Classical/instrumental interactions

Question 1

how are classical and instrumental conditioning paired?

Answer 1

• in a classical conditioning task where a stimulus predicts food the animal may learn they are responding to get food which is instrumental
• in a instrumental conditioning task where a response predicts food, the animal may learn that the stimuli present predicts food

Question 2

Can animals ever do rational instrumental conditioning?
- omission training, Holland (1979) Experiment 1

Answer 2

• trained rats using the classical light room → food association
• light predicts food but also magazine approach conditioned response prevents food ( Light → food BUT Light + magazine entry  no food)
• light paired with food is classical conditioning and is measured by magazine behaviour
• omission occurs every time a rat made magazine response in conditioned stimulus i.e. food cancelled
• same number CS-US pairings but the group omission has magazine responding punished
• if magazine responding is classical conditioning, they should persist
• if magazine responding is operant conditioning, they should stop

Question 3

what is omission?

Answer 3

people prefer omission (inaction) over commission (action) and people tend to judge harm as a result of commission more negatively than harm as a result of omission

Question 4

Can animals ever do rational instrumental conditioning?
- omission training, Holland (1979) Experiment 2

Answer 4

• Rats in Groups Omission, Yoked and Unpaired run in triplets
• Group Omission: 10s light paired with food unless rat responded. This is the master rat.
• Group Yoked: 10s light paired with food every time its partner in Group Omission didn’t respond
• Group Unpaired: as many foods as its partner in Group Omission, but unpaired with light
• Group Control: 10s light always paired with food.
• yoked had the same number of USs as Omission group regardless of their behaviour
• Omission training eliminated
  magazine behaviour
• this is purely instrumental

Question 5

rearing behaviour, Holland, (1979)

Answer 5

• Experiment 2 does it all over again, but puts omission schedule on rearing behaviour
• Light predicts food but also rearing CR prevents food
• Light → food, Light + rear → no food
• Light paired with food is classical conditioning; measured rearin
• Found omission training reduced but did not eliminate
  rearing behaviour
• mostly classical (but partly instrumental)

Question 6

confirming evidence of instrumental conditioning, Grindley (1932)

Answer 6

• Guinea-pigs were taught to turn their heads to one side in response to the sound of a buzzer, with a food reward.
• The habit could be reversed by rewarding the animal for turning its head, on the sound of the buzzer, to the other side.
• It is difficult to explain these results in terms of Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflexes

Question 7

confirming evidence of instrumental conditioning, Heyes and Dawson (1990)

Answer 7

• Hungry rats observed a demonstrator pushing a joystick, to the right or to the left for food reward and were then allowed access to the joystick from a different orientation.
• These results provide evidence that rats are capable of learning a response, or a response–reinforcer contingency, through conspecific observation.

Question 8

Training animals to avoid shocks

Answer 8

• training rats to do different things to avoid shock; running is a lot easier than standing!
• the stronger the hard-wired UR to e.g. shock, the harder it is to train animals to escape or avoid it
• to train an operant response you may need to work with their classical CRs

Question 9

Breland & Breland racoon study

Answer 9

• trained racoons to deposit ‘money’ into a bank slot.
• The raccoons were initially very successful , but over time and as the reinforcement schedule was spaced out, the raccoons began to dip the coins in and out of the bank and rub them with their paws rather than depositing them.
• They concluded this was an instinct that was interfering with the raccoons’ performance on the task. In nature, raccoons dip their food in water several times in order to wash it.
• This is an instinct which was seemingly triggered by the similar action sequence involved in retrieving and depositing coins into a bank.

Question 10

How can classically conditioned stimuli affect instrumental performance?

Answer 10

• Avoidance responses rewarded by removing aversive USs
  (e.g. shock) before they’ve begun
• for example in a rat chamber the buzzer comes on followed by a shock
• but if a rat responds during the buzzer the shock is cancelled
• the buzzer is classically conditioning the conditioned stimulus (CS acts as a warning stimuli that predicts the shock)
• one reason for avoidance responding is the presence of a signal for fear

Question 11

two-process theory, Rescorla and solomon (1967)

Answer 11

• If responding is motivated by something nice, CSs predicting something nice → respond more
• If responding is motivated by something nice, CSs predicting something nasty →respond less
• If responding is motivated something nasty, a CS predicting something nasty → respond more
• If responding is motivated something nasty, a CS predicting something nice → respond less

boosting relevant motivational state boosts responding
and because you can’t feel happy and sad at the same time

Question 12

General Pavlovian – Instrumental transfer, Estes (1948)

Answer 12

• rats trained that a tone signals food
• then trained to press a lever for food
• finally allowed to press the lever but this stopped food deliveries
• the lever was occasionally present with the food-paired tone
• in every case introduction of the tone was followed by
  a temporary increase in the rate of responding”

Question 13

General Pavlovian – Instrumental transfer, Rescorla and LoLordo (1965)

Answer 13

• Dogs trained to jump a barrier to avoid shock on Sidman avoidance
  schedule – no explicit signals for shock, only time
• then trained seperately on a stimulus which caused a shock (CS+) which is nasty and another stimulus which signalled the absence of shock (CS-) which is nice
• the rate of avoidance responding increased by signal shock (CS+) and decreased by inhibitor for shock (CS-)

Question 14

what two rewards are involved in specific Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer (PIT)

Answer 14

• congruent rewarding: a stimulus predicting one reward elevates performance of responding for the same reward
• incongruent responding: more than responding for the other

Question 14

How is PIT relevant to addiction?

Answer 14

• the reward of drinking or smoking becomes associated with the sight of beer and cigarettes, and hence their packaging
• so seeing a picture of a beer bottle can make you want to have a beer (but not a cigarette)
• this is why cigarette displays are restricted in the UK, and packets no longer have branding

Question 15

specific pavlovian - instrumental conditioning, Alarcón & Bonardi (2020)

Answer 15

Pavlovian conditioning
- one child gets food and the other gets drinks
- CS1 → food
- CS2 → drink

Instrumental conditioning
- p presses z key to see pictures of food, and m key to see pictures of drinks
- response z → food
- response m → drinks

test
- now press z and m keys to get the food and drink pictures, you will not see the pictures you are getting
- found that when the word and picture are the same PIT score was higher than when the response and stimulus were different

Question 16

what is context dependent memory?

Answer 16

when memory recall is dependent on external cues e.g. place, weather, environment, smell etc. memory increases when they are present and decreases when they are absent

Question 17

what is state dependent memory?

Answer 17

when recall of memory is dependent on the internal state you are in e.g. being drunk, and memory increases when you are in that state again or decreases when you are in a different state

Question 18

context-dependent memory, Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Answer 18

• divers learnt a word list either on land or in water
• had to recall as many words as possible either on land or in water
• recall was better if the test context matched the training context i.e. learnt on land and recalled on land or learnt in water and recalled in water

Question 19

what is a discriminative stimulus? (Sd)

Answer 19

when association is instrumental (response → stimulus)

Question 20

what is an occasion settler?

Answer 20

when the association is classical (stimulus → stimulus)

Question 21

discriminative control of classical associations, Holland (1989)

Answer 21

Two groups of animals:

for rearing to light
Group FR:
- light → tone →food
- tone → no food
- the light is followed by the tone, which is then followed by food
- Animals respond more to the tone when the light has just been on

Group PP:
- light→tone→food
- tone → no food
- light → no food
- group PP gets the same, but also the light is presented alone so its associative strength extinguishes
- classical conditioning to the light is absent in group PP

for headjerk to tone
- performance is the same in both groups
- light is controlling conditioned response to the tone even when it doesn’t predict food itself

Question 22

Discriminative control of instrumental associations, Holman and Mackintosh (1981)

Answer 22

• 3 groups of rats: one with discriminative stimulus, one with conditioned stimulus and a control group
• animals learn to press the lever for food when the discriminative stimulus is present as its controls the access to the response to food
• no blocking occurs in the control group when the clicker has no strength so they don’t respond to light
• blocking occurs when the clicker has strength as they learn less about light
• clicker is controlling responding despite not being a signal for food

Question 23

Latent Inhibition: hard to learn about familiar things, Lubow and Moore (1959)

Answer 23

• subjects: four sheep and four goats
• CSs: rotor and flashing light
• US: shock
• took more trails to learn with preexposed stimulus
• Rescorla-Wagner can’t explain this