Learning Test 3

you got this :)

Chapter 8

Stimulus Control of Behavior

Thorndike + Skinner

recognized that instrumental responses and reinforcers occur in the presence of particular stimuli, which come to control those responses

Proper fit and sitmulus context in which response is performed in IMPORTANT

• studying in a dorm vs. studying on vacation

stimulus → location

behavior → studying or not

Does proximity matter?

As the exam gets closer, more people are studying 

• You do the behavior more as the outcome gets closer 

• Delay discounting → the closer you get to the outcome (Exam day) the more value it has, when its far away it has less value 

Failure to use appropriate stimulus control often considered abnormal 

Ex: getting undressed in bedroom versus on public street 

• Matching of behavior to stimulus is IMPORTANT

• Okay to talk to yourself in office, not okay to do so in lab with students

Stimulus discrimination:

differential responding to stimuli 

Stimulus Features

Stimulus features (features are the individual components of the whole)

ex: a cat is a stimuli but a stimuli is made out of features (fluffy hair, meow, etc)

Differentail Responding + Stimulus Discrimination

Stimulus Dimension

• A dimension is an aspect, within the dimension the aspect can vary 

• Most literal interpretation: something you graph 

• One dimension of this is the size

• Discrimination curve

• Another dimension we can look at is the color! (scale of white, pure red and black)

• Another is the shape, it's a circle! (scale of irregular vs. perfect circle etc)

***the closer you are to the object you see and its dimension the harder it is to discriminate between objects (hard to tell apart!!) as you get them further away in their dimensions they are easier to tell apart

2 different stimuli can be easy or hard to discriminate based on _____ and _____

FEATURES, DIMENSIONALITY

Discrimination

ability to tell two stimuli apart

stimulus generalization

similar response to two stimuli, or inability to tell them apart

• opposite of stimulus discrimination

• you respond the same to both stimuli, but they are not identical)

What are reasons why you might generalize stimulus?

• Look the same

• Takes up less brain power 

Ex; if you are scared of cats → if an animal is close enough you will still be scared of it (whether its a kitten or lion)

Steep generalization gradient indicates strong control of behavior by the stimulus (If it is a perfect match you response, if it is not a perfect match you do not respond) (is it graph a)

Flat generalization gradient indicates weak or nonexistent stimulus control

generalization

• Usually we want to generalize across features + within the dimension of that feature

• *we are very good at generalizing things we fear (partly bc yes we are scared but it can be dangerous) 

• Scared of dogs → not looking at anything else the dog is besides their bite

*If a system only connects an aversive event (like pain or a penalty) to whatever happened immediately before it, it develops strict temporal contiguity bias.

temporal contiguity bias (A response and a consequence (or a conditioned and unconditioned stimulus) must happen very close together in time for the brain to link them. If too much time passes, the learning or reinforcement weakens or fails)

Sensory Capacity and Orientation

most obvious variable that determines whether particular stimulus feature controls responding; determines which stimuli are included in organism’s sensory world 

• Sensory capacity sets limit on what stimuli can control behavior; studies of stimulus control often used to determine what organisms is/is not able to percieve

• Ex: can horses see colors

• Having necessary sense organs to detect stimuli being presented does not guarantee that behavior will come under control of stimulus

• Stimulus control also depends on presence of other situational cues 

Orientation → sometimes a stimulus can change due to orientation (placement) of stimulus

• Water bottle on side → you pick it up 

• Water bottle standing up → you do nothing

What determines your ability to discriminate stimuli?

To discriminate you must be able to receive and process sensory information about the stimuli and their differences

To discriminate you must be able to receive and process information about the ______of a stimulus

POSITIONING

Having necessary sense organs to detect stimulus being presented does not guarantee that behavior will come under control of stimulus → stimulus control also depends on presence of _____

OTHER SITUATIONAL CUES

Overshadowing

how strongly organisms learn about one stimulus depends on how easily other cues in situations can become conditioned

• Just because information went in, does not mean she is paying attention to every little thing (wont notice the color shirt everyone is wearing) 

• Our brain chooses what information to pay attention to

• A stimulus takes on more predictive power (importance) than other co-occurring stimuli

More Examples:

• stimulus occurred at time of training but you decided not to pay attention to it 

Ex: knowing someone by their walk and not noticing what they are wearing

• How do people learn to get around town?

• people/animals use variety of different stimuli to find their way around (ex, landmarks, spatial or geographical cues

• Availability of one type of cue (eg. prominent landmark) can overshadow learning about other types of spatial information (like saying go past the library instead of walk straight on the spine)

Blocking

• when you are taught about a stimulus and then you are taught about that same stimulus co-occurring with something else, you already learned the first one is important, so you don't pay attention to the second one (first one is “blocking” the second one) 

Ex: being told to recognize ta she will always have a black beanie (that one is always her), so you are just looking for the black beanie, you say she also wears a flannel shirt, since you already have the strategy of black beanie= natalie you ignore the information about the flannel

Overshadowing and Blocking

• Overshadowing = Stronger stimulus wins. Two new stimuli compete, and the more noticeable one gets learned better.

• Blocking = Previous learning wins. An already-learned stimulus prevents learning about a new stimulus

Overshadowing happens because of differences in the stimuli themselves (such as intensity or salience), whereas blocking happens because of what the organism has already learned

Types of Reinforcement

Development of stimulus control depends on reinforcement use

• Some sensory modalities are easier to condition to specific reinforcements 

• Certain types of stimuli more likely to gain control over instrumental behavior in appetitive rather than in aversive situations

Visual/ Auditory

Visual→ control predominates when CS acquires positive or appetitive properties

Auditory → control predominates when CS acquires negative or aversive properties

• When someone makes “HUUUUUUH” in high pitched voice the AUDITORY aspect (sound)  makes you worry/ think something is wrong, but if you see that person’s facial expression and realize they are shocked/excited that is a VISUAL cue that will change the way you react to the stimulus 

Stimulus elements→

treating simultaneous presentation of light and tone as consisting of separate visual and auditory cues

• Dominant approach in learning theory

Configural cues

assumes organisms treat compound stimulus as integral whole not divided into parts/elements

Ex: sound of entire symphony versus the sound of an individual instrument

• More recent approach in learning theory

*Different conceptualizations of Compound stimuli

Stimulus discrimination training:

bringing behavior under stimulus control 

• Stimulus discrimination training can be conducted using either classical or instrumental conditioning procedures (can do this by playing 2 sounds and having them mean different things, mouse video we’ve seen a million times)

Stimulus discrimination procedure:

establishes control by stimuli that signal when reinforcement is/is not available

Discriminative stimuli:

once S+ and S- have gained control over behavior; S+ is discriminative stimulus for performing instrumental response, S- is discriminative stimulus for not performing response

Multiple Schedule of Reinforcement:

different schedule of reinforcement is in effect during different stimuli

a. experimental timeline

b. schematic of CS+ only training sessions

Schematic of CS+/CS- training session

This is operant but you can MAKE IT pavlovian ***keep in mind for exam 

• This is what the mouse was doing in that video 

• Must lick during specific tone (CS+) to get reward 

• Know its operant because the behavior changes the outcome!!!

We add discrimination by adding CS- (whether you lick or don’t lick there is no reward) 

• Researchers say if you lick to CS- it is a false alarm and if you don’t lick to it its a correct rejection

Green: when CS+ is played

Purple: when CS- is played 

• Everytime they lick its a little dot on the graph 

• Graph with MOST dots/licks → adolescent on day 12

• Has the most dots between 0-5 because that is when the tone is playing 

• Many licks immediately after 5 seconds (they get sucrose when they responded during those 5 seconds) 

• Less purple on day 12 compared to day 1 

• Licking to CS- decreases across day, licking to CS+ increases across days 

• Huge difference between 2 ages, adults lick less than the adolescents do (tends to be true across tasks)

Hit + false alarm graphs:

Hit:

• Lick to CS+ and get reward, lick more 

When we first threw in CS- after we taught them if they lick to CS+ they get rewards and the amount of licking is the same, they are trying to lick to CS- because they think maybe they will get a reward, this means they have not learned to DISCRIMINATE yet (they cannot tell the difference between the meaning of the two tones) 

• With enough training, the licking starts dropping off 

Why do they never reach 0? (why is the discrimination between the two tones never perfect)

• Every so often they want to check, have the rules changed? 

• Has the contingency changed?

• Are we on a different reinforcement schedule?

We can decrease responding to CS- by making the CS- ______

AVERSIVE

If we do this, this might also decrease licking in CS+

Adolescents lick a ton even if they only need to lick once, adults respond less

• true in most cases

Why was this operant? (instrumental)

They needed to do an ACTION (lick) for a reward during CS+

Discrimination CAN be done as a PAVLOVIAN behavior

• We need to remove the behavior that causes the change in the outcome (licking) 

• Still have CS+ and CS- 

• The mouse can still lick but it won’t change the outcome 

• Behavior not linked to outcome 

*Basically → he gets a reward during CS+ no matter what happened, no reward with CS- no matter what happened 

What type of pavlovian learning is this? 

• Short traced conditioning

• Delayed conditioning 

• Very short

How precise is control that S+ acquires over instrumental behavior?

What factors determine precision of stimulus control achieved?

• find out how steep the generalization gradient is when the participants are tested with stimuli that systematically vary from the S+

• find out which aspect of discrimination training procedure responsible for type of stimulus generalization gradient obtained

What fights in favor of generalization?

What fights against generalization?

Generalization is the opposite of discrimination !!!!!

Low generalization, high discrimination (and vice versa) 

When is generalization a positive thing?

Interoceptive cues:

internal sensations produced by psychoactive drugs (or other physiological manipulation such as food deprivation)

• Detection of interoceptive cues associated with drug withdrawal, and the stimuli control that such cues may exert are prominent components of modern theories of drug addiction

Positive patterning procedure:

whenever each of two stimuli occur individually, they are not reinforced (a- and b- trials)

two things must occur together?

• Ex your mom comes home everyday, but you know when she comes home later she also brings food , stimuli are mom coming home and context (time), when these two things occur you get food!

• If its late but your mom is already home it doesn’t mean anything that its late

• Reinforcement occurs when two stimuli presented simultaneously (AB+)

• To accurately predict reinforcement, participant cannot respond on presence of individual cues; must identify when two cues are present simultaneously (AB)

OPPOSITE: Negative patterning procedure

when they are both together the thing doesn’t happen

• When mom comes home, helps with homework, when mom comes home late you do not get help with your homework 

Similar to positive patterning procedure except role of reinforced and non -reinforced trails is reversed 

• Time reinforcement available when cues are presented individually ( C+ and D+) but not when they appear simultaneously (CD-)

• Testing can be separate or concurrent 

Spence’s Theory of Discrimination Learning

Kenneth Spence

• assumes reinforcement of response in presence of S+ conditions excitatory response tendencies to S+

• non-reinforcement of responding during S- conditions inhibitory properties to S- that suppress instrumental behaviors

• differential responding to S+ and S- reflects both conditioned excitation to S+ and conditioned inhibition to S-

EXPLAINED:

• Kenneth Spence believed that we learn to respond differently to two stimuli because one is associated with reward and the other is associated with no reward.

• His theory involves two processes:

  1.S+=Excitation(Reward)

  • S+ is the stimulus that signals a reward.

  • When you respond correctly to S+, you receive reinforcement (a reward).

  • Over time, you learn to respond more strongly when you see S+.

  Example: A rat learns that a green light means pressing a lever gives it food. The green light becomes associated with reward, so the rat presses the lever when it sees green.

  2.S-=Inhibition(NoReward)

  • S- is the stimulus that signals no reward.

  • When you respond to S-, you do not receive reinforcement.

  • Over time, S- develops inhibitory properties, meaning it suppresses the response.

  Example: The rat sees a red light. Pressing the lever does not give it food. Eventually, the rat learns not to press the lever when it sees red.

  3.BothWorkTogether

  Spence argued that discrimination learning happens because of BOTH:

  • Excitation: S+ encourages the learned response.

  • Inhibition: S- suppresses the learned response.

Spence’s Theory Cont.

• emphasis in analysis of druge abuse= identifying/moderating factors that lead to drug self-administration; involved excitatory conditioning

• S- cues can exert powerful inhibitory influence on drug seeking and drug self-administration behavior

• inhibitory influence counteracts excitatory effects of S+ for drug administration

• suggests that drug-seeking can be reduced by inhibition even in excitatory processes remain intact

Intradimensional discrimination: training procedure in which S+ and S- differ only in terms of value of one stimulus feature; can produce peak-shift effect 

• Learn rule that one specific sound will give you a reward 

2 sounds have an overlapping area (ambiguous → not sure whether you should respond or not!!)

The Peak Shift Effect (interactions between S+ and S-)

shows that S+ not necessarily one that produces highest response rate

• Spence’s explanation: discrimination training leads to learning of excitation to S+ and inhibition to S-; both assumed to generalize to other similar cues with the excitatory stimulus generalization gradient centered around S+/inhibitory gradient centered around S-

  • S+ and S- overlap and inhibition to S- may generalize to S+/suppress responding to S=

  • more inhibition from S- to S+ if S- in closer to S+; results in greater peak-shift effect

GRAPH from above

alternate explanation: organisms learnt o response to stimulus based on other situational cues

Stimulus Equivalence Training:

Equivalence training encourages generalized responding among set of stimuli or establishment of stimulus equivalence 

• basically you are generalizing things???

Common outcome training:

• Links each of several different stimuli to common outcome

Ex: noise and clicker paired with food 

• Involved training same response to several physically different stimuli 

Ex: “fruit” to mean apples, strawberries, etc. 

Discrete stimulus:

presented for brief period; has clear beginning and end; can be easily characterized 

• Discrete discrimination stimuli occur in presence of background contextual cues (visual, auditory, olfactory) where discrete discriminative stimuli presented

Contextual cues can provide an important additional source of control of learned behavior

Control by Contextual Cues

• Contextual cues signal reinforcement same way as discrete CS

• Contextual cues control behavior if they serve as a signal for a US or a reinforcer

Instead of a tone, the CS is a place (a context) 

Control by Contextual Cues: *** on exam

determines whether drug has reinforcing effects; important in drug development because drugs that can condition place preference have potential of becoming abused

• Contextual cues used in same way as discrete CSs: instead of being associated with particular stimulus, each context activates different S+/S- contingency or conditional relation 

If there is something rewarding in a room, you will spend more time in that room, if there is something aversive in a room, you will spend less time in a room 

Is a drug rewarding on its own, or can a drug obtain rewarding properties (like if it makes your headache go away) 

• 2 compartments connected by a doorway

• Each one has a different cue (visual or tactile) 

• Animal makes association between drug and environment (will avoid or go to compartment depending on the effects of the drug

• It likes the compartment where there are given coke since its addictive 

• Conditioned place preference vs. conditioned place aversion 

CS (2) → the cues of the room, stripes + diamonds  **on exam

What is the point of having 2 different stimuli in the task? → to test if they have learned the association between place and drug (one cue is rewarded and one is not), this is DISCRIMINATION (discriminate cues, one cue good drug)

• If they don't know which chamber is which this is useless 

• One compartment stripes, the other diamonds

Both in same dimension, visual dimension 

*****************

US → the drug !

UR→ response to drug

CR→ the compartment you pick to go in 

Is there an innate behavior in this task? 

• Response to drug???

• Is there something else? → moving around the chamber 

we are doing this to find out if you like or dislike the drug!

pb/cup ex

2 rooms, one with peanut butter, one with nothing??

• Why do we all refer the room with the cup or the peanut butter 

• Could be CUP OR PEANUT BUTTER (you don’t know which one they like)

• You should put something in the other room, like an empty cup

CONTROL GROUPS:

 Drugs can be rewarding, but what else is happening ??? they are getting INJECTED

• You need to inject in both to have a control 

• Because what if the injection is aversive and the drug is pleasant, but not enough to cancel out the aversiveness??? You will think the drug has NO effect when it DOES have an effect 

• Drug can have no effect, but you can find it aversive bc of the INJECTION

Know difference between different groups, control groups, cs, and if they need to discriminate or not 

modulator

nature of binary relation determined by third event; conditional relation

• animals learn to use modulators to tell when binary relation is in effect

In classical conditioning:

• establishing conditional relation requires introducing modulator indicating when presentation of auditory CS will end in food

• rescorla called pavlovian modulator a facilitator; modulator facilitates responding to target CS

Distinction between Excitation and Modulation

• difference in effects of extinction procedure on conditioned excitatory stimuli and modulators related to what is signaled

• conditioned excitatory stimulus signals forthcoming US presentation; absence of US following CS presentation during extinction is violation of that expectancy

• signal value of CS readjusted in extinction to bring it in line with the new reality

• modulator signals relation between CS/US; absence of US when modulator presented alone does not mean that relation between target CS/US changed

• information signaled by modulator not invalidated by presenting modulator by itself during extinction

Chapter 9

Extinction of Conditioned Behavior

extinction

omitting the US or reinforcer 

• In classical conditioning, extinction involves repeated presentations of CS without US 

• In instrumental conditioning, extinction involved no longer presenting reinforcer when response occurs 

• Both pavlovian and operant conditioning can BOTH undergo extinction 

• Learn CS no longer predicts US

• Extinction makes you stop responding

Ex: fear conditioning

Pavlovian → learning tone tells you a foot shock is coming, over trials you start freezing to the tone, your response is freezing 

• When you show the CS without the US, tone without the shock, this is now extinction learning, start teaching mouse the tone is no longer followed by foot shock

Forgetting

decline in responding occurs because of passage of time and does not require nonreinforcement of CS/instrumental response

• First memory is tone shock association

• Second memory is the tone and no shock association 

• 2 memories, not a change in the first memory, creating a new memory/association 

• If second memory is winning, freezing is low

• If first memory is winning, freezing is high 

• First memory is usually stronger, why → its AVERSIVE

****

Extinction is NOT forgetting

Within learning session→ within session memory 

Without memory you would not be able to learn/respond to tone

You need memory to learn 

Memory retrieval!!!

we retrieve whatever won the battle

• 2 memories, 2 retrievals

• tone foot shock memory won

Why is fear conditioning so popular?

• follows same trends as anxiety, ptsd, phobias

• we are trying to figure out a way to may memory 2 win

** extinction does NOT reverse or eliminate effects of CS-US association

*extinction learning is also forming a memory

• there is overlap between CS-US acquisition regions and extinction acquisition

• 2 memories fighting each other

• Manipulating amygdala 

• PL and IL communication, mostly both controlling amygdala (BLA), which one wins also helps determines which memory wins

• Dissociable roles of prelimbic and infralimbic cortices, ventral hippocampus, and basolateral amygdala in the expression and extinction of conditioned fear 

IL inactivation —> no effect on freezing, impaired acquisition of extinction and extinction memory = IL essential for extinction memory but NOT fear expression

PL inactivation → REDUCED freezing, NO effect on extinction memory = Pl necessary for fear expression, but NOT extinction memory

BLA inactivation → REDUCED freezing, IMPAIRED extinction memory = BLA necessary for both fear expression and extinction memory

Forms of Recovery from Extinction

• Extinction decreases the behavior you were just performing

Decrease in behavior observed in extinction is opposite of what occurs during acquisition

• Extinction does not reverse or eliminate effects of acquisition

Because extinction does not erase what was originally learned; extinguished response reappears under various circumstances 

• The term conditioning is ambiguous

• Extinction is secondary learning that happens because of the association you already learned

• Cannot extinct an association that was never learned 

• Technically these are both conditioned behaviors buttt ignore that (extinction IS conditioning) 

• Need to know the CS predicts the US in order to learn the CS no longer predicts the US

• Extinction is HIGHLY specific to the context in which it was done (we don't want it to be this way but it is)

*Extinction works for OPERANT and PAVLOVIAN conditioning

All the ways we know extinction fails….

• spontaneous recovery

• renewal

• reinstatement

• external disinhibition (novel stimulus)

spontaneous recovery

Rest period introduced after extinction training and responding comes back; nothing specific is done during rest period to produce recovery 

• Extinction memory never produces as big a drop of behavior during the recall test as it does during the last extinction session

• During extinction trial the behavior tends to be produced better during recall test, there is always a gap and this gap is spontaneous recovery

Renewal

Renewal: recovery of conditioned responding when contextual cues present during extinction are changed

• Whenever you change the context, the original memory will reemerge 

Renewal effect; recovery of responding with change in original contex

• Memory of extinction is specific to cues that were present during extinction phase; shift away from context of extinction disrupts retrieval of memory of extinction, and extinction and performance is lose

• Original acquisition performance generalizes from one context to another more easily than does extinction performance 

example= in effective therapeutic procedure extinguishing phobia in therapists office, conditioned fear may easily return when the client encounters the fear CS in a different context. PLUS effects of excitatory conditioning readily generalize from one context to another 

……

Problems:

• Extinction is hyper specific (hippocampus plays much bigger role in extinction learning vs. fear learning) , gives a lot of info about where you were when you learned that distinction

Is the hippocampus helping you generalize or help you discriminate??? Discriminate 

• Like you are only low on anxiety in therapists office, you walk out its back

Reinstatement of conditioned responding

How do we know that the original conditioned memory is still present even after extinction?

How do we know that extinction does not affect conditioned memory? 

We don't know where memory is

• We call memory a change of proteins on the neurons

Reinstatement

recovery of conditioned behavior that occurs when individual encounters US again 

• Responses that are successfully extinguished during course of therapeutic intervention can reappear if individual is exposed to US again 

• Ex: abuse, anxiety, abuse later in life 

Context conditioning has relatively little effect on stimuli that do not have a history of extinction 

• Even when you extinguish behavior or association, having that reinforcer or having the punishment occur again without all the cues, will bring back the strength of the behavior of the cue, JUST having experienced US

how extinction FAILS

• passage of time is enough to make the extinction fail (spontaneous recovery) 

• Extinction training → playing the tone over and over again without the shock 

• US alone without presence of CS is enough to get your mouse

• The new stimulus (bright light) is enough to reemerge CS and US association (external disinhibition)

• Renewal → you learned original association, learn CS no longer paired with US, freezing decreases, CHANGE CONTEXT → everything all comes back (no more extinction) HIGH FREEZING to CS

Things can be compounded! (multiple of these at the same time)

The only one that NEEDS time to pass is spontaneous recovery

resurgence

reappearance of extinguished target response when another reinforced response is extinguished

2 different responses

• One response is initially conditioned, then extinguished

• Second response is then also reinforced and extinguished

Does extinction of the second response increase the frequency of the first response? yes usually? 

If she taught us the floor is lava, and every time she plays a song and the floor is lava you have to get on your chair

• Now she plays a sound and the floor is no longer lava but you are still on your chair 

• She will do this forever and you at some point will need to check if the floor is lava or not

• You must “ check” in order for extinction to occur

• We periodically check to see if the environment has changed 

Functional Communications Training (FCT): Children with developmental disabilities who engage in disruptive or self- injurious behavior in the classroom if they get frustrated working on an assignment because they lack communication skills to request a break or rest from the task. FCT reinforces making an appropriate request for a break. However, if teacher becomes too busy and ignores the student’s raised hand, resurgence of the disruptive behavior may occur.

***extinction does NOT erase what was originally learned !!!

KNOW THIS

Extinguished behavior can reappear with:

• Passage of time (spontaneous recovery)

• Change in context (renewal)

• Re-exposure to US (reinstatement)

• Extinction of another response (resurgence) 

MORE extinction trials = BETTER

Ex: eating a nibble of yucky fish and not getting sick over and over

Ceiling + floor effects (top and bottom of graph)

• Ceiling → how much behavior i can record from you (only so much scared I can see/record) 

• Floor (only so much extinction I can see/record, all I can see if that you are not doing the behavior)

TIME between extinction trials MATTERS

Presenting stimuli close together in time (massed) produces greater decrement in startle responding than presenting stimuli spread out in time (spaced)

Massed extinction trials may produce a rapid immediate decrement in responding, but conditioned behavior is likely to return with a period of rest (spontaneous recovery) or change in context (renewal)

• Massed: Showing or presenting something repeatedly with very little time in between.

• Spaced: Showing or presenting something with longer breaks in between.

What it means: When stimuli are presented close together (massed), the startle response decreases faster than when they are spread out (spaced)

Memory consolidation:

Memory consolidation is the process of your brain turning a new experience into a long-term memory.

• Immediate extinction: If you try to remove the fear response right after learning it, the fear behavior decreases faster.

• Delayed extinction: If you wait one day before extinction, the fear behavior takes longer to decrease.

BUT there's a catch!

When extinction happens immediately, the fear response is more likely to come back later.

Immediate extinction may reduce fear faster, BUT the fear is more likely to return later or in a different environment.

• with immediate extinction, behavior more likely to show spontaneous recovery and renewal

  • Extinction does not need to happen immediately after fear response for exposure therapy to be effective

• conditioning shows CS-US association

• acquisition is them forming the memory for the extinction

• consolidation is a period where nothing is happening

• Your ability to recall a memory changes across time points!!!
  Might be able to recall rally well 2 hours or 4 hours, but have bad recall of it the next day 

WHY → there are different places that are promoting memory, the brain regions involved + promoting the behavior change slightly with time (part of this is the proteins strengthening the neurons in places)

Infantile amnesia

hard to recall memories as a child/baby → if you ask a little kid to recall memories they can do it, it's just that these memories are not very good at being placed on their parameters, proteins on membrane are more malleable, they tend to go away with time 

• If you inhibit protein synthesis you can get amnesia

Repetition of Extinction/Test Cycles

Repeating extinction/test cycle can reduce reappearance of extinguished behavior

Why is CS US association is easier to generalize than the CS no US →

• Aversive?

• Also learning about the ABSENCE of something is NOT interesting

Presenting Extinction Reminder Cues:

• Extinction training does not generalize when learned behavior tested in new place

• Introducing cues present during extinction training can reduce spontaneous recovery and enhance extinction performance

• Extinction cues may reduce renewal effect by reactivating extinction performance in renewal context

• Can increase generalization of treatment outcomes by encouraging clients to carry a card, repeat a short phrase, or call a help line whenever they are concerned about relapsing

• Ex: carrying a chip in AA

Priming Extinction to Update Memory for Reconsolidation:

Presentation of CS activated memory of acquisition

Reconsolidating window

once activated, memory in modifiable state and can be changed before memory is reconsolidated and returned to long-term store

• Window lasts less than 6 hours; long enough for extinction training 

• Whenever you recall a memory, you are making the memory malleable (this process is called reconsolidation) 

When you remember something, that memory temporarily becomes easier for your brain to change

Reconsolidation

Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval 

ACSF= artificial cerebrospinal fluid = Vehicle = Control group 

Anisomycin= a pyrrolidine-class antibiotic produced by the bacterium Streptomyces griseolus that primarily inhibits eukaryotic protein synthesis = experimental group

***Review

Before conditioning: low levels of freezing, after conditioning : high levels of freezing (both groups learned CS predicts US) 

• After they do this test it recalls the memory (starts process of reconsolidation) - new proteins forming 

• Recall memory THEN get injected (one control one experimental) these injections happening in amygdalaThen they do memory recall tests 

• Two groups have same level of memory and freezing

• Do test again 20 hours later, NOW you see the experimental group has WAY less freezing than the control group 

• If we inhibit proteins from synthesizing during reconsolidation window, we inhibit them to be created and placed in membrane (affecting LONG TERM memory)

• Tells us protein synthesis during memory recall can make these memories vulnerable AND there is a window in time in which they are vulnerable

• We can’t see immediate affect, we have to wait like a day 

• We now know sleep will alter these windows!!!, if you sleep consolidation is easier (can remember it with less time) 

Showed us:

• Recalling memory makes it vulnerable

• Protein synthesis is required to recall memory ? 

• Short term and long term memory are DIFFERENT

What is learned in Extinction?

Again… extinction is NOT unlearning a response

Outcome (R-O) and stimulus outcome (S-O) associations remain enact after extinction

Extinction training creates a new memory (Extinction memory)

Depends on person’s history with reinforcement, omission of expected reward created disappointment or frustration

Paradoxical Reward Effects:

Overtraining extinction effect: more training provided with continuous reinforcement = stronger frustration during extinction; procured more rapid extinction 

• The more you practice a behavior while consistently getting rewarded, the faster your responding may decrease when the reward suddenly stops.
  
  

Magnitude Reinforcement Extinction Effect: responding declines more rapidly in extinction following reinforcement with larger reinforcer

• The bigger the reward you receive, the faster your behavior may decrease when that reward is taken away
  
  

Partial reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE): schedule of reinforcement in effect before extinction procedure determines magnitude of behavioral/ emotional effects of extinction 

• Intermittent reinforcement creates persistence in responding

• When you are only rewarded SOMETIMES instead of every time, you tend to keep doing the behavior longer when rewards stop completely.

Example: slot machines in Vegas

Mechanisms of the Partial-Reinforcement Extinction Effect Resistance to Change and Behavioral Momentum

Discrimination hypothesis: introduction of extinction is easier to detect after continuous reinforcement than after partial reinforcement 

• Learning is long-lasting from partial reinforcement

Frustration theory: persistence in extinction results from learning something counterintuitive, namely continue responding when you expect to be nonreinforced or frustrated

Sequential theory: assumed individuals can remember whether reinforced for performing instrumental response in the recent past. Nonreward becomes cue for performing instrumental response 

Behavioral Momentum: susceptibility of behavior to disruptions; directly related to rate of reinforcement/unrelated to response rate

Conclusion

Chapter 10

Aversive Control: Avoidance and Punishment