Classical conditioning 2

49 - 53

Behaviour would be rather inflexible and not adaptive if animals could not

alter these learned associations

Example of animals generalising their learning

visit similar looking trees and will discriminate between fig trees and other trees, meaning that the monkey will only approach the fig trees

Extinction does not erase the excitatory association CS-US, instead of

eliminating the original learning, extinction seems to involve acquisition of a new meaning of the conditioned stimulus

Describe Guttman & Kalish (1956) study

• Pigeons trained to peck a disc of light for food, then given test trials with different stimuli

• Can see from responding that animals could discriminate the trained colour of light from the very different coloured lights presented at

• However, learning to the 580nm light generalised to similar stimuli at test

• Animals trained:

1)        Tone 1000Hz food

2)        Tone 900Hz no food

• Initially, responses generalise between the stimuli a lot. But as training progresses, the animals learn to discriminate between the two similar tones

Classical conditioning plays a role in

drug seeking behaviour and in it’s treatment

A common treatment for alcohol addiction is

rehab centre

What is the idea to train alcoholics

to train their extinction memory that can compete with a memory for the original pub-alcohol association, but relapse rates following rehab are often high

Why is there a relapse to drinking

• the environmental pub cues are the same as during acquisition.

• we hope that the extinction learning from rehab will generalise to the pub setting

• however, you seen that generalisation results in weaker responding. In the pub context, the excitatory association with alcohol is stronger than the inhibitory association

What is one of the most common disorders

specific phobias

5 subtypes of specific phobias

• animal

• natural environment (e.g. heights, storms, etc)

• blood, injury, injection

• situational (e.g. airplane, lifts, closed spaces)

• ‘other’ category for phobias

Specific phobias can result from either:

• a traumatic event

• or a non-traumatic event (non experimental-specific phobia)

What does experimental-specific trauma result from

unfortunate experience, suggested its an acquisition due to classical fear conditioning and its maintenance is due to operant fear conditioning which reinforces the avoidance behaviour

What is generalisation

conditioned associations can often widen beyond the specific stimuli presented

What did the Little Albert experiment by Watson and Rayner (1920) demonstrate

that classical conditioning could be used to create a phobia

Acquisition is due to

classical fear conditioning, while its maintenance is due to operant fear conditioning which reinforces the avoidance behaviour

Classical fear conditioning is the form of

associative learning, a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS, e.g. tone) is repeatedly paired with an aversive stimulus (US, e.g. shock)

What brain regions are involved in classical fear conditioning

• Amygdala plays critical roles in the acquisition of both fear and extinction memories

• Hippocampus – key mediator of learned fear

• Medial prefrontal cortex – prelimbic cortex (PL) is thought to regulate fear expression and the infralimbic cortex (IL) mediates fear suppression