Lecture 6 - Associative learning 2

Question 1

Compensatory CR’s and drug tolerance?

Answer 1

• idea that on some occasions the CR can oppose the action of the US
• the injection of a drug could be considered to be the CS, the US is the drug itself and the UR is the effect the drug has on the body
• the CR opposes the effect of the drug

Question 2

Siegel 2005?

Answer 2

• reviewed the role of conditioning in drug tolerance (decrease in sensitivity)
• injected 2 groups of rats with morphine
• 1 group were then given 12 injections of saline
• when both groups were injected in the 3rd stage the drug had a much greater effect on the rats that were given 12 injections as their tolerance to the drug was diminished
• the effect was because the CS-US pairing of injection-drug is broken for the rats who were given 12 injections and the compensatory CR goes into extinction

Question 3

Newlin 1986 - drug tolerance in humans?

Answer 3

• the CS = the location in which the drug is taken
• the CR compensates for the effect of the drug when the body feels the stimulation of the injection in a familiar context (CS)
• the drug abuser has to take more of the drug for it to have an effect
• when the drug is taken in a new context there is a lower compensatory CR because the CS is different to usual
• the effect of the drug is much greater in a new context

Question 4

What did Siegel say that the conditioning model of drug tolerance suggests?

Answer 4

• That compensatory CRs will be most evident in contexts associated with drug-taking
• Therefore when drugs are taken in unusual contexts the compensatory CR will be less evident and likelihood of overdose is greater
• Extinction of drug-taking is context-dependent
• Drug users often self-report relapse after returning to normal environment

Question 5

What is contiguity?

Answer 5

• the idea that events that occur close together in time or space will become readily associated
• is a condition for learning to occur

Question 6

Taste aversion conditioning - Smith & Roll?

Answer 6

• looked at conditioning without contiguity
• found that rats can learn the relationship between the flavour of a food (CS) and illness (US) even when the 2 events take place 6 hours apart

Question 7

Garcia & Koelling 1966?

Answer 7

• also looked at conditioning without contiguity
• found that rats will readily learn that a light and clicker signal a footshock but not that they signal the onset of illness
• similarly the flavour of saline can be associated with illness but not a footshock
• this biologically relevant finding was despite the fact that all of the CS-US pairings in G+K’s experiment were contiguous

Question 8

Rescorla 1967?

Answer 8

showed that unless there was a clear predictive relationship between the CS and US (a contingency) then even though there is contiguity between them (they occur close together in time) no learning will occur

Question 9

Kamin 1969 - blocking?

Answer 9

• showed that for conditioning to be successful the US has to be surprising and not just contiguous or contingent on the CS
• blocking occurs when the US is not expected

Question 10

Latent inhibition?

Answer 10

• we are exposed to many more sources of information than we can deal with at once so some sort of selection is necessary
• if some cues are less attended to then learning about them won’t progress as quickly as those that are receiving the animals full attention

Question 11

What are the 3 theories of learning based on attention that have been proposed?

Answer 11

1. Wagner’s theory
2. Mackintosh’s theory
3. Pearce-Hall theory

Question 12

Wagner?

Answer 12

• says that attention is high to novel stimuli but low to familiar stimuli

Question 13

Mackintosh?

Answer 13

• also says that attention is high to novel stimuli, but also that attention is high to signals for important events, and low to irrelevant stimuli

Question 14

Pearce-Hall?

Answer 14

• predicts that attention is high while learning about a stimulus but is low once learning is complete
• this was because they said there is a distinction between controlled and automatic processing
• in controlled processing deliberate attention must be paid to the task at hand but once the task is learned the processing becomes automatic and attention paid to the task is low