Lecture 2: Classical Conditioning Flashcards
What is learning?
Relatively lasting change in behaviour potential as a result of experience (not fixed to acquiring information, however includes a change of behaviour)
How does it need to persist?
Over short or long time, similarly to memory, it needs to be persistent over time
What does learning include?
Behaviours, skills, preferences, knowledge, values etc.
What does it not include?
change due to motivational factors, fatigue, maturation, ageing etc.
What is habituation?
Response (occurrence or strength to stimulus is reduced through repeated presentations)
What is an example of habituation?
Car alarms Morning Alarm (first goes off / over a couple of snoozes) Marketing overdose
How is habituation measured?
Skin conductance (emotional arousal)
Orientating response
Startle response (10 balloons - will create the biggest response - by the 1st balloon it is ignored)
Eye gaze fixation
What are the features of habituation?
Stimulus specific
What is habituation dependant on?
Frequency and time lag of presentations
Frequency of sessions
Habituation can be long-term or short term
What is dishabituation?
The renewal of a response which has previously ben habituated, that occurs when novel stimulus is presented
What is the opposite of habituation?
Sensitisation
What is sensitisation?
Repeated presentation of a stimulus (usually salient and/or arousing) increases response (occurrence and strength)
Neuroscientific theory - what is the dual process theory?
Both habituation and sensitisation processes occur in parallel
What is the process of dual process theory?
A dual process theory provides an account of how thought can arise in two different ways, or as a result of two different processes. Often, the two processes consist of an implicit (automatic), unconscious process and an explicit (controlled), conscious process.
When there is high repetition and low intensity, what dominates?
Habituation dominates
When there is high repetition and high intensity, what dominates?
Sensitisation dominates
What do cognitive psychologists believe?
If your expectations are met, habituation occurs and if expectations are not met, sensitisation occurs
What is the missing stimulus effect?
Abstract. Following response habituation to a regularly-presented innocuous stimulus, omission of that stimulus may elicit a response. The missing-stimulus effect has been of some importance in the development of Orienting Response (OR) theory, particularly Sokolov’s neuronal model/stimulus comparator mechanism.
Cognitive theories believe that habituation and sensitisation are based on:
Mental representations of past events
What is included in non-associative learning?
Habituation and sensitisation
What is exposure based learning?
Learning as a result of exposure to stimuli
What is novel object recognition?
Detection and response to unfamiliar objects during exploration
What is perceptual learning?
Prior exposure to a stimulus can facilitate later learning about that stimulus, increase in specificity
Describe what happens with mere exposure learning?
No specific training has taken place
What is mere exposure effect?
Exposure / familiarity increases preferences
What is the difference between habituation and sensitisation?
Sensitization is the opposite process to habituation, i.e. an increase in the elicited behavior from repeated presentation of a stimulus. … Another related phenomenon is stimulus generalization, when habituation occurs in response to other stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus.
What is priming?
Implicit Memory. Priming is the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus. It is a technique in psychology used to train a person’s memory both in positive and negative ways.
What is perceptual learning?
Perceptual learning is learning better perception skills such as differentiating two musical tones from one another or categorizations of spatial and temporal patterns relevant to real-world expertise as in reading, seeing relations among chess pieces, knowing whether or not an X-ray image shows a tumor.
What is US (unconditioned stimulus)?
Something that automatically triggers a response without any conditioning
What is UR (unconditioned response)?
The unlearned behaviour that occurs in response to the unconditioned stimulus
What is CS (conditioned stimulus)?
Previously neutral stimulus that becomes associated with the unconditioned stimulus through classical conditioning
What is CR (conditioned response)?
Learned response to the conditioned stimulus. May be the same of different to the unconditioned response.
What is appetitive conditioning?
Conditioning in which the US is a desired event
What is aversive conditioning?
Conditioning in which the US is an undesired event
Phases in classical conditioning, what is associated with the acquisition phase?
US is repeatedly paired with the CS
Classical conditioning is achieved when CS alone elicits CR
Usually takes many presentations, over several sessions
Phases in classical conditioning, what is associated with the extinction phase?
When CS is repeatedly presented without US, CR begins to decrease
Not so much unlearning, as learning a new association
Phases in classical conditioning, what is associated with spontaneous recovery?
Response previously extinguished but sometimes reappears during presentation of CS
Phases in classical conditioning, what is associated with reacquisition?
Usually faster than acquisition
What is generalisation?
CR also occurs in the presence of another stimulus similar to the CS
What is discrimination?
Can be learned first by pairing US with CS, then presenting the other stimuli similar to the CS without the US
What is the Stimulus-Response (S-R) theory?
CS (stimulus) is associated with UR (response) therefore CS => UR/CR
Who developed the Stimulus-Response theory?
Watson
Why do some researchers (radical behaviourists for example) favour this theory?
As it bypasses cognitive processes (stimulus - response)
What is Stimulus-Stimulus (S-S) theory?
The CS (conditioned stimulus) is associated with the US (unconditioned stimulus) CS makes the subject 'think of' of the US, and therefore generates a CR that is related to UR
What is the PRO of S-S?
CR can take on any form
What is the CON of S-S?
Con (for behaviourists): requires cognitive process
What is another pro of S-S over S-R theory?
Sensory preconditioning
What is another PRO for S-S theory?
Higher order conditioning
Explain higher order conditioning;
- Extending the conditioning by one more level
- Pairing of a stimulus to a conditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response
What is contiguity?
Associations occurs when stimuli are presented close to each other in time
What is frequency?
Associations occur when stimuli are presented together many times
What is contiguity?
Associations occurs when stimuli are presented close to each other in time. Short-delay conditioning (onset of cs slightly precedes onset of US) Long delay conditioning (CS is presented at least a few seconds prior to onset of US and persists until US is presented. Trace conditioning (CS occurs prior to the onset of US and terminates before US commences) Simultaneous conditioning (produces weaker conditioning)
What is frequency?
Associations occur when stimuli are presented together many times.
Strength of learning tends to correlate with the frequency that two events are paired together
More pairings = stronger learning? Not necessarily
May include Latent inhibition or The Blocking Effect
What is predictiveness?
Associations occurs when one stimulus predicts the occurrence of another stimulus
Simultaneous conditioning - CS does not actually predict US occurrence
Backwards conditioning - CS cannot predict occurrence of the US
Inhibitory conditioning - onset of CS in fact reliably predicts no US
The blocking effect: CS (light) already reliably predicts US (shock)
CS (tone) gives no new information
What is the conclusion of contiguity?
It does not all always predict strength of association
What is the Rescorla-Wagner Model?
The Rescorla–Wagner model is a model of classical conditioning, in which learning is conceptualized in terms of associations between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. A strong CS-US association means, essentially, that the CS signals or predicts the US.
(Learning only happens when something unexpected or surprising occurs)
Excitatory conditioning
If actual US > expectation then learning is going to take place
If actual US < expectation then inhibitory conditioning
If actual US = expectation - no additional learning will take place
What is prediction error?
Discrepancy between expectation of the US and what actually occurs influences the association between the CS-US
What happens in the initial stage of the Rescorla-Wagner model?
Acquisition; in the initial phase when the CS-US pairing highly surprising / conditioning strengthened quickly
What happens in the later stage of the Rescorla-Wagner model?
The CS-US pairing less surprising, learning slows down and then plateau - CS-US pairing expected, no additional learning
What is non-associative learning?
Habituation and Sensitisation
What is exposure based learning?
Novel object recognition
Priming
Perceptual learning
What is classical conditioning?
S-R vs S-S theory
Contiguity, frequency and predictiveness
Rescorla - Wagner model
