LCB exam 1

what is an unconditioned stimulus

US = unconditioned stimulus: a stimulus that elicits a response without any conditioning occurring

- Ex. a loud noise triggers a fear response/startle

what is a conditioned stimulus

CS = conditioned stimulus: a stimulus that elicits a response only after conditioning takes places

- Ex. A light triggers a fear response because we paired the light with an unconditioned stimulus

- Before conditioning, the light did not cause a fear response

what is an unconditioned response

UR = unconditioned response: the response that occurs automatically when presented with an unconditioned stimulus

- Ex. startling at a loud noise

what is a conditioned response

CR = conditioned response: the response that occurs after conditioning when presented with a conditioned stimulus

- Ex. the fear response that occurs when seeing a light after we have associated the light with something fearful

when a conditioned response is elicited, is it just that response being elicited, or are there multiple responses

multiple conditioned responses per stimulus

- ex. when the bell is rung, the dog starts drooling, but it also has increased activity, rise in bodily temperature, ect

why do conditioned stimulus elicit multiple responses

these get us ready for the upcoming unconditioned stimulus

- ex. when we hear a bell, that tells us a shock is coming. To prepare for the upcoming shock, we engage defense reactions

what is another name for operant conditioning

instrumental conditioning

what is the operant-respondent distinction (aka differences between classical/respondent behavior and operant behavior)

classical:

- classical behavior is controlled by what happened before

- the organism doesn't have to do anything for learning to occur

- we use the word "elicited" to describe when a stimulus causes behavior

- ex. a sound plays which elicits a fear response in a rat

operant:

- operant behavior is controlled by what happens after the behavior

- the organisms has to do something in order for learning to occur

- we use the word "emitted" to describe when a behavior causes a consequence

- ex. a rat emits a lever press for food

what is a reinforcer in operant conditioning

a stimulus that increases the behavior

what is an operant behavior/response

a behavior that acts upon the environment to produce a consequence

what is a cumulative record

a record of the total number of responses over time

what are the law of effect options

- positive reinforcement

- negative reinforcement

- positive punishment

- negative punishment

what is positive reinforcement

adding something to increase behavior

- ex. a kid eating veggies causes them to get dessert, so they keep eating their veggies in the future

what is negative reinfrocement

removing something to increase behavior

- ex. smoking a cigarette removes anxiety, so smoking increases

what is positive punishment

adding something unpleasant to decrease behavior

- ex. spanking a child so they stop swearing causes them to swear less in the future

what is negative punishment

removing something good in order to decrease behavior

- ex. taking away a person's phone if they sneak out, which causes them to sneak out less in the future

what is stimulus control

learning to respond only in the presence of a certain stimulus (a discriminative stimulus) because the stimulus represents when they will likely be reinforced

- ex. a rat learns to peck at a lever when a light is turned on, but not when the light is off because they know the pecking will only lead to food when the light it on

what is a discriminative stimulus (S^D)

an environmental cue or signal that indicates a specific behavior will likely be reinforced

what is the absence of the discriminative stimulus called

S∆ (S delta)

what is generalization

ability of a novel stimulus to elicit the same response as the conditioned stimulus because it is similar to the CS

- ex.

what is a generalization gradient

a graph representing the tendency to respond to novel stimuli that are similar to a trained stimulus

Explain the way experiments on categorization in pigeons are conducted (categorization 1)

the pigeon is looking at a screen and it shows different objects

- the pigeon learns that when it pecks at a red dot when a tree is being shown, food is released

- the pigeon uses generalization and pecks in response to different pictures of trees, showing that they are not just responding to one tree

- the trees are acting at the discriminative stimulus

Explain the way experiments on categorization in pigeons are conducted (categorization 2)

the pigeon is shown pictures of people, flowers, cars, and chairs

- there is a colored dot for it to peck according to the category

- the pigeon learns that when it pecks the correct colored dot according to the picture, food is released

*then they gave the pigeon a new set of pictures with the same sets of categories

- the results were that the pigeon was able to mostly correctly sort the pictures, but with a little less accuracy than the original slide show (suggesting that there was some memorization happening in OG slides)

describe the four loko effect

a lot of people were getting alcohol poisoning from drinking four lokos

- originally people thought it was because of the caffeine in it, but that was false

- it was actually because it has a flavor that =s different from other alcohols, so the body was unable to prepare for the incoming alcohol because the flavor did not act as a cue for bodily preparation

what is homeostasis and how is it relevent to classical conditioning

The body defends an equilibrium, and when there is some movement away from equilibrium, the body goes about correcting it

- the body uses conditioned responses to defend the body

what is the conditioned compensatory response

it is a conditioned response (CR) that opposes, rather than is the same as, the unconditioned response (UR). - It functions to reduce the strength of the unconditioned response.

describe the conditioned compensatory response experiment with rats

rats were injected with either insulin or saline (salt water) over multiple days (Insulin causes a decrease in blood glucose, saline doesn't change anything)

- then on the final day, they were all injected with saline and then their glucose levels were tested

results:

- the rats that had previously been injected with insulin actually had an increased level of glucose in their blood

- this is because the rats prepared themselves for the additional insulin in their body (which would cause a decrease in blood glucose), so it produced more blood glucose to offset it and create an equilibrium

- but then when there was not the new dose of insulin, the body still thought there would be a new dose to it released extra glucose to offset the expected insulin

describe the conditioned compensatory response's role in drug tolerance

The body learns to expect the drug, which causes the compensatory response, and overtime, the compensatory response gets stronger and we feel the effects of the drugs less

explain the drug tolerance due to environmental cues experiment with rats (phase 1 and 2 only)

*morphine decreases pain

*tolerance to morphine means it decreases the pain less than it originally did

during phase 1:

rat 1 in room A - morphine

rat 2 in room A - saline (control - salty water)

rat 3 in room B - morphine

rat 4 in room B - morphine

during phase 2

rat 1 - Test morphine in A

rat 2 - Test saline in A

rat 3 - Test morphine in A

- (nothing)

results:

- rat 3 was not sensitive to pain

- this is because it was used to receiving morphine in room B and so it started having morphine tolerance in room B, but then when it got morphine in room A, the body didn't recognize any cues, thus not making a conditioned compensatory response (aka it did not have any drug tolerance in room A)

explain the drug tolerance due to environmental cues experiment with rats (phase 3)

Phase 3

Rat 1: Test with saline in A

Rat 2: Test with saline in A

Rat 3: -

Rat 4: Test with saline in A

results:

- rat 1 was very sensitive to pain

- this is because their body was used to morphine, thus creating a CCR (it was counteracting the morphine by making the body more sensitive to pain in order to create a homeostasis when it was injected with morphine

explain withdrawal symptoms and how it reinforces people to keep taking drugs (using morphine as an example)

With morphine, several different conditioned (and unconditioned) responses occur:

Unconditioned responses to morphine:

- Analgesia (lack of pan)

- Hyperthermia (increase in body temp)

- Suppressed activity

Conditioned response to morphine

- Hyperglycemia (more sensitive to pain)

- Hypothermia (decreased body temp)

- Increase in activity

*these conditioned responses are unpleasant

- if a person were to stop taking the drug, the body will still produce the CCRes and nothing would counteract it

- so people keep taking the drug to counter act it, which acts as negative reinforcement

describe the heroin overdose experiment in rats

Rats were given 15 heroin injections

Then a lethal dose in:

1. The same room as their other injections

2. A different room

3. Or the lethal dose was their first ever heroin dose

Results:

Rats getting the lethal dose in the same room lived (mostly)

Rats getting lethal dose in a different room died (mostly)

Rats with no experience with heroin died when getting lethal dose (almost always)

*this is because the tolerance came from the room they were in acting as a cue, triggering the CCR

what is extinction

in pavlovian conditioning: when the conditioned stimulus is not longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus, behavior decreases

- ex. if the bell kept ringing, but it stopped predicting food, the dogs would stop salivating at the sound of the bell

in operant conditioning: when the behavior is no longer given a reinforcer, behavior decreases

- ex. a rat presses the lever, but they no longer get food with it

what is the best method of making behavior persist (aka slowest extinction)

reinforce the behavior infrequently

- this is called partial reinforcement

compare the acquisition time and extinction time between continuous and partial reinforcement

acquisition time:

- continuous reinforcement has a slightly quicker acquisition time (quicker conditioning)

extinction time:

- continuous reinforcement leads to rapid extinction

- partial reinforcement takes much longer for extinction

what are the two theories that cause PREE (partial reinforcement extinction effect)

1. frustration theory

2. generalization theory

what is frustration theory

during partial reinforcement, you are reinforced for responding while you are frustrated; you therefore learn to respond (and persist) in the face of frustration (including during extinction)

- frustrated because you are not getting the reward

what is generalization theory

Generalization theory says PREE happens because extinction looks more similar to training for partially reinforced behaviors than for continuously reinforced ones

- you stop responding in extinction when you stop generalizing from acquisition

- this means that continuous reinforcement causes extinction faster because as soon as you stop getting rewarded continuously, it is completely different from the acquisition period, and we stop generalizing it

- on the other hand, for partial reinforcement acquisition is similar to extinction, so PRF generalizes better to extinction

does extinction erase learning

no

- this can be proved by spontaneous recovery

what is renewal

the return of responding outside the context of extinction

- ex. a rat may no longer freeze in a checkerboard room due to extinction, but if you put the same rat in a room with stripes and play the tone, they will still freeze

describe the three forms of renewal (ABA, ABC, AAB)

1. ABA: acquisition happens in room A, extinction happens in room B, then the rat goes back to room A and hears the tone

- result: The conditioned response returns strongly when the organism goes back to Context A (OG location of conditioning)

2. ABC: acquisition in room A, extinction in room B, then the rat goes to room C and hears the tone

- result: The conditioned response still comes back, even though the test context was never paired with the US

3. AAB: acqisition in room A, extinction in room A, then the rat was brought to room B and heard the tone

- result: The conditioned response returns, but usually less strongly than ABA

Explain why the three forms of renewal indicate that extinction is not erasure

the original learning comes back when the context changes

- once the CS and US stopped being paired and extinction occurs, the conditioned response should be gone permanently, but that did not happen . It was only gone in the room where extinction was learned and then it came back as soon as the rats were in different contexts

- ex. room C was never paired with the US, yet the behavior comes back once the organism leaves the extinction context

describe the renewal and exposure therapy experiment with people and spiders

a group of people who were afraid of spiders had exposure therapy and eventually had extinction

- then a while later they handled the spider again in the same context as treatment, or a different context

results:

- when they were in the same context: 18% were afraid

- when in a different context: 46% were afraid

- this demonstrates that the extinction was tied to the room they learned it in

whats a technique to reduce renewal

- remembering what happened during exposure therapy and what was learned

- practicing exposures in multiple contexts

what is the difference between spontaneous recovery and renewal

spontaneous recovery: occurs overtime

renewal: occurs after a context change

what is the basic idea of exposure therapy

facing your fears will condition you, via extinction, to be less responsive to trigger stimuli and removes the negative reinforcement of avoidance

what is required for exposure therapy to work

the person must experience an increase in anxiety

- an initial increase in anxiety is essential to activate the fear response, allowing the brain to learn that the feared stimulus is not dangerous

what are the characteristics of gradual exposure

- do activities that increase the client's anxiety over time

- peak anxiety level is 60-80/100 each session

- helps increase self efficacy in the patient over time (belief in their capacity to face fear)

- gradual exposure ensures that anxiety levels decrease during exposure

what are the characteristics of flooding

- facing the trigger stimuli all at once

- reaching a peak anxiety of 90-100/100 in session

- can be so distressing that anxiety level never comes down during session

- but if anxiety does come down, it can be effective

what is an exposure hierarchy

a list of feared situations rank ordered with less feared items at the bottom of the list and the most fear situations at the top

- in gradual exposure, you move from the bottom to the top and gradually face fears

- in flooding, you go directly to the top of the hierarchy

what is the difference between exposure and being exposed

Exposure therapy goes beyond just doing things or being in situations that make you uncomfortable

- One must engage in behaviors where learning can occur in order for it to be exposure

what are ways to avoid relapse

to avoid renewal: practice exposures in multiple contexts so that the fear extinction is not localized to a specific context

to avoid reinstatement: when possible, revisit contexts where the fear was learned

what are potential limitations of exposure therapy

- co-morbidities might decrease the efficacy of exposure therapy (ex. substance use while engaging in exposure therapy (brings down anxiety during exposure which is counterproductive))

- medications

- efficacy studies done on WEIRD samples

what makes learning happen

surprise

prediction error (a mismatch between what we expect to happen, and what actually does happen)

what is blocking

a phenomenon in classical conditioning where the prior association between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) prevents a new, second stimulus from being learned

describe the blocking experiment in rats

phase 1:

- 1st group of rats saw a light paired with a shock

- nothing happened for the second group

phase 2:

both groups had light AND a tone paired with a shock

test:

both groups heard just the tone and their conditioned fear responses were assessed

results:

- group 1: had no conditioned fear response to the tone

- group 2: had a large amount fear response to the tone

- this is because of blocking - group one learned that the light predicts the shock first, not the tone, and therefore that previous learning blocked the new learning that the tone also predicts a shock

- they were not able to learn that the tone also predicts the shock because they were not surprised in phase 2 when the shock occurred because the knew the light predicted the shock, therefore there was no prediction error

describe the UNblocking experiment in rats

phase 1:

group 1: a light predicted a shock

group 2: a light predicted a shock

group 3: a light predicted a big shock

phase 2:

group 1: a light and a tone predicted a shock

group 2: a light and tone predicted a big shock

group 3: a light and a tone predicted a big shock

test:

just the tone was played and the conditioned fear responses were assessed

results:

- group 1 and 3 had barely any conditioned fear responses because of blocking (they didn't pair the tone with the shock, only the light)

- group 2 had a big conditioned fear response

- this is because they were surprised (had prediction error) in phase 2 because there was a bigger shock than before, which helped them learn that the tone predicts a shock (this is called unblocking)

describe the human experiment on blocking

subjects reviewed medical charts of symptoms and diagnosed patients

phase 1:

group 1 were told that a bloody nose means the patients have the disease

phase 2:

group 1 and group 2 were told that both a bloody nose and stomach crams means they have the disease

test:

they were told that a patient just has stomach cramps, how likely are they to have the disease

results:

- Group one did not think it was likely because they learned that a bloody nose was necessary (they were blocked from learning that a stomach cramp predicts the disease)

what is preparedness

a biological predisposition to learn associations

- ex. association between taste and nausea is more natural to learn than that a certain texture predicts nausea

- the combination of CS and US determines how easily conditioning occurs

describe the preparedness experiment in adult rats

rats drink from a flavored solution, and everytime they take a sip, a bright light and a noisy sound plays (bright-noisy)

- Then the rats were separated into different US groups: some are injected with a solution that makes them sick, the other rats are given a foot shock at the end of each CS

test:

- the rats were given EITHER a sip of the flavored water, OR exposed to the bright-noisy

results:

- When the US was illness and the CS was flavored water, the rats learned a lot about the flavor (there was conditioning there)

- When the US was shock and the CS was bright-noisy, the rats learned about the bright-noisy water (there was conditioning there)

- When the US was illness and the CS was bright-noisy, the rats had trouble understanding/learning that the bright-noisy water was involved in their illness (no conditioning)

- When the US was shock and the CS was flavored water, the rats had trouble learning that the flavored water was involved in their shock (no conditioning)

*Proves that some CS's are harder to pair with some US's and some are easier to pair

describe the preparedness experiment on baby rats

same thing as with adult rats, but instead of bright-noisy, they used a certain texture

- the results were the same

- this proves that certain pairings are easier to pair innately as opposed to from learned life experiences (since the baby rats didnt have much life experience)

what are species specific defense reactions

innate and automatic behaviors used by animals to protect themselves from threats

- species specific defense mechanisms are easier to learn

describe the SSDR experiment

group of rats had to perform a behavior to stop a shock (sometimes they had to run, turn their bodies, avoid the shock)

Results:

- If they had to run to avoid shock, they learned it rapidly

- it was hard for them to learn that the other two options caused them to avoid the shock

- These behaviors were not equally "learnable" because running is a SSDR and the other two are not (SSDRs come more naturally to them)

why are SSDRs the most natural for animals to learn

evolution shapes learning, and running helped rats avoid danger in the past

- to avoid a shock, it is easiest if the rat can use a natural, innate defense behavior (SSDR)

how does SSDRs show up in people

one example is thigmotaxis

- seeking the edge of the environment because there is less exposure, thus less places for danger to come

how did experiments prove skinner wrong when he said that everything is learned due to operant learning

experimenters tried to get animals to do unnatural activities such as chickens playing baseball

- to do this, they carefully used reinforcement

- however, there were many failure, proving that not everything can be learned through operant conditioning

- the animals were actually being classically conditioned: CS: the ball, US: food, CR: species-specific food behavior (pecking)

- Once the ball predicted food, the chicken's brain treated it as food itself.

describe the "is eating a response to need" experiment with rats

rats were given 3 meals a day until they adjusted to it

- then, the middle meal was no longer given

results:

- at first, the rats started eating more at meal three because they were hungry since meal two was dropped (responding to a need)

- but then, they started eating more at breakfast because they were anticipating being hungry later (anticipation of a need)

- this serves as proof that eating is not always a response to need - it can also be a response to the anticipation of needing

how does a rat's eating schedule prove that eating is not always a response to a need

rats normally eat 10-12 meals a day, but their two largest meals always occur

- when lights go out

- when lights come on

*this is because the change in light provides a cue/CS that allows the rat to prepare for and adapt to (using a compensatory CR) an especially large meal

explain the cue potentiated feeding experiment in rats

the rats learned that when a tone plays, they have access to food (CS+) - but when a different tone plays, they do not have access to food (CS-)

- then the rats are given food so they can eat until they get full

- right after that, some rats are put in a room where the CS+ plays, and other rats are put in a room where the CS- plays

results:

- the rats in the room with the CS+ ate a lot more than the other room rats

- this shows that certain cues encourage us to eat even when we are not hungry

describe the cue potentiated feeding experiment in humans

Preschool children played in 2 rooms

- In one room (CS+), food is available

- In the other room (CS-), food is not available

In a test:

They let the children eat a dish of ice cream until they were food

- Then they played in the two rooms with food available and measured food consumptions

Results:

- They ate more food when they were in the room that originally had food, rather than the room that originally did not have foo

what is the pavlovian instrumental transfer

1. pavlovian conditioned responses, such as craving and consuming food are elicited by cues associated with food (ex. tv commercials)

2. operant behaviors such as going to a restaurant or purchasing food are reinforced by the enjoyment/pleasure of food consumption

- meaning that pavlovian cues (commercials) can motivate food seeking operant behaviors)

- ex. a commercial makes us crave a snack (pavlovian), then we buy the snack and we are reinforced to do it again because it tasted good (operant)

describe the cue potentiated tv commercial experiment with elementary school kids

elementary school children watched a cartoon

- one group saw food commercials

- the other group saw non-food commercials

- afterwards, they were given goldfish to eat

results:

- the kids who saw the food commercials ate more goldfish

- the commercials serve as a cue for eating

describe the cue potentiated tv commercial experiment with university students

the students watched tv

- one group saw ads for snacks

- one group saw ads for nutrition food

- one group saw non-food ads

- then they were given multiple snacks to sample (healthy and non healthy)

results:

- the students who saw snack ads at the most of all the snacks

- the students who saw the healthy food ads ate the least of all the snacks (even the healthy ones)