Chapter 7
dynamic stereotype
a cortical mosaic that has become stable because the organism has been in a highly predictable environment for a considerable length of time.
taste aversion
a learned avoidance of a particular food
Concentration
a process opposite to irradiation, govern both excitation and inhibition. used to explain discrimination
flooding
a treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless
John B. Watson
behaviorism; emphasis on external behaviors of people and their reactions on a given situation; famous for Little Albert study in which baby was taught to fear a white rat
backward conditioning
conditioning procedure in which the onset of the NS follows the onset of the US
What is the main procedural difference between higher-order conditioning and blocking (they look very similar when you lay out the two procedures)?
in both the first phase involves establishing a CS-CR relationship. In the second phase, for higher order conditioning that CS is paired with a neutral stimulus. With blocking the second phase has that CS paired with a neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus.
Describe the classical conditioning finding of overshadowing.
in classical conditioning, a decrease in conditioning with one conditioned stimulus because of the presence of another conditioned stimulus. Usually a stronger stimulus will overshadow a weaker stimulus.
Define high order conditioning.
is studied without a US (Unconditioned Stimulus) that is during extinction it is very difficult, if not impossible, to go beyond third order conditioning -Second and third-order are under it.
excitatory conditioning
observed when a CS-US pairing excites or produces a response: A bell (CS) is paired repeatedly with meat powder (US) so that presentation of the CS elicits salivation (CR); a tone (CS) is paired repeatedly with a puff of air (US) directed at the eye (which causes a reflexive eyeblink [UR]) so that presentation of the CS alone results in an eyeblink
latent-inhibition effect
same as CS-preexposure effect with no US (unconditioned stimuli)
semantic generalization
the generalization of a conditioned response to verbal stimuli that are similar in meaning to the CS
external inhibition
the presentation of a novel stimulus during conditioning suppresses response to the conditioned stimulus
What is spontaneous recovery?
the reappearance of a learned response after extinction has occurred
What is a limitation of higher-order conditioning?
we can only go to third order conditioning because after than extinction sets in
Give me an example of blocking
· In the statistical theory of the design of experiments, blocking is the arranging of experimental units in groups (blocks) that are similar to one another. ... An example of a blocking factor might be the sex of a patient; by blocking on sex, this source of variability is controlled for, thus leading to greater accuracy.
Describe the different parts of the Resorla-Wagner equation. Give the equation.
· This is the Rescorla-Wagner equation. It specifies that the amount of learning (the change ∆ in the predictive value of a stimulus V) depends on the amount of surprise (the dif- ference between what actually happens, λ, and what you expect, ΣV).
conditioned suppression
-Suppression of ongoing behavior (e.g., drinking or lever pressing for food) produced by the presentation of a CS that has been conditioned to elicit fear through association with an aversive US. -Conditioned suppression is a reduction in ongoing behavior maintained by positive reinforcement during ·a short duration stimulus (CS) which terminates independently of the animal's behavior and coincidentally with an unavoidable electric shock (Estes & Skinner, 1941).
anxiety hierarchy
A rank-ordered list of what the client fears, starting with the least frightening and ending with the most frightening.
systematic desensitization
A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.
Describe Watson's Little Albert experiment. What was Watson trying to do with this experiment?
The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child. For this study they chose a nine-month old infant from a hospital referred to as "Albert" for the experiment. Watson followed the procedures which Pavlov had used in his experiments with dogs.
forward conditioning
The conditioned stimulus signals that the unconditioned stimulus is coming -cs (a five-secound tone) was always followed by a us (an electric shock)
conditioned suppression
-The reduction in rate of responding during CS (Tone) presentation -a reduction in the rate of responding due to the noncontingent presentation of an aversive CS
What is the renewal effect?
-sudden reemergence of a conditioned response following extinction when an animal is returned to the environment in which the conditioned response was acquired -example for the persistence of expectations in the face of disconfirming information. The initially acquired expectations are not erased but suppressed instead by extinction
Disinhibition
-the sudden recovery of a response during an extinction procedure when a novel stimulus is introduced -which is the disruption of conditioned inhibition. in other words, if we pair a novel stimulus with a conditioned inhibitor, the inhibitor fails to inhibit
Give an example of the therapeutic technique of systematic desensitization.
-· For example, seeing a photo of what you fear might be a level 3, but actually touching the thing you fear could be a level 8 or 9. Next, you'll develop ways to expose yourself to each level of fear. This is usually done with the help of a therapist
learned helplessness
A condition that occurs after a period of negative consequences where the person begins to believe they have no control.
first signal system
According to Pavlov, physical stimuli that precede biologically significant events allowing their anticipation and thus appropriate responses to them
predictiveness principle
attention is captured by CSs that have reliably predicted USs in the past
second signal system
(Pavlov) The way in which a word (the second signal) is attached to a raw sensory input (the first signal)
orienting reflex
(Pavlov) an instinctive response to a stimulus, such as turning the head to locate a sound source (novel stimuli)
uncertainty principle
it is impossible to know variables precisely in the quantum world
Describe Seligman and Maier's (1967) experiment on learned helplessness. What did they think this told us about human behavior?
-Seligman and Maier (1967) theorized that animals learned that outcomes were independent of their responses—that nothing they did mattered - and that this learning undermined trying to escape. The mechanism of learned helplessness is now very well-charted biologically and the original theory got it backwards. Passivity in response to shock is not learned. It is the default, unlearned response to prolonged aversive events and it is mediated by the serotonergic activity of the dorsal raphe nucleus, which in turn inhibits escape. This passivity can be overcome by learning control, with the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex, which subserves the detection of control leading to the automatic inhibition of the dorsal raphe nucleus. So animals learn that they can control aversive events, but the passive failure to learn to escape is an unlearned reaction to prolonged aversive stimulation. In addition, alterations of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-dorsal raphe pathway can come to subserve the expectation of control. -· They used three groups of dogs for their subjects. During the 1st Phase of the experiment Grp.1 received a shock but could terminate the shock by their own behavior. Grp 2 was shocked but could not control whether or not they received the shock and for how long they received the shock. The 3rd Grp. received no shocks. During Phase 2 of the experiment, the dogs were put into a cage that had two parts to the floor---- one half that would produce a shock (the dogs were in this half initially) and the other half that was safe from the shock. The subjects were given a warning signal just before the shock. Groups 1 and 3 learned to avoid the shock by going to the safe half immediately after the warning signal. Group2 dogs didn't even attempt to avoid the shock and stayed in the shocking half of the floor. The Grp 2 dogs learned to be helpless (because of lack of control in phase 1). These symptoms are similar to how humans behave when depressed and showed the importance of having some sense of control over events affecting you.
Describe Mary Cover Jones' counter-conditioning experiment with Little Peter
-She treated Peter's fear of a white rabbit by "direct conditioning", in which a pleasant stimulus (food) was associated with the rabbit. Cover Jones began her experiment with the goal of finding the most effective way to eliminate irrational fears in children. · Cover Jones began to wonder if the techniques used by Watson could be used to make children less fearful of a stimulus, in essence reversing his findings. ... She treated Peter's fear of a white rabbit by "direct conditioning", in which a pleasant stimulus (food) was associated with the rabbit.
Learned Irrelevance
-The presentation of a stimulus without a UCS leads to the recognition that the stimulus is irrelevant, stops attention to that stimulus, and impairs conditioning when the stimulus is later paired with the UCS -learning to ignore stimuli
Describe the process of extinction in classical conditioning
In classical conditioning, extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus is applied repeatedly without being paired with the unconditioned stimulus. Over time, the learned behavior occurs less often and eventually stops altogether, and conditioned stimulus returns to neural
truly random control group
Rescorla has shown that the only true control condition for classical conditioning studies is one in which there is no predictive relationship between a CS and a US. In other words, in a truly random control condition, a US precedes and follows a CS an equal number of times. Rescorla says that in such a condition there is no contingency between CS and the US.
In classical conditioning, what is stimulus generalization?
Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus that is similar to an already-conditioned stimulus begins to produce the same response as the original stimulus does. Stimulus discrimination occurs when the organism learns to differentiate between the CS and other similar stimuli.
irradiation of excitation
The tendency for excitation (or inhibition) in a specific area of the brain to spill over into neighboring brain regions.
classical conditioning
a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone.
counterconditioning
behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; include exposure therapies and aversive conditioning
Superconditioning
occurs when a CS becomes stronger because it is paired with an inhibitory stimulus. The fact that the CS predicts the US even when an inhibitory stimulus is present suggests that the CS is a particularly strong predictor of the US
blocking effect
once a conditioned stimulus is learned, it can prevent the acquisition of a new conditioned stimulus
Garcia effect
taste aversion, when nausea and a food are paired, the food will be averted in the future
What is the best CS-US timing relationship when it comes to establishing classical conditioning?
that the CS occurs before (and can remain on or start and end) the US
Give me an example of classical conditioning.
whenever you come home wearing a baseball cap, you take your child to the park to play. So, whenever your child sees you come home with a baseball cap, he is excited because he has associated your baseball cap with a trip to the park. This learning by association is classical conditioning
Describe Ader's (1974) experiment conditioned suppression of the immune system.
· Alder (1974)was initially studying taste aversion. He suggested that conditioned suppression of the immune system, resulting in greater susceptibility to viral or bacterial infections, led to increase death. They first paired the CS of saccharin-flavored water with the US of cyclophosphamide injection. Three days later, the rats were injected with a foreign protein (red blood cells of sheep), a procedure that produces long-term elevation of a highly specific antibody in healthy rats. When aversions-conditioned animals were re-exposed to the saccharin CS, their blood levels of sheep cell antibodies were found to be lower than those of animals in control groups that were not exposed to either the CS or to the US. Ader and Cohen concluded that the saccharin CS had acquired the ability to suppress the immune system in a highly manner.
Give me an example of higher-order conditioning.
· An example of higher-order conditioning is outlined in the diagrams below. When a random object is introduced when the bell is rung, the dogs continued to salivate. The dog salivates when it hears the bell and sees the random object. ... The neutral stimulus has been modified to make the dog salivate.
Distinguish between the contiguity theory of classical conditioning and the contingency theory.
· Contiguity: CS co-occurs with the US: they are contiguous, or close together, in space and time. Contingency: the CS predicts the US: the occurrence of the US is contingent on the prior occurrence of the CS.
Give me an example of stimulus generalization in classical conditioning.
· Generalization, in psychology, the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli. For example, a dog conditioned to salivate to a tone of a particular pitch and loudness will also salivate with considerable regularity in response to tones of higher and lower pitch.
Of what did Pavlov think that classical conditioning consist? In other words, what did you learn in classical conditioning?
· Pavlov thought that classical conditioning consists on: A neutral stimulus is a stimulus that at first elicits no response. Pavlov introduced the ringing of the bell as a neutral stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus that leads to an automatic response. In Pavlov's experiment, the food was the unconditioned stimulus. An unconditioned response is an automatic response to a stimulus. The dogs salivating for food is the unconditioned response in Pavlov's experiment. A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that can eventually trigger a conditioned response. In the described experiment, the conditioned stimulus was the ringing of the bell, and the conditioned response was salivation. · classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus
Describe Garcia and Koelling's (1966) experiment on conditioned taste aversion.
· Taste aversion is a learned response to eating spoiled or toxic food. In 1966, psychologists' John Garcia and Robert Koelling studied taste aversion in rats noticing rats would avoid water in radiation chambers. Taste aversion is important today to the adaptive purpose of evolution, by aiding in our survival. · Garcia discovered that taste aversion is an acquired reaction to the smell or taste that an animal is exposed to before getting sick. He discovered this by giving rats flavored water before exposing them to radiation that made them sick. This discovery was also named The Garcia Effect to honor Dr. Garcia's work.
How does the Rescorla-Wagner Theory explain the phenomenon of blocking?
· This is the Rescorla-Wagner equation. It specifies that the amount of learning (the change ∆ in the predictive value of a stimulus V) depends on the amount of surprise (the dif- ference between what actually happens, λ, and what you expect, ΣV). -This effect was most famously explained by the Rescorla-Wagner model. The model says, essentially, that if one CS (here the light) already fully predicts that the US will come, nothing will be learned about a second CS (here the tone) that accompanies the first CS. The basic idea behind the RW Theory is that the first CS (the green light) uses up all (or most) of the learning available for the particular US (cheese)---- leaving little learning possible for the second CS (the bell). It is formulated in terms of an equation (see below). The order of the Blocking Sequence (as exemplified in the slides) is important for establishing the phenomenon. You must have the first stimulus (light)- response (salivating) conditioning pair established before you introduce the second stimulus (the bell). The Rescorla-Wagner Equation is ΔVN=αβ(λ-VN-1). V represents the amount of learning achieved at a particular trial (say, trial N). ΔVN means the increase in the amount of learning on trial N. So, the left hand side of the equation gives us how much of an increase in V occurs at trial N depending upon the quantities specified on the right hand side. λ represents the total amount of learning possible in the experiment (due to the US). α and β are learning rate parameters that represent how quickly the subject learns on the basis of the particular CS (light) and US (cheese) involved. The key part of the right hand side of the equation is (λ-VN-1) which indicates how much of what is possible left to learn is available after trial N-1. With blocking there is little left of (λ-VN-1) after the first CS has used up most of the learning available with λ.
