NE234 Unit 2 - Classical Conditioning

Unit

Blocking

The blocking stimulus has a previously established relationship with the US before compound conditioning

Overshadowing

one stimuli produces a higher response than the other because it is stronger (salience/relevance/intense)

Which variable about the US-CS relationship that affects conditioning is considered the most important and predictive?

correlation

systematic desensitization

a behavioral technique that involves gradually exposing someone to an anxiety-producing object, thought, or experience whilst simultaneously performing relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety

higher order conditioning

Psychological learning process where a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus by pairing it with a previously existing conditioning stimulus

sensory preconditioning 

initially pair two neutral stimuli (S1 and S2) together. Once S1 is paired with an unconditioned stimuli to be a CS that elicits a conditioned response, S2 becomes a CS for the same CR

Acquisition

The initial establishing and strengthening of the CS

Extinction

process where CS is presented in the absence of the US. CR to weaken and eventually disappears

Spontaneous Recovery

after a rest period, without learning any new trials, a previously extinguished CR reappears. Usually shorter and weaker than CR

Generalization and Discrimination

Whether you generalize or discriminate between stimuli usually depends on the similarity of the learned CS 

UR — Unconditioned Response

unlearned, automatically occurring response to the unconditioned stimuli

CS - Conditioned Stimulus

An originally neutral stimulus that, after association with a US, triggers a CR

CR - Conditioned Response

Learned response to previously neutral CS

Aversion Therapy

pair a painful US with CS to produce a learned aversive response (CR) to CS alone

Factors affecting rate of extinction

1) Number of trials during the acquisition phase
2) reinforcement schedule

Types of exposure therapy

Flooding and Systematic desensitization

variables about the stimuli that affect the conditioning process

• intensity of stimulus (strength + salience)

• familiarity/previous experience

• biological relevance between the CS and the US

• presence of extraneous stimuli (overshadowing, blocking, etc.)

characteristics of the CS and US that affect conditioning

• CS-US Order

• CS-US Interval

• CS-US Correlation

• # of CS-US pairings

Inhibitory conditioning

occurs when a CS reliably predicts the absence of the US meaning the UR will not occur

Conditioned Emotional Response (CER)

When CR is an emotional response

Aversive Conditioning

when the arrival of the US is a negative event (ex: shock conditioning)

Appetitive conditioning

When the arrival of the US is a positive event (ex: food)

classical excitatory conditioning 

CS elicits a CR that is similar or identical to the UR

Classical Inhibitory conditioning

CS elicits a CR that is different or opposite to the UR

Positive contingency

• Classical excitatory conditioning

• presence of one stimuli doesn’t occur without the other

• CS and US are correlated in a way that one predicts the other

• CS consistently followed by US

Negative contingency 

• inhibitory conditioning 

• presence of one stimuli does not occur with the other

• CS and US are in some way correlated with each other such that one predicts the absence of the other

• CS constantly followed by absence of US

classical conditioning occurs when…

one stimuli reliably precedes and serves a signal for another stimuli

methods used to study classical conditioning

human: eyeblink response, skin conductance

animal: eyeblink, conditioned emotional response (fear)

Forward conditioning 

Delay: overlapping stimuli (most effective)

Trace: gap between presentation of CS and US

Delay conditioning

forward conditioning, A tone sounds (CS) before (overlapping) the food is presented (overlapping)

Simultaneous CS-US Order

onset of CS and US at the same time - least effective

Backward CS-US Order

US onset followed by the CS - not very effective

CS-US Interval

Optimal Interstimulus interval is 200 ms - 2 sec.

Exception of taste aversion

optimal number of CS-US trials

generally, the more trials the better, until you reach an asymptotic point of learning

number of trials relation to learning

the more trials that occur during acquisition, the stronger the learning will be

Pavlov’s Contiguity Theory

• tried to explain classical conditioning in terms of neural activity in the brain

• necessary conditions: CS and US that produce neural activity

• sufficient conditions: neural activity from both should overlap in time