Animal Learning and Cognition Exam 2
What is a Fixed-Ratio Schedule (FR10)? What is a post-reinforcement pause?
10 responses per reinforcer. post-reinforcement pause: zero rate of responding that typically occurs just after reinforcement on a fixed ratio.
What is the US devaluation procedure?
A procedure that reduces the effectiveness of a US to elicit a UR. (Hungry rat vs rat with free access to food. Hungry rat will react stronger to food). It also signals an S-S relationship.
What is a schedule of reinforcement?
A program or rule that determines which occurrence is followed by a reinforcer.
What is a variable interval schedule?
A schedule in which the amount of time required for a response to be reinforced varies between each trial. Subject must respond to obtain set-up reinforcer with unpredictable set-up time.
What is a fixed interval schedule?
A schedule in which the amount of time until a response can be reinforced is the same in each trial. Interval determines when reinforcer becomes available not when it's delivered.
What are the two instrumental conditioning procedures
Appetitive stimulus= pleasant event Aversive stimulus= unpleasant event
Explain the idea of belongingness in the context of Breland and Brelands experiment and instinctive drift.
Breland and Breland were interested in the idea of training an animal to do a task such as putting a coin in a piggy bank would be overshadowed by instinctive tendencies such as cleaning the coin, this term is known as instinctive drift. They found that certain responses belong with reinforcers because of evolutionary history.
What are the Choice Link and the Terminal Link?
Choice link: Subject can choose between two scheduled alternatives by making one of two responses Terminal link: opportunity for reinforcement occurs only after the initial choice has been made.
Define self control
Choosing a large delayed rewards over an immediate small reward.
What is an example of a response reinforcer?
Clicker for dog training.
What was Thorndike's Law of Effect?
If response R in presence of stimulus S is followed by a satisfying event, association between stimulus S and response R becomes strengthened. If the response is followed by an annoying event, the S-R association is weakened. Thorndike, an S-R theorist, found the association between response and stimuli present at the time of response is learned.
Explain Learning without a US
In higher order conditioning, CS1 is paired with the US enough to condition a strong response. Then CS1 is paired with CS2. CS2 then also elicits the conditioned response. This is the basis of irrational fears. In Sensory Pre-Conditioning, CS1 and CS2 become associated. CS1 is paired to illness; CR develops to CS1. Participants with aversion to CS1 also show aversion to CS2 even though CS2 was never directly paired with the US.
What is the pre exposure effect and what is another name for the term
Latent inhibition, states that novel stimuli are more effective than familiar stimuli.
Explain Belongingness
Learning depends on the relevance of the CS to the US, and the kind of stimuli presented with the US is important. This was tested with the noisy water experiment.
Explain Modification of responses to the US and Siegels findings.
Modificagtions of responses of the US is the idea that conditioned diminution of the UR. Siegel found that the drug tolerance was reduced if drug was administered under novel circumstances.
What are discrete procedures of operant conditioning?
Often the use of a maze in an appetitive experiment
Explain Skinners Superstition Experiment
Pigeons were placed in separate experimental chambers and received food pellets every 15 s independent of their behavior. The amount of accidental pairings of food delivery with random behavior of the pigeons caused the pigeons to think that their actions influenced the food when it was uninvolved.
Describe the different Operant Contingencies and their response
Positive Reinforcement: Target behavior is rewarded. Increases rate of responding Positive Punishment: Target behavior is punished. Decreases rate of responding. Negative Reinforcement: Aversive stimulus is halted by target response. increases instrumental responding (opening an umbrella example) Negative Punishment (Omission Training): Removal of something good upon the target action. (Getting phone taken away).
What are free-operant procedures of operant conditioning?
Procedures that often use puzzle boxes or skinner boxes to allow the animal to repeatedly perform an instrumental response.
What is partial/intermittent reinforcement?
Responding reinforced only sometimes
What is the difference between S-S learning and S-R learning?
S-S learning is when the CS and US are presented in order to elicit the CR after conditioning. S-R learning is when the CS only is presented and still elicits the CR after conditioning.
What is a concurrent-chain schedule?
Schedules that involve achoice with commitment. Once the subject has made a choice, it is stuck with that alternative until the end of terminal link/end of trial.
What do Short CS:US intervals and Long CS:US intervals cause?
Short CS:US intervals cause Focal Search Behavior, whereas Long CS:US intervals cause General Search Behavior
What determines the nature of the CR?
Small US variations can produce large CR changes. This is the stimulus-substitution model which states that association of the CS with the US turns conditioned stimulus into surrogate US. Jenkins and Moore studied this with pigeons using sign tracking and two groups who were given to different CS that elicit food like and water like CR respectively
What is a concurrent schedule?
Subject has more than one response option/ reinforcer. Allows for continuous measurements of choice.
What is temporal relation and temporal contiguity?
Temporal relation: Time between response and reinforcer Temporal contiguity: Special case of temporal relation; refers to reinforcer delivery immediately after response.
What is Kamin's Blocking Effect?
The Kamin Blocking Effect is based on the findings in Kamins experiment in which rats were presented with a tone/shock CS or a light/shock CS. once conditioned to that CS, the rat that experienced the light, was given the light/shock again and grew to fear the light. The rat that got the tone/shock was then played the tone and shown the light when being shocked. The rat did not then develop a fear of the light, only the tone. This enforced the idea that the fear of an old stimulus can prevent learning to respond to a new one.
What is the Response-reinforcer contingency?
The extent to which instrumental response is necessary and sufficient to produce reinforcer
What is learned helplessness and what human condition is it a model for?
The learned helplessness effect is the idea that inescapable discomfort deters the ability to learn. The expectation of future lack of control undermines the ability to learn new instrumental responses. This is a model for clinical depression.
What is the Matching Law?
The relative rate of responding on an alternative matched the relative rate of reinforcement on that alternative.
How was Moore and Jenkins Study continued?
Timberlake and Grant experimented on the CS as a determining factor for the CR using a male and female rat in a box. When the male rat received food, the female rat would be revealed. Rather than biting or salivating when the male saw the female later, he began to socially interact. This strengthened the idea that the nature of the CS determines the form of the CR.
What is behavioral contrast?
When a small reward is treated as especially for after reinforcement with a large reward and vice versa.
What is Differential Reinforcement of High Rates (DRH)?
When reinforcement is given for the "n"th response provided that "T" seconds has not occurred. (100 responses in one minute gets reinforced).
What is the Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates (DRL)?
When reinforcement occurs after "T" seconds provided the target response has not yet occurred during the interval.
What is Delay discounting?
When the value of a reinforcer declines as a function of how long you have to wait to obtain it.
What is the Credit assignment problem?
With delayed reinforcement, it becomes difficult to determine which response deserves credit for the reinforcer delivery.
Is self control trainable?
Yes. Particularly at a young age.
What is a Variable-ratio schedule (VR10)?
subject makes 10 responses on average to get reinforcer.