Topic 3 Flashcards
Classical (Respondent) conditioning
What Constitues a good unconditioned stimulus
- To be effective, the unconditioned stimulus should evoke a strong bodily response
- The more intense the unconditioned stimulus, the easier to produce a conditioned response
What is the Acquisition Process?
A conditioned Stimulus + unconditioned stimulus elicits an unconditioned response
What is the Conditioned Response (CR)?
A response elicited by a conditioned stimulus after that stimulus has been repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus
Conditioned response is similar to the unconditioned response, but does not need to be identical.
What are the two types of Unconditioned Stimulus (US)?
- Appetitive: Stimuli that are pleasant (e.g., food, warmth).
- Aversive: Stimuli that are unpleasant (e.g., loud noises, pain).
What are the 3 Characteristics of measuring behaviour?
- Latency
- Intensity:
- Probe Trials:
What is Latency?
Time between CS presentation and CR occurrence.
Requires the CR to occur before the US is presented
What is Intensity?
Strength of the CR.
What is Probe Trials?
(i.e., with no US)
Test the CS alone to evaluate conditioning.
What is High Order Conditioning?
A CS becomes associated with a new NS, making the new stimulus a CS.
A bell (CS2) paired with a red light (CS1) can lead to an eye blink (CR) without the US.
What are the factor influencing conditioning?
- Nature of the NS and US
- Temporal Relationship of the NS and the US
- Contingency between the NS and US
- The number of pairings
- Previous exposure to the NS
What is Short-Delay Conditioning?
- CS presentation alone, but US overlaps shortly after onset
- Usually most effective conditioning procedure
What is the Long Delay Conditioning?
- CS and US overlap, but CS is on for longer time
- CS becomes an imprecise predictor of US
What is Trace Conditioning?
- No overlap between CS and US
- Temporal Contiguity matters
What is Simultaneous Conditioning?
- CS and US onset is at the same time
- Less common in the real world
- Less effective than Delayed and Trace Conditioning
What is Backward Conditioning?
- US occurs before CS
- Results are inconsistent
Define a Temporal Relationship
Can also apply to time between pairings
E.g., how long between one NS +US exposure and the next NS + US exposure?
explain Intertrial Interval
Interval between one CS-US exposure (a trial) and another CS-US exposure (a different trial)
- Can vary from seconds to years
- In general, longer intervals are better than short intervals
Explain the Contingency between NS and US
Contingency between the NS and US means that the NS and Us co-occur reliable
- NS doesn’t happen without the US following it
- US doesn’t happen without the NS having first occurred
What does Contiguity mean?
Events are close together in time and space
E.g., Rescorla (1968)
Explain Number of pairings
More pairings of the NS and the US usually forms a stronger association
Through first pairing produces the strongest learning effect
What is the Rescorla-Wagner Model?
Mathematical equation that explains classical conditioning
∆ 𝑉 = 𝑘 (𝜆 − 𝑉)
What are characteristics of the Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA)?
- Taste aversions and preferences are learned
- Eat a [novel] food then aversive consequences.
- Can occur with just on repairing (single trial)
- Can occur even if illness occurs hours later
Define Latent Inhibition in relation to previous experience
Pre-exposure of a stimulus in the absence of a US interferes with the ability of that stimulus to become a CS
Define blocking Inhibition in relation to previous experience
Failure of a stimulus to become a CS when it is part of a compound stimulus that includes an already effective CS
