Pavlovian%20or%20Classical%20Conditioning

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Pavlovian or Classical Conditioning

• Psychology 3306

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Introduction

• Pavlov was working on digestion, the rest is
  history!
• Figured that lots of dogs behaviour may have
  involved this conditional redirection of reflexes
• Called the phenomenon Conditional Reflexes

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Conditional?

• Yes conditional
• Was mistranslated and conditioned!!!
• So that is where we get the term conditioning from

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Key terms

• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS or US)
• Biologically relevant stimulus, that without
  prior learning elicits an.
• Unconditioned Response (UR or UCR)
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
• Neutral stimulus that with many CS US pairing
  elicits a
• Conditioned Response (CR)

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Cool conditioning stuff

• Seems that pretty much any reflex can be hooked
  up
• Today we concentrate on a few different
  preparations
• Human eyeblink (rabbits too)
• CER (Conditioned emotional response) or
  suppression
• SCR (Skin conductivity response)
• Taste aversion or food aversion

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Early theoretical ideas

• Pavlov and stimulus substitution
• US replaced by CS
• However the CR is not always the same as the UR
• Sign tracking takes this idea into account
  actually
• Weak, but intuitively pleasing

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Perhaps physiology?

• Pavlov thought there were CS and US centres in
  the brain
• Hmmm, dont seem to be, though some responses are
  hooked up to specific brain regions
• What is the connection though is it S S or S
  R?

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S-S and S-R
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If we could just get rid of that US UR bond..
UR
US
CS
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Rescrola (1973)

• So, how do you get rid of a response that is hard
  wired to a stimulus?
• Well, if you use CER, then your response is
  startle right?
• How do you get rid of a startle reflex?
• Habituation!!
• (Bob is a smart man)

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Design
Group Phase 1 Phase 2 Test
Habituation L -gt N Noise Light
Control L -gt N Nothing Light
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Results

• Less suppression in Habituation group
• (In other words, more responding)
• Therefore, the connection MUST be S S
• WOW!

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Some important properties of Pavlovian
conditioning

• Acquisition
• Asymptote
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
• Disinhibition
• Rapid Reacquisition

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Conditioned Inhibition

• Summation Test
• B
• A-
• AB
• Retardation Test
• A-
• AB

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Generalization

• So you will get a response (CR) to a given CS.
• Just like with habituation, you will get
  generalization
• Just like with habituation the less similar the
  new CS is to the original, the less CR you get

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Discrimination

• Sort of the opposite of Generalization
• CS and CS-
• Animal responds (CR) to S not to S-
• Discrimination gets too hard you get neuroses

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Temporal Relationships

• Simultaneous conditioning
• Short delay
• Long delay
• Trace conditioning
• Backwards
• Again, contiguity alone does not do the trick, no
  surprise here

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Correlation of events

• CS- CS- CS- CS-
• old control group, animal learns what?
• CS CS- CS CS- CS CS-
• Rescorla Control
• CS CS CS CS CS

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Conditional probability

• The animal basically compares p(US CS) with
  p(US no CS)
• The greater the difference the greater the
  conditioning
• Long term more than short term
• Whole new take on learning

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Other paradigms

• Higher order conditioning
• Sensory preconditioning
• Outside the lab too!
• Daily life
• Systematic desensitization
• Aversive counterconditioning
• Flooding