PSY 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Fear Conditioning, Seat Belt, Mirror Neuron
1 Jun 2018
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Chapter 6
Learning:
• Learning: any process through which experience at one time can alter an individual's
behavior at a future time
o Allows animals/humans can adapt to their environment
• Maximizes the chances of survival and procreation
• Nonassociative: learning about a stimulus in the external world
o Habituation: when our behavioral response with stimulus decreases
o Sensitization: when our behavioral response to a stimulus increases
• Associative: learning the relationship or association between multiple stimulus.
Understanding how events are related
o Classical conditioning: learn that a stimulus predicts another stimulus
• The sight of a bee and the pain it brings
o Operant conditioning: that a behavior leads to a certain outcome
• Child touching a hot stove. Behavior has a consequence and learns that it is hot
• Observational: learning by watching how other people behave
Classical conditioning:
• Behaviorism: founded by John B Watson as a way of establishing the credibility of
psychology as a scientific discipline
• Pavlov's dogs
o Would salivate when they saw food and even before they saw the food
o Salivary reflex: automatic unlearned response occurs when food stimulus is
presesnted to a hungry animal
o Conditioned stimulus: the tone
o Unconditioned stimulus: meat
o Conditioned response: salivation
• Unconditioned stimulus (US): a stimulus the reflexively elicits a response without prior
learning
• Unconditioned response(UC): the response reflexively elicited by the unconditioned
stimulus without prior learning
• Neutral stimulus: a stimulus that elicits so no reflexive response
• Conditioned stimulus(CS): a stimulus that elicits a particular response only after learning
• Conditioned response (CR): the response elicited to a conditional stimulus after learning
• Acquisition: gradual formation of an association between the conditioned and
unconditional stimulus
o The CS-CU pairings lead to an increased learning
• CS can produce the CR
• Contiguity: stimuli occur together in time
o The strongest conditioning occurs when there is a very brief delay between the CS
and the US
o Second-order conditioning: The conditioned responses can be learned even without
the learner ever association the conditioned stimulus with the original unconditioned
stimulus
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• Helps account or the complexity of learned association in people
• Previously conditioned stimulus that has aquired value is paired with a new
stimulus on the absence of a US. After several pairing, the new stimulus will
begin to evoke a CR even though it had never been associated with a US
directly
▪ Child has been conditioned to associate money with desirable objects, such as ca
ndy, which for most children is a US that produces happiness (UR). Once we lear
n that money can buy candy, money (CS) now produces happiness (CR). Now su
ppose that whenever the child’s uncle visits, the uncle gives the child some mon
ey. Through second-
order conditioning, the child will learn to associate the uncle (a new CS) with mo
ney (the old CS). This process can condition the child to feel happy (CR) when vi
siting the uncle
• Extinction: a weakening of the conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is
repeated without the unconditioned stimulus
o If the CS is presented without the US, eventually the CR extinguishes
• Spontaneous recovery: a reemergence of the extinguished conditioned response after the
presentation of the conditioned stimulus resumes
o Indicates that the association is not forgotten, just temporarily suppressed
o Association does not have to be relearned from scratch if it becomes relevant again
o Later, If the CS is presented alone, it will produce a weak CR
• Watson and "little Albert": whether a phobia (acquired fear that is out of proportion to the
real threat posed by a the object of the situation) could be created with classical
conditioning (fear conditioning)
• Stimulus generalization: stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus can also produce the
conditioned response
• Stimulus discrimination: animals learn to differentiate between tow similar stimuli if one
is consistently associated with the unconditioned stimulus and the other is not
Counter conditioning
• Counterconditioning: allows for the reduction od a phobia by pairing the feared
conditioned stimulus with a favored stimulus
Conditioned taste aversion:
• Conditioned taste aversion:
o Conditioned stimulus (Taste of Ben and Jerry's) followed by Unconditioned stimulus
(nausear
• Rescorla-Wagner model: an animal leans an expectation that some predictors are better
than others
o Strength of CS-US association is determined by the extent to which the US is
unexpected or surprising
o Prediction error: difference between the expected and actual outcomes
o Positive prediction error: after a stimulus appears, something better than expected
happens
• Strengthens the association between the CS and US
o Negative prediction error: when an expected event does not happen
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Behavior has a consequence and learns that it is hot: observational: learning by watching how other people behave. Once we lear n that money can buy candy, money (cs) now produces happiness (cr). Now su ppose that whenever the child"s uncle visits, the uncle gives the child some mon ey. Through second- order conditioning, the child will learn to associate the uncle (a new cs) with mo ney (the old cs). This process can condition the child to feel happy (cr) when vi siting the uncle: extinction: a weakening of the conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is repeated without the unconditioned stimulus. If the cs is presented without the us, eventually the cr extinguishes: spontaneous recovery: a reemergence of the extinguished conditioned response after the presentation of the conditioned stimulus resumes. Counter conditioning: counterconditioning: allows for the reduction od a phobia by pairing the feared conditioned stimulus with a favored stimulus.
