Chapter 2: Classical Conditioning

Learning

mechanism of behaviour that undergo relatively enduring change based on experience it's the myriad of different ways that people acquire are knowledge or skills

Learning

1. Mechanics of behaviour

2. Enduring change

3. Based on experiments

Mechanics of behaviour

Learning explains the mechanisms behind how behaviour changes, how we acquire new actions, habits, or responses

Late learning

learning that is occurred with minimal change in performance

Unconscious reflective learning

A type of learning that happens without conscious awareness - we pick up patterns, rules, or associations automatically, without realizing it → you become aware later on

Enduring change

changes to mechanisms of behavior, have to be enduring/ lasting changes for it to be considered learning

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

by strengthening a connection between multiple neurons

It keeps getting stronger with repeated exposure

Based on experiments

learning can be contrasted with other changes and behaviour by its ability to be driven by maturation, like as we grow and experience more we learn

Non-associative learning

modification of an existence, stimulus response relationship rather than creating a whole new association

Non-associative learning includes:

• Habituation

  • Dishabituation

• Sensitization/ Heightened Responsiveness

• Systematic desensitization

Habituation

a decrease in response to a stimulus one is repeatedly presented without consequences

Orienting response

an automated shift of attention towards the stimulus

Dishabituation

an increase in responding that follows a change in a previously habituated stimulus → another change

Sensitization/ Heightened Responsiveness

• AN increase in response to a stimulus as it is repeatedly presented - often adaptive because it prompts you to engage in behaviours that are appropriate to the situation 

Implosive therapy

• Helps with phobias by forcing you to face it head on

Systematic desensitization

•  Slowly makes it up the generalization curve from things that are slightly related to things that are just it 

  • A behavioural therapy technique used to help people overcome phobias or anxiety

Associative Learning

Using the association between two different things to influence learning 

• Classic Conditioning: Which focuses on associations between stimuli

• Instrumental Conditioning: Which focuses on associations between actions and their consequences

Classical Conditioning

Developed by Ivan Pavlov

Pavlov found that salivation in dogs was not only a reflexive response to receiving food but also a learned response based on the anticipation of food.

PArts of Classical conditioning

• unconditional response (UR): A biologically determined response that is evoked prior to any learning

• unconditional stimulus (US): Any stimulus that evokes a UR

• Conditional Response (CR): An automatic response that was established through training and learning to a once neutral stimulus, the same as the UR 

• Conditional Stimulus (CS): a neutral stimulus that is now paired with the US

Conditioning trials

During which the CS and US are presented together, the initially neutral CS can alone elicit the CR of salivation

Excitatory Conditioning

• the president of the seas, predict the presence of the US

Asymptotic Responding

the strength of the CR grows gradually over successive pairings of the CS and US, but that eventually a plateau will be reached, such that further conditioning trials do not cause any further increases in CR strength → Reaching an asymptote

Acquisition/ Cotingency

•  Also known as the formation of a contingency where it shows a new association between the CS and the US because the CS can reliably predict the presence of the US → and elicit the CR through continuous conditioning trials 

Reacquisition

the introduction of condition trials after extension has occurred, requisitions faster than acquisition, indicating the sum of the ritual learning is retained following extinction

Contiguity

• The extent to which the CS AND US occur together in time and space

  • Ideal arrangement: Short-delay conditioning, CS is presented shortly before the US so the association can be easily discern

Extinction of the CR

• When the CS no longer elicits the CR due to the CS which was originally neutral is no longer paired with the US and elicits no natural response

• Spontanoues recovery and renewal —> show that it doesn’t just go extinct but rather gets overided

spontaneous recovery

the re-emergence of previous extinguished CS after temporal delay

Renewal

Extension is not the ratio of required association as a senior sometimes still observing the subject is placed back in the original environment

Extinction Trials

• the CSS repeatedly presented the loan to extinguish the CSUS association not to be confused with test trials The CSS repeatedly presented the loan to extinguish the CSUS association not to be confused with test trials or the CS is presented to test with an association has learned

inhibitory conditioning

the presence of the CS predicts the absence of the US

Test trials

a trial this year is presented without the US to test whether the CS US Association has been learned

Homeostasis

the physiological regulation of the body the maintaining the bodies internal equilibrium

• Explains that the US is a response from the body to help maintain homeostasis in one way or another by changing the bodies, internal levels to keep equilibrium

Compensatory Response

• any biological response from the body that maintains homeostasis 

Prevalence study

• morphine overdose, using environment specificity

• Therefore, the body naturally conditioned itself to the environment that you are taking this drug in so that it can regulate its body levels to take the drug but then when you take the drug in a different environment, your body doesn't regulate for us, so therefore you get an overdose reaction from me even though you're technically not taking the amount that can cause an overdose

Drug tolerance

• the decreased effectiveness of a drug over the course of a repeated

  • Every time a drug is taken it is considered a learning trial → creates addiction 

    • The frontal lobe that does all the decision taking - addicted brain lose activity there 

Enigmatic opiate overdose

• An overdose that occurs with regular drug addicts that even when taking the normal dosage → they overdose from normal amounts 

Withdrawal symptoms

• Actually more related to being given the CS but not the US so your body starts preparing the anti agent for the drug/ alcohol so when you don’ t get it you just display symptoms of the anti agent

Stimulus Generalization

the CR is listed by a new stimulus and the original CS the more similar stimulus to the original CS the greater the response

Generalization gradient

the strength of the CR based on how close it is to the original CS → response gets stronger the closer it is to the original CS

Stimulus discrimination

an organism is ability to find tuners responding such as a CR occurs in a response to one CS, but not to other similar stimuli

requires discrimination training

specifically showing that the CS is the only thing that is paired with the US anything that is slightly different won't show the US

Higher order conditioning

a neutral stimulus is paired with a CS to produce the same CR as the CS → a form of classical conditioning where a new stimulus becomes associated with a previously conditioned stimulus, causing it to elicit the same conditioned response