Chapter 12: Biological Dispositions in Learning

Taste aversion conditioning

A form of classical conditioning in which a food item has been paired with gastrointestinal illness becomes a conditioned aversive stimulus.

When a rat encounters a novel food item, it will likely eat only a small amount before moving on to familiar items, making it difficult to poison a rat.

How does latent inhibition help explain why it is difficult to poison a rat?

1. Formation of associations over long delays: 

2. One trial conditioning 

3. Specificity of associations 

Three ways taste aversion conditioning differs from other types of Pavlovian conditioning

The rats that had been made nauseous by the X-ray irradiation avoided the sweet water and drank the bright, noisy water, which is consistent with the basic notion that nausea is more readily associated with the taste with other kinds of stimuli. 

Explain the procedure, results, and significance of Garcia & Koelling’s demonstration of belongingness in taste aversion learning.

An instance of classical conditioning where genetically-based fixed action patterns gradually displace the behavior being learned through operant conditioning.

Instinctive drift

A type of elicited behavior where an organism approaches a stimulus that signals the presentation of an appetitive event.

Sign tracking

A type of sign tracking where a pigeon pecks at a key due to the association with the non-contingent delivery of food. To make it operant you would require the pigeon to peck the key to receive food, reinforcing the behavior with rewards.

Autoshaping and how would you make it more operant?

A phenomenon where sign tracking behavior persists despite the loss of a reinforcer due to the control exerted by the key light.

Negative automaintenance

An excessive pattern of behavior that emerges as a by-product of an intermittent schedule of reinforcement of another behavior.

Nail biting, talkativeness, snacking, coffee drinking are commonly associated with periods of enforced waiting.

Adjunctive behavior? What are some examples in humans?

Excessive thirst that occurs when rats trained on an intermittent schedule of reinforcement begin to drink excessive amounts of water.

Schedule-induced polydipsia

Adjunctive behavior typically occurs during interreinforcement intervals

When does adjunctive behavior occur?

Chewing on wood shavings, licking at an air stream, and aggression.

Examples of adjunctive behavior in nonhumans

Nail biting, talkativeness, snacking, and coffee drinking, commonly associated with periods of enforced waiting.

Examples of adjunctive behavior in humans