Task 4 classical conditioning

Question 1

classical conditioning

Answer 1

form of learning, in which an animal learns that one stimulus (such as a doorbell) predicts an upcoming important event (such as delivery of food)

Question 2

Unconditional stimulus

Answer 2

A cue that has some biological significance and in the absence of prior training naturally evokes a response

Question 3

Unconditioned response

Answer 3

the naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus)

Question 4

Conditioned stimulus

Answer 4

A cue that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus and comes to elicit a conditioned response

Question 5

Conditioned response

Answer 5

The trained response to a conditioned stimulus in anticipation of the unconditioned stimulus that it predicts
o Serves as preparation for upcoming events

Question 6

Appetitive conditioning

Answer 6

Conditioning in which the US is a positive event (e.g. food)

o Strong conditioners

Question 7

Aversive conditioning

Answer 7

US is negative event, learning to avoid or minimize the consequences of an expected aversive event

Question 8

´Conditional emotional response

Answer 8

Technique where US is a shock which leads to freezing of CR

Question 9

Eyeblink conditioning

Answer 9

A classical conditioning procedure in which the US is an airpuff to the eye and the conditioned and unconditioned responses are eyeblinks (CS is a tone)

Question 10

Compensatory response

Answer 10

Compensate an event before it actually happens (e.g. lowering water level in a pool before heavy rain)

Question 11

Compound conditioning

Answer 11

The simultaneous conditioning of two cues, usually presented at the same time (CR is faster established but when only one of them is used it doesn’t work)

Question 12

Overshadowing

Answer 12

A effect seen in compound conditioning when a more salient cue within a compound acquires more association strength, and is thus more strongly conditioned, than does the less salient cue

Question 13

Kamin’s Blocking effect

Answer 13

two ways of blocking 1. Being more salient (louder) 2. Getting there sooner (a prior trained CS can block learning about another because it already predicting 100% so there is no more space for another)

Question 14

Blocking

Answer 14

A two phase training paradigm in which prior training to one cue (CS1 → US) blocks later learning of a second cue when the two are paired together in the second phase of the training (CS1+CS2 →US)

Question 15

Mackintosh Theory

Answer 15

o CS modulation theory: the way attention to different CSs is modulated determines which of them become associated with the US. Predicts that salience of a tone as a potential CS will decease when the tone is present without any US (as tone develops history of predicting nothing)
 Previously conditioned stimulus derives its salience from its past success as a predictor of important events & other co-occurring cues don’t get access to your limited pool of attention anymore

Question 16

The Rescorla-Wagner Model of Conditioning

Answer 16

o Cues compete with one another for associative strength

Question 17

Predicting error (Rescorla-Wagner)

Answer 17

the difference between what was predicted and what actually occurred

Question 18

Error correction learning (Rescorla-Wagner)

Answer 18

A mathematical specification of the conditions for learning that holds that the degree to which an outcome is surprising modulates the amount of learning that takes place
 Positive error: CS predicts nothing too little, but us is unexpectedly strong or unexpectedly occurs (increased association)
 No error: CS predicts US, and predicted US occurs (no new learning)
 Negative error: CS predicts US, but no US occurs (decreased association)

Question 19

Associative weight (Rescorla-Wagner)

Answer 19

a value representing the strength of association between a CS and US (Rescorla-Wagner)

Question 20

Gluck and Bower

Answer 20

Human conditioning study in which they tested with diseases and students had to predict with the help of symptoms which disease it is
o Attention shifting might be a limitation of all conditioning models

Question 21

Cerebellum

Answer 21

o Purkinje cells: A type of large, drop shaped, and densely branching neuron in the cerebellar cortex
- One of the cerebellar deep nuclei where CS and US stimuli converge

Question 22

CS input pathway

Answer 22

project first to the brain stem area pontine nuclei, which has different subregions for each kind of sensory stimulation.
o This signal travels up t the deep nuclei along axon tracts called mossy fibers which brands in two directions
 One goes to interpositus nucleus
 The other one projects toward the cerebellar cortex and across the parallel fibers and connects to the dendrites of the Purkinje cells

Question 23

Closer look Pathways

Answer 23

o At the moment of activation of the Purkinje cell by the climbing fiber, all of the parallel fiber synapses that were recently active will undergo a long-term depression
 This occurs because parallel fiber input activates metabotropic glutamate receptors. In addition to calcium coming from the climbing fibers starts Protein kinase C (PKC). This high level of PKC results in internalisation of the ionotropic AMPA glutamate channels
 This produces long-term depression
 Since our current concept of the climbing fiber function is that they convey an error signal, the granule cell to Purkinje cell synapses that were active at the time of the error will be inhibited

Question 24

US input pathway

Answer 24

o US activates Inferior olive which in turn activates the interpositus nucleus.
o In addition a second branch of the pathway from the inferior olive projects up to the cerebellar cortex by means of the climbing fibers, which wraps around a Purkinje cell. Each climbing cell has a very strong excitatory effect on the Purkinje cells

Question 25

CR pathway

Answer 25

o Starts from the Purkinje cells project down from the cerebellar cortex to the deep nuclei where they form an inhibitory synapse with the interpositus synapse
o to produce an eyeblink response, output from the interpositus nucleus travels (via several other intermediary cells) to the muscles in the eye to generate the eyeblink CR

Question 26

Extinction

Answer 26

the process of reducing a learned response to a stimulus by ceasing to pair that stimulus with a reward or punishment. Learned response is not gone just unexpressed
o Context can influence if the CR is expressed or not

Question 27

Latent inhibition

Answer 27

A conditioning paradigm in which prior exposure to a CS (without any consequences) retards later learning of the CS-US association during acquisition training

Question 28

Conditioning and drugs

Answer 28

o Tolerance: A decrease in reaction to a drug so that larger doses are required to achieve the same effect
o Homeostasis: The body function that keeps the body in balance (heart rate etc.)

Question 29

Prediction error (equation)

Answer 29

Prediction Error = Occurrence of US – Expectation of US*
*corresponds to accumulated cue weight
explains Why removing one of two compound cues leads to
weaker CR

Question 30

Expectancy effect (equation)

Answer 30

Expectancy change = Learning Rate X Prediction Error
* expectancy also referred to as ‘weight’
Explains blocking effect