Lecture 9 Flashcards
Pavlovian conditioning
Learning to anticipate/predict something t based on a preceding occurrence or situation
Anticipated /predicted thing
US
Preceding thing
CS
Eye blink conditioning in rabbits experiment
Rabbit in cage cannot move around
Only changing external stimuli=air puff =US
Tone =CS
Tone then puff
Dependent measure - proportion of trials in which CS elicited a blinkCR
Eye blink conditioning in rabbits results
Acquisition is very slow
Needing over 200 trials for rabbits to be reliably blinking
Difficult to acquire
Why is acquisition slow
The more info you have the more experience you gain
Search problem - need to search through a large number of possibility to find the right one
Taste smell aversion
Aversion acquired through experience
Characteristics of taste smell aversion learning
Strong/ unusually distinctively flavoured smelling food or drink
Sometime later person falls ill
Nausea and vomit
When the food is encountered again it’s smell/ taste evokes a strong aversion
Taste smell aversion Learning
CS UR CR US
CS - taste/smell
UR- symptoms
CR - aversion
US - toxins in the bloodstream
Taste smell aversion learning cannot be acquired if the CS is
Auditory , visual or tactile
Flavour and smell CS’s belong with
Sickness inducing US’s
Taste smell aversion experiment procedure
2 groups - rats both exposed to two CS’s
Flavour CS and audio-visual CS (light turned on)
When rats licked the drinking tube they hear a click , light flash and flavoured water
What does group 1 receive
Dose of x rays - radiation sickness -US
What does group 2 receive
Foot shock - US
Results for group 1
Acquired an aversion to the flavoured water but NOT the audio visual water
Results for group 2
Acquired an aversion to the audio visual anger but not the flavour water
Melbourne CS belongs with
Illness inducing US
Audio visual CS belongs
With foot shock
Pavlovian learning nueral mechanism
The strength of synapses in an existing neural pathway has been increased or new synaptic connections have been created
eye blink conditioning Unconditional reflex is mediated by a
Brain stem pathway from receptors in the cornea
The conditioning procedure (training) causes a
Link between auditory receptors and eye lid motor nuclei to become active
Auditory receptors transmit signals to
Neutrons in the brain stem auditory nuclei
Auditory neurone project to nuclei in the
Pins which project to the cerebellum
Within the cerebellum are a number of nuclei one to them is
Nucleus interpossitus - relevant to conditioning
