7.2 Classical conditioning: One thing leads to another Flashcards
Classical condition
Learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus produces a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response(reactive behaviours) e.g. metronome paired w/food
Unconditioned stimulus (US)
Something that reliably produces a naturally occurring reaction
Unconditioned response (UR)
Reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by US
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
Previously neutral stimulus that produces a reliable response after being paired with US
Conditioned response(CR)
A reaction that resembles an UR but is produced by a CS
Acquisition
Association between CS and US.
Second-order conditioning
CS is paired with a stimulus that became associated with the US earlier; e.g. money becoming linked to an award
What happens if you present CS without US
Extinction - Gradual elimination of a learned response that occurs when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US
Spontaneous recovery - Tendency of learned behavior to recover from extinction after a rest period
Is conditioning specific to the stimuli
Generalization: CR is observed even though the CS is slightly different than the original CS used during acquisition
Discrimination: Capacity to distinguish between similar but distinct stimuli; e.g. dog may salivate to a manual can opener but not an electric can opener
Little Albert
Can emotional fear responses be learned?
–US (loud noise) was paired with CS (presence of rat) so that the CS by itself was enough to produce CR (fearful reaction)
Showed that fear could be learned
- Showed that generalization could occur (feared white rabbit, Santa, furry coat)
- Foundation for clinical therapeutic techniques
Cognitive elements of CC
CC occurs when an animal has learned to set up an expectation (e.g. metronome brought on salivation, not Pavlov)
Rescorla-Wagner model
Learning sets up the expectation - conditioning is easier when CS is unfamiliar; familiar events already have associations so new conditioning difficult
Neural elements of CC
Eyeblink studies: CS (tone) followed by US (puff of air) elicit a reflexive eyeblink response; over time eyeblink response just to CS; those with impaired cerebellums show impaired eyeblink responding
Fear conditioning
-Central nucleus (amygdala): Area for emotional conditioning; sever connections fear ceases
-Both behavioural and physiological responses can be brought on by CS
Evolutionary elements of CC:
Unique properties (e.g. context of food):
- Rapid learning: animal could die after ingesting poison multiple times so shouldn’t take many trials to learn
- Conditioning takes place over long intervals; something you ate affecting you hours later develops the aversion
- Develop aversion to smell or taste rather than ingestion; smell or taste rather than ingestion; smell is best, then you don’t consume it
- Learned aversions should occur for novel stimuli than familiar ones; we are more suspicious of new things because we know familiar things haven’t made us sick.
