Unit 3: Classical Conditioning Flashcards
What do cause and effect relationships tell us?
certain things occur in combination with others
How does learning to predict events occurring together influence us?
makes interaction with environment more effective
Which is the simplest mechanism by which we learn the association between events?
classical conditioning
What is the practical purpose of excitatory classical conditioning?
anticipating consequences from predictable events
(useful for survival)
Who discovered classical conditioning?
Pavlov (dogs)
Twitmyer (knee jerk)
Which stimuli are ORIGINALLY involved in the classical conditioning process?
neutral stimulus
unconditioned stimulus
Whats one major focus of research on classical conditioning? In this context, what’s one of the most well known experiments?
conditioning of emotional reactions
Little Albert
What kind of response is freezing?
defensive response probably evolved to make prey less visible to predators
What is freezing? (biologically)
immobility of the body and absence of movement
What is sign tracking?
approaching and contacting stimuli that signal the availability of food
What does sign tracking correlate with?
individual differences in impulsivity and vulnerability to drug abuse
What is aversion taste?
form of classical conditioning
animals learn to avoid a type of food paired with previous illness
How is an aversion learned?
ingestion of flavour is followed by aversive experience
How many trials does the acquisition of strong aversions take and how quickly does the negative effect need to happen?
can happen after just a single trial
can take up to several hours
How many percent of people (average) with food aversion know that the illness wasnt caused by the food they ate?
20%
Are familiar foods as likely as novel foods to cause aversions?
no, novel foods are highly susceptible to aversions, conditioning of previous foods is retarded
Is nausea required to create food aversions?
no, they can happen without conscious awareness
Do neutral tastes always need to be followed by sickness to cause aversion?
no, they can also be created by linking the NS with a disliked taste also causes aversion
Which type of learning does the advertising industry apply?
evaluative learning
How does evaluative learning in ads work?
advertised product associated with things people already like
-> increases liking of product
What happens in excitatory conditioning?
subject learns association between CS and US
Which is one of the main factors determining the effectiveness of classical conditioning?
relative timing of CS-US presentation
What’s the intertrial interval?
time from end of the trial to beginning of new trial
What’s the interstimulus interval?
time from presentation of CS to presentation of US
Which interval needs to be shorter? Intertrial or interstimulus?
Interstimulus
What are characteristics of short-delayed conditioning?
US occurs slightly after onset of CS (less than a minute)
CS may continue during US or end when US begins
What are characteristics of trace conditioning?
bigger delay between end of CS and beginning of US
-> trace interval
What are characteristics of long-delayed conditioning?
US starts long after the start of the CS
No trace interval
What are characteristics of simultaneous conditioning?
CS and US presented at same time
What are characteristics of backward conditioning?
US presented before CS
produces mixed results
Why are control procedures necessary? (control groups)
to know whether response to CS represents CS-US association
How do arousing stimuli change elicited responses and is this an associative process?
increase responses
sensitisation
-> no associative process
In the context of fear conditioning, what are the respective outcomes of using short-delay procedures or simultaneous conditioning procedures?
short-delay: freezing
simultaneous: escape/flee
What happens if there’s no CS-US interval in simultaneous conditioning? (=0)
little conditioning
What’s the best predictor of the US? The termination or the beginning of the CS?
Termination
What does the temporal coding hypothesis do?
teaches us what to expect and when to expect it
Why are stress reduction techniques like meditation useful?
they help us create an environment in which we can be relatively sure that nothing bad will happen
What does a conditioned inhibitor predict?
the absence of a US
Whats a fundamental difference between excitatory and inhibitory conditioning, regarding the requirements?
excitatory: no prerequisites
inhibitory: requires previous conditioning of CS-US association
What do Pavlov’s inhibitory conditioning trials involve?
2 CSs
2 kinds of conditioning trials (excitatory and inhibitory)
What are everyday examples of inhibitory conditioning providing relief?
prayer
talking to friends or a therapist
comforting food
etc.
What happens during a negative correlation procedure?
create negative CS-US contingency/ correlation
-> US is less likely to occur after CS than normally
=> doesnt involve explicit excitatory CS
What gives the excitatory context for inhibition in negative CS-US correlation procedures?
environmental cues
Does inhibitory conditioning always elicit the opposite response to excitatory conditioning?
no, as many behaviours aren’t bidirectional
e.g. freezing -> CS+ elicits freezing but CS- just prevents freezing and doesn’t increase activity above baseline
How is conditioned inhibition normally measured?
indirectly
-> compound-stimulus test and retardation of acquisition test
How does the compound-stimulus test work?
CS- predicts absence of fearful stimulus
-> time to return for behaviour to revert back to normal is decreased
How does the Retardation of acquisition test work?
if stimulus inhibits a response
-> should be difficult to turn it into an excitatory stimulus once inhibitory conditioning is created
When do CSs elicit a CR?
after conditioning with US
When do USs elicit a UR?
without prior training
What is latent inhibition?
If a CS is highly familiar, it’s more difficult to create new associations
What is latent inhibition useful for?
if you have a normal level:
-> able to ignore irrelevant stimuli due to habituation
How does higher order conditioning work and what does it explain (partially)?
2 phases:
1. CS paired with US to provoke CR
2. CS1 paired with new CS2 to provoke CR in absence of US
explains learning of irrational fears
Why does higher order conditioning occur rather than inhibitory conditioning?
Key factor: Number of times CS is paired with Absence of US
Few no-US trials: higher order conditioning
Many no-US trials: inhibitory conditioning
How does sensory pre-conditioning work?
you associate two CSs
-> developing an aversion to one will most likely also cause an aversion to the other due to the association
What determines the nature of the CR?
Nature of US
Nature of CS
How does the blocking effect work?
learning of CR(salivate) to CS(light) is disrupted because US (food)was previously associated with another CS(tone)
Why does blocking occur?
US has to be surprising to be effective
-> if US is signaled by another CS, US wont be surprising
-> won’t provoke mental effort necessary for association
What does the Rescorla-Wagner Model state about learning?
effectiveness of US depends on how different it is from expectation
Strong CR = strong expectation
Weak CR = weak expectation
