Classical conditioning

Question 1

What are fixed action patterns and habituation?

Answer 1

Pre-existing links between certain stimuli and responses

Unlearned association - experiencing stimulus - automatically triggers response

Question 2

What an unconditioned stimuli?

Answer 2

Another example of stimuli that can automatically elicit unlearned unconditioned responses because of a pre-existing, unlearned association

Question 3

What are motivational value of USs?

Answer 3

USs often elicit unconditioned responses because they have motivational value – they are nice or nasty

Question 4

What are unconditioned responses?

Answer 4

URs can be like a fixed action pattern – a type of involuntary reflex, they can be overt muscular responses or internal

Difference species have different USs and URs evolved to be useful - anticipate US

Question 5

What are pre-existing mental links?

Answer 5

• Fixed action patterns
• unconditioned stimulus (US) – unconditioned response (UR) links

Question 6

What are acquired mental links?

Answer 6

classical and instrumental conditioning

Question 7

What is an example of pre-existing and acquired associations?

Answer 7

When cough or tickle perceived, patterns of mental/neural activity occur
Activates mental representations of those events - corresponds to perceiving/thinking about the event

Simultaneously activated and mentally associated

Hearing cough excites mental representation, and associations, remembers tickle, so she giggles and squirms
CS indirectly elicits UR, becomes the CR

Question 8

How is the conditioned response indirect elicitation of UR?

Answer 8

What CR looks like depends on nature of UR and also on what CS is

CR can resemble UR closely (which can make animal look a bit stupid) – but can also be more sophisticated, reflects knowing that the US will happen

Question 9

What is stimulus substitution?

Answer 9

CS acts as a substitute for the US

Physical properties of food affect CR

Motivational properties of US transfer to CS - evaluative conditioning

e.g. pair branding of a product with motivationally positive images companies hire associative learning experts to exploit this

Question 10

What is second order conditioning?

Answer 10

world is full of things that were once neutral, but we learned to value positively or negatively through associations

Second order:
Dog = pain, house = dog, response despite no direct link of pain

Question 11

What did Hull say about classical conditioning not being S-R learning?

Answer 11

Only studying observable things, learning has to be between visible S and visible R, he argued all learning was S>R

All learning requires a reinforcer and a response, but it between stimulus and response

Need a motivationally valuable US to see learning

Question 12

What did Thorndike say about classical conditioning not being S-R learning?

Answer 12

To form S-R association you need a reinforcer to stamp it in, but not to be learned about itself

All learning requires a reinforcer and a response, but it between stimulus and response

Need a motivationally valuable US to see learning

Question 13

Why was Hull wrong?

Answer 13

Don’t need motivationally significant US to learn
Don’t need reinforcer to stamp in learning

Shown by a variation of second order conditioning – sensory preconditioning

In sensory preconditioning pair two neutral things in second order conditioning you don’t

Question 14

What are the methods of studying classical conditioning?

Answer 14

Animal experiments used Skinner boxes and rats or pigeons, pair tones and lights with shock or food

Food experiments - CR is searching for food in food hopper - head entry

Question 15

How is appetitive conditioning meausured?

Answer 15

With conditioned approach, the learning graph goes UP

Measure is number of head entry responses per minute (rpm) during CS
- tone > food
- click > no food

Head entry increase even though click was never followed by food > generalisation

Question 16

How is aversive conditioning measured?

Answer 16

Shock experiments are hard to measure directly, so often measure suppression of lever pressing

Before training:
- 20 responses per minute before CS
- 20 rpm CS

After training:
- 20 responses per minute before CS
- 5 rpm during CS - less means rat is afraid

Question 17

What is extinction?

Answer 17

If you take away the US, the conditioned response CR slowly dissipates - extinction
BUT spontaneous recovery occurs

Question 18

What is controlled inhibition?

Answer 18

Signals omission of the US
A conditioned inhibitor signals the omission of the US, light signals absence of expected food

Tone excites mental representation of food > light inhibits it

Tone makes you expect food > light counteracts that expectation

Question 19

What is extinction and spontaneous recovery

Answer 19

Extinction involves removing the US – so the CS that used to predict the US doesn’t any more

CS now predicts the omission of the expected US

This does not eliminate the original learning – it produces additional inhibitory learning that counteracts the excitatory learning

Tone now predicts the omission of food
Inhibitory association more disrupted