PS261 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Latent Inhibition, Comparator, Classical Conditioning
Document Summary
Defining the us or the cs is relative, not absolute. Learning is faster is the cs and/or us is novel. Makes sense because if you have already experienced them, you are going to have a harder time forming associations. One factor that determines the effectiveness of the cs and the us. Prior experience with the cs presented alone before pairing it with the us slows the development of a cs-us association, and is called the cs-preexposure effect or latent inhibition. Compare a group with prior experiences, and one without. Learning the cs-us association is much slower with prior experience with the us alone, and this is called the us-preexposure effect. Learning a cs-us association is much better when the us is novel. Another factor that determines the effectiveness of the cs and the us. Salience = how small a stimulus is. More intense stimuli = more salient stimuli. More attention is drawn to the stimulus = increased learning benefit.
