psych learning ch 3 pt 2

Measuring Conditioned Responses

• Understanding and assessing conditioned responses is critical in conditioning psychology.

Test Trials

• Test Trials: A method used to measure conditioned responses by presenting the conditioned stimulus (CS) without the unconditioned stimulus (US).

  • E.g., Presenting a bell without food for Pavlov's dogs or a tone without a shock for fear conditioning.

Measurement Parameters

• When measuring responses, three main parameters can be evaluated:

Magnitude

• Magnitude refers to the strength of the conditioned response.

  • E.g., Measuring the force of a response in animals using pressure sensors or the intensity of an eye blink in humans.

Probability

• Probability assesses how likely a response will occur.

  • Needs multiple trials to gather data on the number of conditioned responses across test cases.

  • Analyzed across participants or within individual subjects to determine consistent responses.

Latency

• Latency is the time taken for the conditioned response to occur after the presentation of the CS.

  • Helps understand how quickly an organism reacts to a stimulus.

  • E.g., Time taken for a light to lead to freezing behavior post-light presentation.

Control Procedures in Conditioning

• Control procedures are implemented to rule out alternative explanations for observed behaviors.

Types of Control Procedures

• Random Control Procedure

  • Both CS and US are presented randomly but equally over time.

  • Drawback: Can lead to incidental learning of a CS-US association despite the randomness.

• Explicitly Unpaired Control

  • CS and US are presented separately and explicitly with no overlap.

  • This method effectively rules out pseudo-conditioning—responses influenced by sensitization caused by the US.

Timing and Its Impact on Learning

• The timing (short, long, simultaneous, trace, and backward conditioning) influences learning:

Short Delay Conditioning

• CS starts briefly before the US, with overlap, facilitating strong association learning.

Trace Conditioning

• CS ends before US begins, relying on memory of the CS for response generation.

Long Delay Conditioning

• Similar to short delay but with a longer time gap for CS before US.

Simultaneous Conditioning

• Both CS and US start and stop at the same time, yielding ambiguous results.

Backward Conditioning

• The US leads the CS; this is controversial due to mixed results in conditioning.

Temporal Coding Hypothesis

• Suggests learning involves understanding both the association and the timing of the CS and US.

  • E.g., Understanding when to expect the US based on the CS timing facilitates a more responsive reaction.

Inhibitory Conditioning

• Refers to situations where the CS serves as a signal for the absence of the US.

Excitatory Context Requirement

• Inhibitory conditioning necessitates the presence of an excitatory context to impart safety via the CS.

Measuring Inhibition

• The responses are often subtle since they may not always display clear behavioral change.

Compound Stimulus Test

• A method involving pairing a safety signal (CS minus) with fear-inducing stimuli (CS plus) to measure generalization of the safety signal.

  • E.g., Clicker noise becomes a safety signal against electrical shock conditioned by light.

Retardation of Acquisition Test

• Analyzes the duration needed to teach a previously established safety signal to become a fear-inducing signal.

• Compares reaction timings to new CS versus previously conditioned CS to infer learning changes.

Conclusion

• All conditioning procedures have pros and cons, and various control methods are necessary to understand the effects of learned responses without confounding variables. Properly measuring and interpreting these behaviors is essential for advancing knowledge in the field of behavioral psychology.