'Unlearning' & Extinction

Question 1

Types of Unlearning (2)

Answer 1

1) Erasure
2) Suppression

Question 2

Define ‘Erasure’ as a type of unlearning

Answer 2

Erasure = Completely getting rid of a memory or way to recall/retrieve it
e.g., golfers who have bad swinging habits completely forget them

Question 3

Define ‘Suppression’ as a type of unlearning

Answer 3

Suppress the memory or means of retrieving it (memory and means to retrieve it still there, but you can’t get/use it)
e.g., golfers can know how to swing wrong but don’t because they’ve learned better techniques

Question 4

Pavlovian conditioning and extinction

Answer 4

PC: Someone learns to respond to a signal because it predicts something else (CS of bell, then gets UC of food, starts to salivated - CR)

Extinction Procedure: food is shown (CS) without bell ringing (US) over time dog will stop salivating (CR), leading to ‘extinction’

Question 5

(3) Describe what would happen with Pavlov’s dog under:
Spontaneous Recovery
Renewal
Reinstatement

Answer 5

1) Spontaneous Recovery: If the bell rings after some time, dog may salivate, showing memory isn’t erased

2) Renewal: If dog is trained in one place (A), then goes through extinction in another place (B), it may still salivate when returned to original place (A)

3) Reinstatement: If, after extinction, dog gets food (US) without bell, could salivate again, indicating memory not gone

Question 6

(3) Define:
Spontaneous Recovery
Renewal
Reinstatement

Answer 6

1) Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance of a conditioned response after a rest period

2) Renewal: The appearance of a conditioned response when the context changes

3) Reinstatement: The reappearance of a conditioned response after re-exposure to the unconditioned stimulus

Question 7

Does extinction mean erasure or suppression? Explain

Answer 7

Spontaneous Recovery, Renewal and Reinstatement show that memories are simply suppressed through extinction.
That is why phobias can sometimes come back.
The memory itself remains, but the way of retrieving it (like pathway) has gone

Question 8

Are Non-declarative memories hard to forget?

Answer 8

Yes

Question 9

Are Declarative memories hard to forget?

Answer 9

No. They are much easier to forget than non-declarative memories

Question 10

How is forgetting thought of as?

Answer 10

‘Passive; - seldom actively try to forget a declarative memory, and if we do it can have the opposite effect

Question 11

Reasons for trying to unlearn non-declarative memories

Answer 11

1) Rid yourself of a bad technique/habit in order to perform better (e.g., golfers & bad swinging habits)
2) Rid yourself of an acquired phobia (e.g., of flying or public speaking)

Question 12

Example of extinction procedure

Answer 12

Going to a therapist for a phobia, then learning suppression via renewal
During the procedure, patient learns to suppress stimulus-response relationship so conditional responses no longer produced, counteracting the effects of prior learning

Neural process that produces suppression is inhibition, so result of learning during extinction is probs an inhibitory stimulus-response connection of somekind.
Conditional reflex pathway (memory) still intact, but inhibitory sitmulus-response pathway formed via extinction prevents CR from occurring

Question 13

Why suppress rather than erase?

Answer 13

Context sensitive suppression of prior learning (rather than erasing) means what has been learned is not completely lost - so is available in contexts where it might still be relevant & useful

Question 14

How is unlearning in Pavlovian conditioning achieved? (CS + US)

Answer 14

Extinction protocol; CS is presented repeatedly without US