classical conditioning

Cognition

Refers to the format in which information is encoded, stored and reconstructed (re-presented) within our minds

Includes:

• Perception

• Attention

• Memory

• Decision-making

• Reasoning

• Problem-solving

• Imagining

• Planning and executing actions

Perceptual cognitive cycle

Integrating the perceptual past and the cognitive past..

Implies an active, embodied, emotional agent embedded in the physical and socio-cultural world

Ulrich Neisser (1976) defines cognition as “the activity of knowing: the acquisition, organisation and use of knowledge.”

Cognises ‘mentally represent’ their world

Example: a cogniser may mentally represent a goal to obtain an object from a location that is not its immediate environment.

• Ollie salivates to the sound of his treats being opened…

• What kind of mental representation does he have of the food?

• How is Ollie’s mental representation different or similar to your representations?

How to measure internal mental states?

• subjective questionnaires to ask people about their experience

• Take objective measures of behavioural responses to controlled stimuli and then make inferences about underlying cognitive (mental) processes

• Correlate subjective rating with objective behavioural responses?

Non associative form of learning

Form of learning where individual’s response to a stimulus changes without the involvement of associating the stimulus with another event or consequence.

Doesn’t involve pairing two stimuli or stimulus with a specific reward or punishment

Sensitisation (non-associative)

Is the temporary state of heightened attention and responsivity that accompanies sudden and surprising events.

The learner remains alert to potentially threatening stimuli in the environment and has an increased response to subsequent stimuli.

Eg a sudden loud bang will make you aware and conscious, awaiting another bang

Habituation (non associative)

Is the gradual diminishing of attention and responsivity that occurs when a stimulus persists

Eg continuous banging, you’ll be shocked and sensitive to the first bang, but then if banging continues, you will start to ignore it.

Associative learning

The process of linking two or more distinct stimuli or events to form a connection, leading to a learned response.

An object, event, or sensation that triggers a response.

Neutral stimulus (NS)

A stimulus that does not produce the reflex

Unconditioned stimulus

Biologically significant stimulus that naturally causes a reflex response

Unconditioned response

Reflex response - unlearned or innate response - does not need to be learned

Conditioned stimulus

Conditioned response

Learning definition

Set of biological, cognitive and social processes through which organisms make meaning from their experiences, producing long-lasting changes in their behaviour, abilities and knowledge.

Learning helps us to predict the future from our past experiences and use these predictions to guide adaptive behaviours

Conditioning: Learning predictive (‘conditional’) relationships

Associations between stimuli that reliably predict biologically significant events, and to learn adaptive responses to such.

Biologically significant stimuli relate to survival:

• natural stimuli like fight, flight, freeze or appetitive (approach) reflex responses

• Punishment (aversive) or rewarding (appetitive) - their effects on our physiology are not learned

• Unconditioned stimuli naturally produce an autonomic response

Conditioning is also called associative learning:

Learning associations (relationships) between stimuli, and/or between stimuli and behavioural responses.

Involves learning the causal structure of the environment: “if X (conditioned stimulus), then Y (unconditioned stimulus)”

Classical conditioning

Learning a predictive relationship between an originally neutral environment event and a biologically significant event that itself naturally causes an autonomic reflex response, so that the previously neutral event becomes a meaningful stimulus that produces the autonomic reflexes response on its own.

Classical conditioning: Pavlov’s dogs

Dogs learned to predict the presentation of food with the salivation reflex response occurring before the food stimulus that causes it.

• Pavlov began to control the stimuli that occurred before the food

  • Use the bell sound as his neutral stimulus

  • Presented the sound immediately before presenting the food

  • Food naturally causes a reflex salivation response

Three phases of classical conditioning

1. The conditions that exist before conditioning (before learning)

A. A neutral stimulus that has not yet been associated with appetitive or aversive stimuli

B. The innate reflex responses of the learner that occur to stimuli that are naturally rewarding (appetitive) or punishing (aversive or threatening)

2. During conditioning (learning associations)

• experiencing a predictive relationship between a neutral stimulus and a biologically relevant stimulus

3. After conditioning

• the previously neutral stimulus becomes able to produce a learned reflex response in preparation for (or expectancy of) a biologically relevant stimulus

Pavlov conditioning stimuli

Initially neutral stimulus (NS) - bell

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - food

Unconditioned response (UCR) - salivation

Condition stimulus (CS) - bell

Conditioned response (CR) - salivation

Reflex

UCS + UCR

Food + salivation = reflex

Before conditioning

NS (bell) → no reflex response

UCS (food) → UCR (salivation)

During conditioning

NS (bell) → UCS (food) → UCR (salivation)

After conditioning

CS (bell) → CR (salivation)

Stimulus generalisation

Classically conditioned salivation response would generalise (transfer) to other similar stimuli - different sounding bell

Wanted to know how strong the conditioned salivation response would be to other similar stimuli that were not experienced during the training trials

Stimulus discrimination

Training Ollie to salivate only to one specific bell, and not to others

*Extinguish

Extinguishing Ollie’s conditioned salivation response - want Ollie to stop salivating to the sound of a bell

*Extinction

Get rid of learned response

Extinction trials

Extinction spaced over multiple sessions will gradually prevent spontaneous recovery

Spontaneous recovery

When a classically conditioned response comes back after extinction

Rapid reacquisition

Reintroduce both the bell and food after extinction - Ollie would relearn the conditioned salivation response more quickly than he did the first tie

What do spontaneous recovery and rapid reacquisition suggest about the extinction process?

Conditioned Emotional Responses in Humans: The Little Albert Study

• Watson and Rayner (1920) demonstrated that Albert was not afraid of a range of stimuli

• Albert showed a natural startle response to sudden loud sound of metal bar being struck

• Sudden loud sound gave Watson the UCS-UCR

• Exposed white rat followed by loud sound

• Conditioned fear response to the white rate alone

• Generalisation to other furry animals - and Santa’s white beard

• They did not get a chance to extinguish the response

Little Albert stimulus

Neutral stimulus (NS) - white mouse

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - loud bang

Unconditioned response (UCR) - startle response

Conditioned stimulus (CS) - white mouse

Conditioned response (CR) - startle response