Lecture 4 Flashcards
1
Q
What are forms of habituation?
A
- Repeatedly present a light
- Animal might start to orient toward the light, but as it keeps presenting = will orient less to light
- Test them by presenting the light and see if they orient = those not seeing the light are more likely to orient
2
Q
What is the Latent Inhibition Procedure?
A
- Presented light repeatedly
- Ask animal to learn relationship between light and presentation in food
- Learning happens slower in animals who are habituated to the light = Latent inhibition (like alpha value in equation has gone down as stimulus intensity decreases)
3
Q
What are some general characteristics of habituation?
A
- Decline in unconditioned response to a stimulus that occurs as a result of repeated exposure to that stimulus
- Can be long term and is stimulus-specific
- Habituation is not a consequence of sensory adaptation or muscle fatigue
4
Q
What are some general characteristics of Latent Inhibition?
A
- Retardation in the rate at which a conditioned response can be established to a stimulus that is caused by prior exposure to that stimulus
- Not the same as conditioned inhibition
- A latently inhibited stimulus passes a retardation test but fails a summation test = no impact on the level of conditioned responding elicited by an excitor
- Preexposure to a stimulus retards the acquisition of both excitatory and inhibitory conditioning
5
Q
What was Pearce and Hall’s Attention Model?
A
- Two types of attention: Controlled and automatic
- Automatic is engaged when a task is well learned and controlled is assumed to be engaged during learning
- Looking to see when an animal determines controlled processing
6
Q
What are the determinants of controlled processing?
A
- You will attend to a stimulus to the extent you are unaware of the consequences of the stimulus
- Once you do = controlled processing stops and automatic processes take over
- The amount of controlled processing or attention a stimulus receives on a given trial depends on how well it predicted what happen on the previous occasion it was presented
- If discrepancy between what stimulus predicted and what happened on trial n-1 was large, attention on trial n would be greater than if discrepancy was small
- Controlled attention should be directed toward stimulus whose significance is uncertain
7
Q
How to apply Pearce model to habituation and latent inhibition?
A
- Habituation and latent inhibition can be considered to reflect a decline in attention.
- When a stimulus is first presented the animal will not know what its consequences will be and will orient. With repeated exposure the animal will come to learn that nothing surprising happens after the light and will not orient (habituation will occur).
- Subsequently, learning about the preexposed light will slow (i.e., a latent inhibition effect will be observed) because at the outset of conditioning, attention to the light will be low.
8
Q
What is the evaluation of the Pearce-Hall Model?
A
- Stimulus will be attended to when consequences are unpredictable in past and consequences of stimulus are predictable attention to it will decline
- Predicted that habituation and latent inhbiition will be observed to stimuli that have had predictable consequences in the past
- Habituation and latent inhibition will not be observed to stimulu that have had unpredictable decisions
9
Q
What was a study by Hall and Pearce?
A
- Groups either get a tone and shock or light and shock, or tone and nothing
- Test that tone is followed by a larger shock
- Should learn faster in the light group, as they are paying attention
- Will learn slower in the tone followed by shock model due to less attention
- Tone followed by nothing = very slow to develop condition suppression, no tone before = learn quickly about tone as they have never experienced it before, tone shock group learn a bit more quickly than nothing group, but more slowly than those who have never experienced tone before
10
Q
What was a study looking at inconsistent consequences maintaining the orienting response?
A
- If you can arrange that animal never knows what a stimulus means, they will always orient
- Habituation condition: light is consistently shown followed by nothing
- Second condition: light followed by food continued
- Last condition: light followed by food, then nothing then food etc. - theoretically rays should continuously orient to the light
- In first two conditions, orienting goes down quickly but in last condition = they continue orient
11
Q
Why not accept the model of attention by Pearce and Hall?
A
- Provides no reason to anticipate what is most important characteristic of latent inhibition = context specific
12
Q
What is context specificity of latent inhibition?
A
- Group 1: context A+light, then B
- Group 2: context B+light, then A
- Control: context A then B
- Testing A+light leads to shock
- Group 1 have a slower learning curve than the control, group 2 shows the same thing = oddly quick learning procedure
- Shouldn’t occur in Pearce-Hall model as context shouldn’t change it
13
Q
What is Wagner’s SOP model?
A
- Standard operating procedure of animal memory
- Three states that a representation of a stimulus can be in: inactive, A1 and A2
- Inactive: representation is waiting to be activated in long-term store
- A1 = in this state, representation is receiving max level or processing (rehearsal) to elicit a marked unconditioned response and will be readily learned about
- A2 = representation is less effectively processed (short-term store) elicits a less vigorous unconditioned response and is not readily learned about
14
Q
How does representation enter these states?
A
- Can only be present in one state at a time
- When inactive, representation can be excited into A1 by presenting stimulus
- Representation of target stimulus can enter the A2 state if another stimulus with which it is associated is presented = formation of a CS-US association allows presentation of the CS to place the CS to place the US into the A2 state
- Representation can enter the A2 state through a process of rapid decay from A1
- Once representations enter the A2 state, they decay less rapidly into the inactive state
15
Q
Application of Wagner’s model to habituation and latent inhibition?
A
- During pre-exposure to a stimulus an association forms between the experimental context and the stimulus
- When animal is placed in context = representation of stimulus will no longer enter A1 but be associatively provoked into A2 and deny stimulus access to A1, in A2 = stimulus is less likely to provoke unconditioned responding or to be learned about
