Psychology of Learning Exam 2

What is AMPA?

Receptor that is awoken or recruited during nociceptive sensitization

T/F: Endogenous opioids released after painful stimulation can actually cause antinociceptive effects

True

Taste aversion

• Helped prove that not all parts are interchangeable

• Used to help learn about biological constraints in learning

• Provides critique of the necessity of temporal contiguity in SS learning

What is conditioned inhibition?

Training that engages a process that seems to oppose conditioned excitation

What is autoshaping?

Training resulting in the animal engaging the cue/reward delivery location

What is the difference between differential conditioning and explicitly unpaired controls?

There are CS+ trials in differential conditioning, not explicitly unpaired

How could you determine if something is R-O or S-S in nature?

Omission Control Procedure

T/F: The opponent process theory is responsible for the McCullough effect

True

Which of the following is not involved in an action potential?

Sodium (Na+), Potassium (K+), Calcium (Ca++)

Calcium (Ca++)

Which statement about short-term and long-term sensitization is TRUE?

Long-term involves gene expression & short-term alters the APs

Which statement about place conditioning is TRUE?

Animals prefer a location where something positive occured

Explicit learning

Conscious, mediated processes are often dependent on the hippocampus, enabling individuals to consciously acquire knowledge about complex relations and spatial information

Implicit learning

Unmediated, unconscious, and occurs without deliberate awareness, often through exposure and practice, relying on different neural substrates

Role of hippocampus in memory

Encodes complex stimulus relations, particularly in explicit learning and spatial memory tasks. Essential for forming durable memories involving spatial navigation, context conditioning, and configural relations. Damage to the hippocampus impairs these functions, highlighting its importance in rapid automatic encoding of stimulus configurations

Object learning

Initial Pavlovian conditioning involves a form of learning in which different features of an object become associated with one another

Appetitive conditioning

US or reinforcer is a desirable or appetitive stimulus like food. Hungry pigeons peck at key light and are presented food.

Implication of drug tolerance learning mechanism

Tolerance to a drug can be reversed if the drug is taken in a new place or in the absence of the usual drug administration cues

Simultaneous conditioning

CS and US have perfect temporal contiguity, no anticipatory conditioned response

Trace Eyeblink Conditioning

Temporal gap separates CS and US. The hippocampus bridges the gap and enables the association of temporally distinct events. Lesions disrupt this form of learning

Spatial Learning in Rats

Radial arm maze and Morris water maze illustrate hippocampal involvement in spatial learning

Hippocampal lesions

Impair learning about environmental contexts but not discrete cues. Animals with lesions fail to associate entire contexts with outcomes (context conditioning) yet can still respond to specific stimuli, such as tones. Lesions after training spare established memories, indicating the hippocampus is crucial for acquisition but less so for retention.

Linearly separable problems

A+, X+. Follow simple additive rules

Non-linearly separable problems

Negative patterning, AX-. Require complex configural encoding

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

Strengthens synapses after high-frequency stimulation, exhibiting input specificity (only active synapses are strengthened), cooperativity (simultaneous weak inputs can induce LTP), and associativity (weak and strong inputs together produce potentiation)

Long-Term Depression (LTD)

Weakens synapses after low-frequency input, preventing saturation and refining neural networks

Blocking NMDA receptors

Prevents LTP and disrupts spatial and fear learning, confirming its causal role in memory formation

Optogenetics

Enables precise activation or silencing of memory-related neurons. Stimulating hippocampal cells active during learning can evoke or even implant memories, offering powerful tools to map and manipulate memory circuits.

S-S learning

Associations between stimuli are characterized by phenomena such as facilitation, diminution, mimicry, and opponent responses.

Eyeblink conditioning

Pairing a neutral CS (tone) with an US (air puff) leads to a conditioned blink.

Conditioned Emotional Responses (CER)

Pairing a tone with shock elicits fear that can generalize or be inhibited.

Conditioned Emotional Responses and Eyeblink Conditioning

These paradigms clarify temporal dynamics and neural circuitry underlying associative learning.

Autoshaping

Animals develop responses (e.g., key-pecking) to reward-predictive cues, even when unnecessary.

Taste aversion

Pairing flavor with illness creates strong avoidance, illustrating biological constraints that favor evolutionarily adaptive associations.

Stimulus–Stimulus (S–S) vs. Stimulus–Response (S–R) Mechanisms

S–S learning links the CS to a mental representation of the US, while S–R learning directly couples the CS to behavior.

Neurobiology of Pavlovian Conditioning in Invertebrates

In Aplysia, calcium-triggered cAMP production mediates sensitization.

Neurobiology of Pavlovian Conditioning in Mammals

Delay eyeblink conditioning relies on cerebellar–brainstem circuits where CS and US pathways converge in the interpositus nucleus. GABAergic inhibition modulates learning precision.

Cerebellum in Eyeblink Conditioning

Lesions to the cerebellum eliminate conditioned eyeblink responses. Neural inputs from the pontine nuclei (CS) and trigeminal system (US) converge in the interpositus nucleus, while inferior olive activity provides error feedback essential for learning.

Amygdala

Integrates sensory and affective information, enabling fear conditioning by pairing neutral cues with aversive events. The basolateral complex encodes these associations, and pharmacological modulation of amygdala activity directly alters emotional learning.