the O
- Over time, S triggers R regardless of the O
- Representation of outcome before habit is made, later switches to S-R association and S triggers R without representation of outcome
What is an example of habitual behaviour?
- Drug-associated stimuli maintain high rates of drug seeking
- Ex. Man asked to use breathalyzer, and when it looks like a flask so he tries to drink out of it
What does degeneration of the dorsal striatum lead to?
- Over reliance on goal-directed behaviour
What is the expectancy of reward in the S-O association?
- Animals learn to expect something when a stimulus activates a memory of past response eliciting a reward
- Antecedent stimuli are associated with reward
- “Signal learning”
What is “signal learning”?
- Environmental cues signal that a reward is coming
- May be established through Pavlovian processes interacting with instrumental processes
- Context of reinforcement becomes associated with the outcome
What is the Two Process Theory?
- Two types of learning
- Instrumental and Pavlovian
What is instrumental learning in the Two Process theory?
- Presence of the stimulus (S) comes to evoke the response (R) directly through outcome ‘stamping’ in that S-R learning
- As S-R learning progresses, association b/n S-O facilitated by Pavlovian conditioning
What is Pavlovian learning in the Two Process theory?
- The stimulus (S) that occurs in the presence of a response becomes associated with the outcome (O)
- Activates an ‘emotional’ (appetitive or aversive) state that motivates the instrumental behaviour
What are the three phases of a Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer Test?
One: Instrumental training
- Lever press (R) -> Food (O)
Two: Pavlovian training
- Tone (CS/S) -> Food (US/O)
Three: Transfer Phase
- Pavlovian CS presented during performance of instrumental response (play tone while lever pressing for food is ongoing)
- Lever pressing will increase in the presence of an appetitive tone (CS/S)
What is conditioned suppression?
- PIT Test
- In Phase Two, the tone is associated with a shock (aversive US)
- Lever pressing will decrease in presence of an aversive tone (CS/S)
What can devaluation be used to assess?
- R-O associations
- If devaluation of the outcome disrupts instrumental conditioning, memory/representation of outcome was necessary for motivating behaviour (R-O association dominates)
- If devaluation of outcome does not disrupt instrumental conditioning, memory/representation of the outcome was not necessary for motivating behaviour (S-R association dominates)
What type of behaviour does response-outcome association evoke?
- Goal-directed behaviour
- More effective in devaluation
What type of behaviour does stimulus-response associations evoke?
- Habitual behaviour
- See stimulus, triggers response
- Less effective devaluation
What does the development of an S-R habit lead to?
- Resistance to reinforcer devaluation
Is cocaine seeking resistant to reinforcer devaluation?
- Yes
- After a long cocaine taking history
- Lower seeking with brief history (devalued)
What does the inactivation of the dorsolateral striatum lead to?
- Sensitivity to reinforcer devaluation (goal-directed)
- Leads to habit in reward activity
- Habitual -> goal-directed
- Less responding without dorsolateral striatum
What is Skinner’s three-term contingency?
- S(R-O) Associations
- Under some circumstances, S not only activates representation of R or of O, but rather activates the representation of the R-O association
