Lecture 2 - Classical Conditioning

Question 1

What is Classical Conditioning?

Answer 1

Process in which a stimulus (which does not elicit a response) is paired (associated) with a stimulus that does, and in turn the second stimulus will come to elicit the same response as the original stimulus

Question 2

What are the 4 experimental paradigms of Classical Conditioning?

Answer 2

1. Appetitive conditioning (via positive rewards for learning new behaviours)
2. Fear conditioning (fearful stimuli create faster conditioning)
3. Eyeblink Conditioning
4. Learning what tastes good and what tastes bad

Question 3

What is acquisition?

Answer 3

Process of developing and strengthening a conditioned response through repeated pairings with US and CS.

Question 4

What does the contiguity hypothesis predict in classical conditioning?

Answer 4

Presenting US (shock) and CS (tone) in proximity of each other should create learning when they are delayed, when presented simultaneously and when presented backward HOWEVER only stimuli presented using the Delayed Procedure promotes learning aka TIMIMG MATTERS! The timing between each pairing, and also the timing within each pairing. The Conditioned Stimulus MUST predict the Unconditioned Stimulus for learning to occur.

Question 5

What is an important rule for learning to be able to occur in classical conditioning?

Answer 5

The conditioned stimulus (tone) MUST predict the Unconditioned stimulus (shock) for learning to occur

Question 6

Data from what hypothesis shows that classical conditioning occurs?

Answer 6

The contingency hypothesis data is consistent with observed data. Conditioning occurs if CS reliably provides information about the upcoming US.

Question 7

How can we control for effects of non-associative (pseudo conditioning) learning?

Answer 7

By using unpaired control groups. That way, the difference between the unpaired control and the paired group gives us information about the associative learning that happened.