excitation & inhibition in Pavlovian conditioning - l1 Mitchell

Question 1

What is the main focus of the first lecture?

Answer 1

Learning cause-effect relationships

This lecture introduces the foundational concepts of associative learning.

Question 2

Define Neutral Stimulus (NS)

Answer 2

A stimulus that initially produces no specific response

NS is a key component in Pavlovian conditioning.

Question 3

Define Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Answer 3

A previously neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, elicits a conditioned response

The CS is crucial for creating learned associations.

Question 4

Define Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

Answer 4

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without prior learning

US is essential in the Pavlovian conditioning process.

Question 5

Define Conditioned Response (CR)

Answer 5

A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus that has become conditioned

The CR results from the pairing of CS and US.

Question 6

Define Unconditioned Response (UR)

Answer 6

An unlearned response that occurs naturally in reaction to an unconditioned stimulus

UR is the innate reaction that is not learned.

Question 7

What do control conditions in experiments help determine?

Answer 7

Whether the CS-US pairings are important

Control conditions are crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of conditioning.

Question 8

What is an S-R link?

Answer 8

An association between the Conditioned Stimulus and the Unconditioned Response

This is one type of association that can be formed in Pavlovian conditioning.

Question 9

What is an S-S link?

Answer 9

An association between the Conditioned Stimulus and the Unconditioned Stimulus

This type of link is often thought of in terms of memory connections.

Question 10

What is the Prediction Error model of learning?

Answer 10

Learning occurs when predictions are wrong, indicating a need to adjust understanding
-discreprancy between what you expect and what happens

This model emphasizes the importance of discrepancies in learning.

Question 11

What happens at the start of a learning curve?

Answer 11

Predictions are often wrong, leading to fast learning

Early stages of learning are characterized by high prediction errors.

Question 12

What happens at the end of a learning curve?

Answer 12

Predictions are correct, resulting in no further learning

This reflects a plateau in the learning process.

Question 13

Fill in the blank: The five effects of prediction error include _______.

Answer 13

Inhibition, Blocking, Extinction, Protection from extinction, Learning curves

These effects illustrate different learning processes influenced by prediction errors.

Question 14

What is the Summation Test?

Answer 14

A test to determine the inhibitory effect of one cue on another
e.g. predicting whether a fruit will cause a migraine using the predictive value from conditioning
e.g. pearce et al 1982, rats trained with three types of trial: a tone paired with shock, a clicker paired with the same shock and a clicker light compound follwed by nothing and a strong CR observed in the presence of the tone and the clicker

This test evaluates how associations transfer between cues.

Question 15

What does inhibition in associative learning refer to?

Answer 15

A CS predicts the absence of the US, forming a negative associative strength

Inhibition indicates that the presence of one cue reduces the expectation of another outcome.

Question 16

What is second order conditioning?

Answer 16

A process where a second conditioned stimulus is associated with the first conditioned stimulus

This allows for new associations to be formed based on previously learned ones.

Question 17

True or False: Inhibition requires more training than second order conditioning.

Answer 17

True

Inhibition involves more cognitive processing and time compared to second order conditioning.

Question 18

How does Pavlovian conditioning help organisms?

Answer 18

It allows them to prepare for the Unconditioned Stimulus

This preparation can enhance survival by enabling appropriate responses to anticipated events.

Question 19

What is an example of a Conditioned Response (CR) in fear conditioning?

Answer 19

Freezing or increased adrenalin

These responses are adaptive behaviors that enhance survival in threatening situations.

Question 20

What can occur when a pigeon pecks a light in an omission schedule?

Answer 20

The light goes off and food is not delivered

This highlights the complexities of learning and behavior in conditioning scenarios.

Question 21

what is a classic conditioning experiment?

Answer 21

metronome played to dog -> no response (NS)
food put in front of dog(US) -> no response (UR)
metronome (ns)+ food(us) -> salivation (UR)
metronome (CS) -> salivation (CR)

Question 22

what is important for control conditions in classical conditioning?

Answer 22

whether the CS-US pairings are important!

Question 23

how do we test whether CS-US pairings are important?

Answer 23

CS with US
US then CS
CS/US - RANDOMLY
In experimental conditions keep CS-US the same!

Question 24

what is learnt in the classical conditioning?

Answer 24

an association between the CS and UR -> an S-R link
association between CS & US

Question 25

what did Pleyers et al 2007 do?

Answer 25

shown a brand followed by a picture asked ppts to respond nicely to good pictures and badly to bad pictures -> than after shown the series of pictures asked to rate the brand items on how much they like them -> found that healthy items were rated 80% like on the scale whereas unhealthy rated 20% -> due to the conditioning

Question 26

why is learning faster at the beginning?

Answer 26

the outcome is more surprising -> than drops off as everything else is learnt

Question 27

what is a negative prediction error?

Answer 27

when something you expect to happen, doesn't happen

Question 28

what is an excitatory CS-US Association?

Answer 28

positive associative strength which causes the outcome

Question 29

what is an inhibitory CS-US association?

Answer 29

negative associative strength which prevents the outcome

Question 30

what happens in within compound associations?

Answer 30

there are two different trials -cs becomes conditioned with another cs, thinking of one, ruins the other

Question 31

what did Yin et al,1994 research and find?

Answer 31

Non-humans: number of trials Large number of training trials = inhibition Small number of training trials = 2nd order conditioning

Question 32

what did Karazinov & Boakes 2007 find?

Answer 32

Humans: time to think (Karazinov & Boakes, 2007) Lots of time to think = inhibition Little time to think = 2nd order conditioning pacing interferes with learning successive associations more than with learning simultaneous associations. Inhibition requires some time and thought… 2nd order conditioning is just remembering what went with what....?

Question 33

when can pavlovian conditioning be unhelpful?

Answer 33

Hearst & Jenkins 1974

Question 34

when is associative learning present?

Answer 34

when there is a change in an animal's behaviour as a result of one event being paired with another

Question 35

what are the two methods of associative learning?

Answer 35

pavlovian conditioning and instrumental conditioning

Question 36

define excitatory conditioning

Answer 36

training in which a conditioned stimulus signals the occurence of an unconditioned stimulus

Question 37

define inhibitory conditioning

Answer 37

training in which a conditioned stimulus signals the absence of an unconditioned stimulus.

Question 38

what are the excitatory conditioning techniques?

Answer 38

eye-blink conditioning autoshaping conditioned supression taste aversionn conditioning

Question 39

what happens in eye blink conditioning?

Answer 39

subject is restrained and sensors are placed near their eye sensors record the small movement of either cs is shown briefly and then a mild shock is given to the cheek -intensity of shock is sufficient to produce a blink after the cs-us pairings, the cs elicits the response of blinking. ## Footnote RH is the effects of extinction in which the CS is presented but no longer followed by shock - an asymptote

Question 40

define asymptote

Answer 40

the flat part of a learning curve that depicts no further changes in behaviour with continued training.

Question 41

what is moore's 1972 experiment?

Answer 41

rabbits first received conditioning, in which a 1200-Hz tone signaled the delivery of shock. Test trials: the same tone was presented intermixed with tones of different frequencies. The percentage of trials on which a CR was recorded was maximal for the 1200-Hz tone and, when other tones were presented, the likelihood of this response declined. The extent of this decline was greater for stimuli that were further removed from the training stimulus -responding occurs at all with conditions that differ from those present during training demonstrates stimulus generalisation, when incomplete said to reflect generalisation decrement.

Question 42

define exctinction

Answer 42

training in which a conditioned stimulus is presented by itself after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus, this treatment resuults in a progressive weakening of the conditioned response

Question 43

what is stimulus generalisation?

Answer 43

responding to a test stimulus as a result of training with another stimulus

Question 44

what happens in autoshaping?

Answer 44

hungry pigeon is placed in a conditioning chamber intervals of 1 minute a perspec panel is illuminated for about 5 seconds and then food is delivered to a hopper firstly subjecs may be unresponsive but after a few trials they will peck rapidly when illuminated example of pavlovian conditioning

Question 45

what happens in conditioned supression?

Answer 45

subjects trained in an operant chamber in which they must press a lever to obtain food conditioning = pairing a stimulus that lasts for about 1 minute with a relatively mild shock delivered through the grid floor can be up to four trails in each session -> lasts an hour or more signal shock first have little influence on the rate of lever pressing, a gradual decline in the rate of responding will be recorded until eventually the lever may not be pressed, after the shock lever pressing recovers rapidly to its normal rate and remains at this level until the next trial. -> evidence of successful pavlovian conditioning results measured through ratio = 0.5, rates are equal & is ineffective, =0.0 no responses performed that conditioning is ineffective -> no responses at all were performed

Question 46

what happens in taste aversion conditioning?

Answer 46

an animal is made ill by food, by being injected with a mild poisin it will develop a marked aversion to the flavour of that food. effective with only a single trial and intervals of several hours between the cs and the onset of illness can be emplyed with little detriment to learning

Question 47

what does this pattern show?

Answer 47

Initially, the magnitude of conditioned suppression during the compound was much the same as that during the tone (Figure 2.7) but, as training progressed, the presence of the light on compound trials counteracted the suppressive effects of the tone. This pattern of responding suggests animals learned that the light signaled the omission of shock and that this opposed the properties of the tone

Question 48

how can conditioned inhibition be detected?

Answer 48

the retardation test: -pairing the conditioned inhibitor directly with the US, if the initial inhibitory conditioning has resulted in a stimulus being regarded as a signal for the absense of a US, should be difficult to convert this stimulus for the US -the summation test rescorla 1969 argued that the ideal method for determining whether a stimulus is a conditioned inhibitor is to conduct both the retardation and the summation tests -> passes both signals for absence of a US

Question 49

define retardation test

Answer 49

a test for conditioned inhibition by assessing if a stimulus is slow to acquire ecitatory properties when it is paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Question 50

who demonstrated the retardation test?

Answer 50

Pearce, et al 1982 experiment group was given conditioned supression training in which the inhibitory CS was paired with shock control group received these pairings retardation test successful, as conditioning progressed more slowly for exp group and control group.

Question 51

who demonstrates the summation test?

Answer 51

Zimmer-Hart & Rescorla 1974 -revealed light counteractaced the CR elicited by the tone -attributed to stimulus serving as a signal for the omission of the us -pearce et al, 1982 trained rats with three trial types strong CR was observed in the presence of the tone and the clicker, but not during the clicker–light compound. To test whether the influence of the light on the clicker could transfer to the tone, a single test session was administered. -Evidently the influence of the light transferred very well from the clicker to the tone

Question 52

define summation test

Answer 52

a test for conditioned inhibition by assesing if a stimulus will weaken responding elicited by a conditioned excitor when they are presented together

Question 53

what did Carew et al 1972 find in Aplysia Californica?

Answer 53

Aplysia californica contains small numbers of large neurons, which make it easy to idenfity individual neurons -> possible to understand changes -if stimulus is applied to sihpone or the mantle shelf, it will withdraw its gill. this is echanced if stimulation is followed by an electric shock to the tail -> stimulated siphons and followed with a tail shock for 1 second.

Question 54

What does the Aplysia experiment demonstrate about Pavlovian conditioning?

Answer 54

Stronger gill withdrawal to CS+ vs. CS− shows successful Pavlovian (alpha) conditioning, where the CS already elicited a response that's further strengthened by pairing with a shock.

Question 55

define alpha conditioning

Answer 55

an increase in the strength of the unconditioned response to a conditioned stimulus as a result of pairing it with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 56

what did Kandel & Hawkins 1992 find?

Answer 56

two sensory neurons can be excited by stimulating the siphon or the mantle shelf -these make synaptic contact with a motor neuron that is responsible for gill withdrawal -> stimulating the siphon area excites a sensory neuron that willl then excite the motor neuron and cause the gill to withdraw, the third sensory neuron can be excited by a shick to the tail!

Question 57

What was the experimental setup and finding in Hawkins et al. (1983) regarding Pavlovian conditioning in Aplysia?

Answer 57

Hawkins et al. (1983) stimulated sensory neurons for the siphon (CS+, followed by tail shock) and mantle shelf (CS−, no shock), recording from a motor neuron connected to both. After conditioning, the motor neuron showed stronger responses to CS+ than to CS−, indicating associative learning.

Question 58

What did Hawkins et al 1983 find?

Answer 58

when the stimulation of one sensory neuron is followed a short time laterby a tail shock than its ability to excite the motor neuron is increased

Question 59

According to Kandel and Hawkins (1992), what causes enhanced influence of the sensory neuron in Aplysia after conditioning?

Answer 59

Biochemical changes at the sensory–motor synapse enhance the sensory neuron's influence. When a tail shock triggers serotonin release from an interneuron, and a sensory neuron fires at the same time, this coincidence causes the sensory neuron to undergo lasting changes—leading to increased neurotransmitter release

Question 60

How does Pavlovian conditioning lead to response generation, according to the S–R (stimulus–response) connection model?

Answer 60

Stimuli like a CS or US activate memory representations via sensory registers. The US activates a response center, triggering an unconditioned response. With repeated CS–US pairings, a direct CS–response (S–R) connection may form, allowing the CS alone to activate the response center and elicit a response similar to that of the US.

Question 61

What is the alternative to the S–R model in explaining Pavlovian conditioning—according to the S–S (stimulus–stimulus) model? Hint: Focus on the relationship between CS and US representations

Answer 61

In the S–S model, conditioning leads to an association between the CS and the memory representation of the US. When the CS is presented, it activates the US representation in memory, which then triggers the unconditioned response indirectly—relying on mental representation rather than a direct CS–response link.

Question 62

What is the key difference between the S–R and S–S models of Pavlovian conditioning?

Answer 62

S–R Model: The CS forms a direct link to the response system, eliciting the conditioned response by directly activating the response center. S–S Model: The CS activates a mental representation of the US, which in turn triggers the conditioned response indirectly through the US pathway

Question 63

What idea did Colwill & Motzkin test 1994?

Answer 63

Colwill & Motzkin (1994) showed that rats formed CS–US (S–S) associations: after pairing a tone with food and a light with sucrose, rats later avoided the tone (linked to now-aversive food) but still approached during the light. This suggests the CS retrieves a memory of the US, influencing behavior based on the current value of the outcome

Question 64

what did Holland 1990 do?

Answer 64

Holland (1990) found that rats showed aversive responses to a tone previously paired with wintergreen-flavored sucrose after that flavor had been made aversive. This suggests the tone retrieved a memory of the specific flavor (US), supporting S–S learning where the CS evokes a representation of the US that guides behavior.

Question 65

what are some conditioning methods of stimulus-stimulus learning?

Answer 65

serial conditioning sensory preconditioning second-order conditioning

Question 66

define serial conditioning

Answer 66

training in which two or more conditioned stimuli are presented in sequence and follwed by a single unconditioned stimulus

Question 67

define sensory preconditioning

Answer 67

training in which two stimuli are presented together before B is paired with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 68

define second order conditioning

Answer 68

training in which two stimuli are presented together after B has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 69

what happens in serial conditioning?

Answer 69

In serial conditioning, two or more conditioned stimuli (CSs) are presented in sequence (e.g., CS1 followed by CS2), with the unconditioned stimulus (US) occurring after the final CS. Over time, earlier CSs (like CS1) can come to elicit a conditioned response by predicting the later CSs and ultimately the US.

Question 70

what is sensory pre conditioning?

Answer 70

Sensory preconditioning occurs when two neutral stimuli (e.g., CS1 and CS2) are paired together before one of them (CS2) is later associated with an unconditioned stimulus (US). After conditioning, the other stimulus (CS1) can also evoke a conditioned response, even though it was never directly paired with the US.

Question 71

what is second order conditioning?

Answer 71

Second-order conditioning occurs when a neutral stimulus (CS2) is paired with a previously conditioned stimulus (CS1), rather than directly with the unconditioned stimulus (US). Over time, CS2 comes to elicit the conditioned response, even though it was never directly paired with the US.

Question 72

what did Holland and Ross 1981 do?

Answer 72

Holland & Ross (1981) presented a serial compound (light → tone) followed by food. Initially, the tone alone elicited a food-related conditioned response. Later, the light (which had only predicted the tone) also came to elicit the response, showing that earlier cues in a serial sequence can gain associative strength and evoke conditioned responses.

Question 73

what did Rizley & Rescorla 1972 do?

Answer 73

Rizley & Rescorla (1972) first paired two neutral stimuli (e.g., tone and light). Later, one stimulus (light) was paired with a shock (US). When tested, the other stimulus (tone) elicited a fear response, even though it had never been directly paired with the shock—demonstrating sensory preconditioning and supporting the formation of S–S associations between neutral stimuli.