PSY236 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dishabituation, Eyeblink Conditioning, Latent Inhibition
2 Jun 2018
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PSY236 Week 2:
Classical Conditioning 1 - Determinants of Classical Conditioning
→ Learning is about adapting to our environment and learning from our experiences in that
environment
Associative learning – learning to associate one stimulus with another
• E.g. separation anxiety in dogs
o Jingle of keys → ‘oh no she’s leaving me’ (dog)
• Classical conditioning is the process by which the previously neutral sound of jingling keys is
imbued with the capacity to elicit separation anxiety
• Happy dog – hears a jingle of keys (neutral stimulus) → after jingle, he sees the owner goes
to work (unconditioned stimulus) which causes → sad dog (unconditioned response)
o After this happens several times, the jingle of keys (conditioned stimulus) leads to dog
anxiety (conditioned response)
Classical conditioning terminology –
• In the beginning: metronome (neutral stimulus), no salivation
o Food (unconditioned stimulus) → salivation
o Metronome (neutral stimulus) PAIRED WITH unconditioned stimulus (food) → leads
to salivation (uconditioned response)
o CS → CR
Acquisition of learning – a negatively accelerating curve
• Acquisition curve
• Non-linear
• Asymptote → learning continues beyond asymptote – just cannot measure it
Acquisition, Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery
• During acquisition, the CS-US pairings lead to increased learning. As a result, the CS can
produce the CR
• If the CS is presented repeatedly without the US, eventually the CR is eliminated. This
process is called extinction (no response of salivation)
• If the CS is presented alone, it will produce a weak CR, known as spontaneous recovery
Type of unconditioned stimuli:
• The US in studies of CC are basically of two types
o Appetitive US → automatically elicits approach responses such as eating, drinking,
caressing etc. These responses give satisfaction/pleasure
o Aversive US → such as noise, bitter taste, electric shock, painful injections etc. are
painful, harmful and elicit avoidance and escape responses
• Appetitive CC is slower and requires greater number of acquisition trials but aversive CC is
established in one, two or three trials depending on the intensity of the aversive US
• Aversive conditioning: US -
o 1. Emotional CRs (i.e. fear) emerge first – e.g. freezing
o 2. Followed by more specialized and adaptive motor CRs e.g. running, jumping
What form does the CR take?
• Stimulus Substitution Theory → Pavlov thought that the CS became a substitute for the US
• Innate US-UR reflex pathway
o CR and UR produced by same neural region
o Food → salivation
o CS → salivation
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• So the CR should be the same as UR
• E.g. sign tracking aka autoshaping
o Response not required in a subject (e.g. pigeon in a box, key light comes on then food
appears); he does not have to do anything
o US often food
o Stimulus indicates US availability
o Subject ‘tracks’ the sign more and more
o CS takes on properties of US → animals become powerfully attracted to cues that
signal an imminent reward
• Evidence in support of the stimulus substitution hypothesis
o Jenkins and Moore (1973) autoshaping study
▪ 1. One group pecked a keylight for grain
▪ 2. Another group pecked a keylight for water
o FORM of the CR was monitored
o Pigeons pecked the keylight as though it was food with the grain US, but ‘sip’ the
keylight with a water US
o This shows that the nature of the US determines the form of the CR
Sign-tracking in rats:
• Lever appears, cue to get food for rats
• Conditioned responding elicited by the lever – CS shifted from initial goal-tracking responses
to robust sign-tracking behaviour with extended Pavlovian autoshaping training. Such sign-
tracking behaviours as licking, sniffing and biting are observed
Sign tracking in humans:
• Research from animal labs now being applied to looking at whether obese or alcoholic
humans are overly sensitive to cues associated with food, alcohol or drugs
• Are these cues ‘triggering’ their maladaptive behaviours – cues that most of us can ignore, but
some individuals cannot
Form of the CR: Evidence against the stimulus substitution hypothesis
• Any study in which the elicited CR is different from the UR (often the case with aversive US)
o E.g. when a tone is paired with shock, rats will jump to the US (shock), but the CR is
typically freezing
▪ Freezing is preparatory defensive response
What form does the CR take?
• Preparatory Response Theory → Kimble (1961, 1967) proposed that the CR is a response that
serves to prepare the organism for the upcoming UCS
o E.g. following the acquisition of CRs in eye-blink conditioning, the CR eye-blink may
actually prepare the person for the upcoming air-puff such that the eye would be
partially closed when the air-puff occurs
• Compensatory-Response model → one version of preparatory-response theory
o In this model of CC, the compensatory after-effects to a US are what comes to be
elicited by the CS
o Based on the opponent-process theory of emotion/motivation
▪ E.g. drug US → 1. Rush UR → 2. Withdrawal UR
o If a CS (needle) precedes the drug US then the CR it elicits is the withdrawal
component
Other classical conditioning phenomena –
• Pavlov found that conditioning resulted in salivation not only to the CS presented during
training, but also to other stimuli that were similar to it
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Classical conditioning 1 - determinants of classical conditioning. Learning is about adapting to our environment and learning from our experiences in that environment. In the beginning: metronome (neutral stimulus), no salivation: food (unconditioned stimulus) salivation, metronome (neutral stimulus) paired with unconditioned stimulus (food) leads to salivation (uconditioned response, cs cr. Acquisition of learning a negatively accelerating curve: acquisition curve, non-linear, asymptote learning continues beyond asymptote just cannot measure it. Acquisition, extinction and spontaneous recovery: during acquisition, the cs-us pairings lead to increased learning. As a result, the cs can produce the cr. If the cs is presented repeatedly without the us, eventually the cr is eliminated. This process is called extinction (no response of salivation) If the cs is presented alone, it will produce a weak cr, known as spontaneous recovery. Type of unconditioned stimuli: the us in studies of cc are basically of two types, appetitive us automatically elicits approach responses such as eating, drinking, caressing etc.
