Pavlovian Classical Conditioning

  • Classical conditioning: neutral stimulus gains ability to elicit response b/c of association w/other stimulus that automatically elicited that response in the past o Conditioned: learning is involved in eliciting the CR by the CS
  • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): effect on behaviour is unlearned or automatic i.e. meat powder for dog
  • Unconditioned response (UCR): unlearned response to UCS i.e. salivation response to meat powder
  • Conditioned stimulus (CS): originally neutral but developed ability to elicit response by association w/UCS i.e. bell, which causes conditioned response (CR)
  • Extinction: continued presentation of CS without UCS results in CS no longer eliciting response
    • Can eliminate maladaptive reactions
  • Thus, neutral stimuli in our environment can come to have motivational influences on our behaviour if paired w/strongly motivational UCSs
  • Since organism is passive in learning process, some maladaptive behaviours may be learned via accidental pairings of neutral stimulus and negative emotional or motivational states

Experimental Neuroses

  • Experimental neurosis: result of increasingly difficult discrimination, which began to interfere w/behaviour when dog could no longer discriminate
  • Argued to be made by organism’s lack of predictability or controllability vs. via classical conditioning
  • Experiment: classically conditioned small boy Albert to fear white rat o Sound made by striking bar became UCS for emotional response (UCR) of

Albert’s fear o When Albert was just about to touch white rat (CS), bar would be struck o After just a few pairings of the rat and sound, Albert no longer reached for the rat

  • Conclusion: neutral stimulus of white rat became aversive stimulus that produced emotionality and motivated behaviour (Albert’s behaviour of attempting to crawl away when the rat was presented to him)
  • Generalization tests for the Albert and white rat experiment showed that Albert was now not only afraid of white rats, but also similar objects i.e. furry objects o Later generalization tests showed Albert still had withdrawal behaviour from furry stimuli, but reactions were much less intense than earlier
    • Conclusion: classically conditioned emotional responses can be relatively permanent
  • Experiment: used classical conditioning to study emotionality in sheep and goats:
    • If UCS produced emotional UCR, then CS paired w/UCS would also produce emotional response
    • Experimental neuroses developed in sheep when electric shock was used to condition leg flexion and the animal’s task was made difficult
    • Young lambs could be protected from experimental neuroses by having their mothers in the experimental room during the classical conditioning

Elimination of Motivated Behaviours through Conditioning

  • Counterconditioning: CS gradually loses its aversiveness by pairing w/positive

UCS and by no longer being paired w/negative UCS o Can eliminate maladaptive reactions

  • Preferred over extinction b/c new positive response is made to replace negative CS
  • Systematic desensitization: patient is taught to first relax deeply on command, which will be used as a positive UCS for positive UCR of relaxation
  • Anxiety hierarchy: list of anxiety-producing situations that involve the CS, from least anxiety-producing (1st) to most anxiety-producing (last) o Patient is told to think about 1st situation and is given command to relax o Once person can relax while thinking about the situation, they go onto the 2nd situation and continue until the list is done
  • Desensitized: through pairing of negative CS (i.e. anxiety-arousing thought) w/positive UCS (command to relax), negative state loses its aversiveness o Occurs when list is complete

Interoceptive Conditioning

  • Interoceptive conditioning by Razran: classical conditioning where CS, UCS or both are applied directly to internal organs or mucosa; 3 types:
  1. Intero-exteroceptive conditioning: CS = internal and UCS = external o Cool water (CS) in female dog’s uterus was paired w/presentation of food, which elicited salivation as UCR

o Result: cool water elicited salivation (CR)

  1. Intero-interoceptive conditioning: CS and UCS = internal o Intestinal distension loops served as CS, which was paired w/delivery of carbon dioxide to the lungs (UCS), which is defensive breathing

o Result: intestinal distention got ability to produce defensive breathing

  1. Extero-interoceptive conditioning: CS = external and UCS = internal o Dials connected to balloons connected to uterus served as CS, which was paired w/internal UCS of bladder distention (causes need to urinate)
    • Result: dial readings elicited internal response of urge to urinate, even though balloon inflation was absent
    • Real life situation: sound of running water is an external CS paired w/urination (UCS); almost always helps patients urinate

Implications of Interoceptive Conditioning

  1. We are usually unaware of it
  2. Cannot be avoided
  3. More permanent (resistant to conditioning) than usual classical conditioning ***
  4. Important implications for psychosomatic medicine

Learned Aversions

  • Learned aversions/long-delay learning/taste-aversion learning
  • 1st experiment: animals who had tasty water and X-rays (that caused illness) later avoided the flavoured solution as they formed a learned aversion to the taste of water b/c of the illness *** o Animals w/bright-noisy water did not develop aversion to water as a result of the X-rays
    • Footshock groups showed opposite effects: taste of water did not become associated w/shock, but audiovisual display did
    • Conclusion: taste cues were associated very easily w/illness but not w/footshock vs. audiovisual cues associated w/shock but not w/illness
    • Explanation: what rats learned was constrained by biological heritage: it would be adaptive to associate taste and illness quickly vs. little advantage for in associating taste w/external painful object vs. stimulation of distance receptors (i.e. vision, hearing) would provide info about external environment that would be useful if easily associated w/externally harmful events (i.e. foot pain)
  • 2nd experiment: showed that taste-illness connection can be made even when interval between tasting and illness is long *** o Results: rats are programmed to associate illness w/specific tastes, even if the illness occurred a long time after the substance was ingested = adaptive
    • Above + rat’s sensitivity in associating illness w/taste explains why rats are hard to poison
  • Biological constraints: on what can be learned as some animals are predisposed to learn some associations more readily than others
  • Prepared hypothesis: Seligman said diff species evolve diff preparedness b/c of selective pressures of evolution; exists on continuum:
  1. Prepared associations: events that can be easily and quickly associated
  2. Contraprepared associations: associations that cannot be learned
  3. Unprepared associations: can be learned, but many experiences w/the events are needed for association to be formed

Learned Taste Aversions in Cancer Patients

  • Study: group receiving ice cream before becoming nauseated from chemotherapy showed aversion to ice cream vs. 2 controls showed no aversion to ice cream o Patients were aware that nausea resulted from chemotherapy, not from ice cream, but aversion still developed

o Humans, like rats appeared to associate illness w/taste of previously ingested food

  • Later study: showed aversions will also develop to familiar foods that have been paired w/toxic chemotherapy

o Foods high in protein are especially vulnerable to this aversion

  • If novel taste is introduced between time of normal meal and chemo, novel taste will interfere w/development of aversion to familiar meal so that novel taste is avoided, but development of aversion to it protects meal from becoming aversive
  • Nausea associated w/chemo can become conditioned to stimuli in environment

(i.e. smell of doctor’s office) so that they elicit nausea even without chemo

  • Progressive muscle relaxation therapy (PRMT) and Guided relaxation imagery

(GI): *** spelling o Studies show they reduce severity of conditioned nausea and even prevent its development during chemo relative to control group, as measured by self-reports and nurse reports

  • Diffs between treatment and control group were only found after treatment was used in many sessions (vs. few), which is imp b/c conditioned nausea usually takes many sessions to develop
  • When amount of nausea was monitored at home a couple of days after chemo, treatment patients reported lower levels of nausea
  • Some part of the aversiveness of chemo may be the result of conditioned aversion to the stimuli associated w/treatment
  • Researchers noted PRMT and GI:
  1. Interfere w/development of conditioned nausea by diverting attention from chemo context and thus blocking conditioning to those contextual cues
  2. Reduced muscle contractions along gastrointestinal tract thereby reducing nauseous feelings
  3. Interrupt conditioning of nausea b/c they reduce anxiety vs. when they are not used, anxiety may provide cues that can elicit nausea and vomiting through conditioning *** 1 and 3 same

Instrumental Conditioning

  • Instrumental/operant conditioning by Thorndike: motives are acquired through reinforcement of appropriate responses o Leads to acquisition and/or strengthening of behaviours, which are motivated by the consequences of those behaviours
  • Debated if CC and IC are diff processes but situation they occur in are diff: CC results from associations of stimuli vs. IC results from response
  • The law of effect: strengthening of connection between response and stimulus in environment
  • Reinforcement: strengthens response itself, making its occurrence more probable (vs. strengthening connection between stimulus and response)

Quantity, Quality and Contrasts of Reinforcement

  • Crespi’s experiments: gave diff groups of rats diff amounts of reinforcement for running down alleyway
  • Amount of reinforcement (AOR) effect: positive correlation between amount of reinforcement and performance (more intense behaviour) o Rats receiving larger rewards ran faster than those receiving smaller awards

o However, increased reinforcement does not lead to more persistent behaviour: large amount of reinforcement lead animals to stop responding more quickly when reinforcement is withdrawn in extinction

*** o Conclusion: motivational effect of amount of reinforcement is short-term: it increases performance as long as it is present, but behaviour is quickly reduced in its absence

  • Quality of reinforcement effect (QOR): positive correlation between quality of reinforcement and performance (more intense behaviour)
  • Contrast: occurs when amount or quality of reinforcement is altered within experiment
    1. Negative contrast: when all groups were switched to medium amount of reinforcement: group previously receiving large amount performed worse than control group (received same amount all along)
    2. Positive contrast: group previously receiving small amount performed better than control group
  • History of reinforcement: differing histories of reinforcement that groups experienced influenced responding on current conditions of reinforcement (as seen in positive and negative contrast)
  • Latent learning: learning in absence of reinforcement o Non-reinforced group appeared to learn little about traversing maze; but when food was later provided at the end of the maze, performance of non-reinforced group quickly matched that of group reinforced the whole time
    • Conclusion: non-reinforced rats learned maze but were not inclined to demonstrate this learning until there was motivation to do so (food)
    • Intro of food for non-reinforced group represents contrast between nothing and something
    • Bigger picture conclusion: effect of reinforcement is on performance (motivation) vs. learning

Primary and Conditioned Reinforcement

  • Reinforcer: increases chance of response that it follows o Primary/unlearned reinforcer: increase chance due to their nature (i.e. sex, food)

o Secondary /conditioned reinforcer: control responding b/c they have been associated w/primary reinforcer in the past

Generalized Conditioning Reinforcers

  • Generalized conditioned reinforcer: its pairing w/many primary reinforcers causes it to gain reinforcer properties: strengthens or maintains behaviour for long time even without presence of PF i.e. money

Tokens and Tokens Economics

  • Token: serves as reminder for other reinforcers it will buy i.e. money o Animal example: chimps learn new response for token reinforcement (i.e.

grapes) as quickly as for the grapes themselves and would learn new responses even when a delay of as much as 1 hour was instituted between the arrival of the token and its exchange for primary reinforcement ***

  • Token economy: tokens are used as reinforcers for appropriate behaviour and can later be exchanged for various reinforcers (i.e. candy) o Good alternative to other methods of controlling inappropriate behaviour o Real-life example: woman who was wandering on pathways was paid tokens by researchers and charged tokens for wander; result: tokens motivated her enough to reduce wandering

o Clearest example: token economy promoted safe behaviour (by awarding stamps) and punished unsafe behaviour (by not giving stamps); made so that social pressure on individuals promotes safety: group stamp awards are lost for all members if a single member makes an accident or injury  reduced work-related injuries and accidents

Classical-Operant Interactions in Motivation

Acquired Fear

  • Stimulus is considered motivating if an organism learns a new operant response to remain or remove itself from the presence of the stimulus
  • Miller’s experiment: showed fear can be acquired and its reduction motivates learning o Cues of white compartment (in box) became associated w/the shock and developed motivation to escape from compartment

o Led theorists to argue that 2 factors are involved in avoidance behaviour: 1.       Operant response reinforced by reduction in acquired fear: *** o These cues generate a new, arbitrary responses (i.e. wheel turning and lever pressing), which are reinforced by the reduction of the white compartment cues that occurred when the rats succeeded in reaching the safe black compartment

  1. Classically conditioned fear response (occurred incidentally):
    • Motivation to avoid white compartment was acquired through pairing of white compartment cues and shock
    • From this, Miller suggested: cues associated w/fear motivate neurotic behaviour, which is reinforced by temporary reduction in anxiety
  • Other experiments: showed that acquired fear energize other behaviours independent of original fear-producing situation *** o e. rats that acquired fear response showed increased shock reaction to found made by toy gun

Conditioned Emotional Responses (CERs)

  • Conditioned emotional response (CER) training: organism (i.e. rat) is taught to press lever to get food according to a reinforcement schedule (i.e. fixed-interval,

4 min. schedule), where responses prior to schedule go unreinforced o After behaviour to schedule becomes consistent, rat is subjected to pairings of tone and shock, which are independent of bar-pressing response using classical conditioning

  • If tone is now presented without shock, it will suppress lever pressing for food b/c tone has become fear producing since it was paired w/shock
  • Thus: when tone is sounded, conditioned fear is made in animal that has effect of suppressing ongoing behaviour (lever pressing)
  • Once again, neutral stimulus can acquire emotional or motivational properties leading to change in behaviour
  • No evidence for stimuli associated w/positive emotional or motivational properties to becoming conditioned motivators too ***
  • Asymmetry of effects is b/c of biological constraints: it is more adaptive to associate environmental stimuli w/negative events to avoid these negative events vs. associating particular stimuli w/positive events ***

Learned Helplessness

  • Learned helplessness: learning conditions that result in disturbance of motivation (demotivation), cognitive processes and emotionality of behaviour b/c of previously experienced uncontrollability from organism o Analogous to reactive depression in humans
  • Seligman’s experiment: dogs given inescapable shock before being placed in box where they can avoid shock by jumping hurdle fail to learn response and give up, passively enduring the shock o Failure to learn response is b/c of previously experienced inescapable shock
  • Triadic design: use 3 groups to find if results of experiments are caused by uncontrollability or effects of shock:

o After initial part of experiment, all 3 groups are put into new situation (i.e.

learning to jump hurdle to escape shock):

  1. Group 1: received shock  can control environment by making response = learned new response
  2. Group 2: received shock  no response they made has effect in controlling environment = slow to learn response or did not learn response
  3. Group 3: receive no treatment = learned new response o Conclusion: since G 1 and 2 received same # shocks, differences in 2nd phase must be due to the fact that G 2 could not control environment – Learned helplessness explains but is not the same as helplessness effect:

inability to learn to control one’s environment due to previous experience of no control

  • Helplessness has been shown in many species other than dogs; rats are the hardest to try to show helplessness with

Symptoms of Helplessness 1. Passivity:

  • Human experiment: participants passively endured noise (as Seligman’s dogs took shock) vs. participants in control group who initially learned how to turn off noise did so
  • Passive aspects of learned helplessness even develop in positive situations i.e. in uncontrolled reward o e. experiment: (1) pigeons that originally learned to jump on treadle for food: learned key-peck response for food, (2) pigeons who received nothing earlier: 2nd fastest, (3) pigeons who got free grain: learned slowly

o This effect is called learned laziness: uncontrolled reward (given for no particular reason) caused motivational deficit

  1. Retardation of learning/associative retardation: develop learning deficit b/c helpless animal has learned that situation cannot be changed by their behaviour
  2. Somatic effects: less aggressive in aversive or competitive situations
  3. Reduction of helplessness w/time: but many sessions w/inescapable shock = permanent helplessness

Causes and Prevention of Helplessness

  • Prevention
    1. Forcing correct response i.e. forcibly dragging helpless dog from shock side to safe side of box eventually eliminated learned helplessness
    2. First teach animals how to control environment before subjecting them to helpless situations
  • Causes: motivation in present depends on experience w/controlling environment in the past: no past success in control = demotivating effect on future behaviour o Extreme lack of success in control  organism stops responding altogether
  • Seligman pointed out similarity between learned helplessness and depression:

o Similar symptoms: depressed people (usually caused by external event

i.e. losing job) tend to: (1) be passive, (2) have negative cognitive: believe behaviour is ineffective, (3) be less aggressive and competitive, (4) improve w/time

  • Criticisms: (1) depressed people have general lowering of motivation (vs. believing their behaviour is ineffective) (2) depressed people believe they have control, but that events turnout wrong, as they usually feel guilty and blame failures on self (vs. believing they have lack of control  major criticism
  • Criticisms caused Seligman to modify learned helplessness model of depression: now emphasizes individual’s attribution of the reason for lack of control, which influence amount and length time) of helplessness i.e. lack of control may be due to personal inability or simply controllable factors

Observational Learning (Modeling)

  • Observational learning: human behaviour results from vicarious learning:

observing others

  • Occurs without practicing a response and without reinforcement
  • Takes social learning theory approach: says social conditions are important determiners of behaviour (1st recognized by Dollard and Bandura)
  • Bandura argued human functioning results from interactions between behaviours and the conditions that control them (internal and external forces)
  • Modeling: learn through observations o SLT says this is a huge ability and allows us to build patterns of behaviour without resorting to trial and error
    • We learn to be motivated by certain objects in the environment and we learn emotional responses to certain situations through modeling
    • Observed behaviours are stored symbolically (to anticipate possible consequences of behaviour and modify accordingly) and retrieved later to guide behaviours
  • Self-reinforcement: internally regulate behaviour by reinforcing self for appropriate behaviours and punishing selves for inappropriate behaviour
    • Increases performance through its motivational effects
    • To evaluate our behaviours, we: compare our present behaviours to that of others + to our own past behaviours and see how others react to our behaviours
    • We establish standards of performance by looking at others’ standards of performance
  • Functions of reinforcement (according to Bandura): (1) informational: tell us effects of our behaviour on the environment and (2) motivational: develop expectancies that certain responses will cause certain outcomes i.e. rewards and punishers

Modeling Processes: Attention, Retention, Reproduction

  1. Attention: observe behaviours (of more frequent models) o Hard to avoid being behaviourally influenced by very attractive models i.e. TV
  2. Retention: put modeled behaviours into memories in verbal code (turn nut to left) and imaginal (image) code (imagine wrench turning nut to left) o Bandura sees rehearsal as aiding in recall of observed behaviour vs. strengthening correct responses
  3. Reproduction: refined based on info feedback of consequences of behaviour

Modeling Process: Vicarious Reinforcement

  • Vicarious reinforcement: observing consequences of others’ behaviour causes us to alter our behaviour
  • Main effect of observing modeled behaviour: strengthen or weaken behaviours related to those behaviours  VR can disinhibit motivated behaviours normally kept in check or serve to check behaviours that individual would be inclined to perform otherwise

o Thus, one aspect of socialization: learning to inhibit impulses (via observations) that are not good or unaccepted in culture that one lives in

  • VR serve as reference standard against which we compare the rewards re receive

i.e. observing another person being highly rewarded for something you have received a smaller reward for reduces effectiveness of our reward o Thus, VR can motivate or demotivate behaviour depending on what we observe

Learning and Aggression

–     Some aggressive behaviours may be learned; 3 types of learning contribute to aggressive motivation:

Classical Conditioning and Aggression

  • Pain-aggression model of some types of agonistic behaviour by Ulrich and Azrin: if painful stimulation elicits aggressive behaviour reflexively, then CC can pair neutral stimulus w/pain so that conditioned stimulus also elicits aggression
  • Experiment: more intense shocks were given in presence of gun b/c guns served as situational cue that elicited more aggression since guns have been paired w/aggression in the past
    • Can be interpreted as deriving from the former pairing of guns and stimuli that elicit aggression
  • Experiment: participants who had been shocked, seen the boxing movie and were shocking a person named Kirk (violently beaten in boxing movie) were more harsh than those who had been shocked, seen the boxing movie, but shocked person named Bob
    • Conclusion: association of name Kirk w/aggression in movie led to names eliciting more aggression later
  • Impulsive aggression: react aggressively without thinking; especially open to CC procedures

Instrumental Conditioning and Aggression

  • Experiment: group praised for aggressive behaviour delivered more shocks of higher intensities than control group (not praised for aggressive behaviour) + on later word association, praised group gave more aggressive words o Conclusion: verbal reinforcement increased aggressive behaviour and other aggressive responses as well
  • Act of aggression itself may be reinforcing i.e. some rats attack and kill mice, even though no reward is given for not doing so; rats that did kill mice learned to choose the path of a maze where they could attack and kill mice vs. non-killers chose path of maze w/rat pup that they do not kill
  • Aggressive behaviour in humans may be reinforced and maintained by secondary reinforcement i.e. social approval by peers

Modeled Aggression

  • Bobo doll experiment: all 3 groups that saw model behave aggressively imitated aggression whereas control groups that did not see model behave aggressively did not have same response

o Although greatest degree of modeling occurred w/live mode, stats analysis shows that filmed model was just as effective in modeling aggression as live model; these children were less inclined to imitate cartoon character, although imitative behaviour of this group was still largely above that of the 2 control groups

Sexual Motivation and Learning

  • Example w/animals showing learning in producing sexual behaviours: when male rat pups exposed to a specific odor during suckling are exposed to accessible females w/the same scent (vs. any other sent) during adulthood, the male rats ejaculate very quickly
  • It has also been argued that early experience of imprinting can create an irreversible bond that influences sexual behaviour at maturity *** look over again-related to above?
  • 2nd example showing learning in producing sexual behaviours: castrated males w/prior sexual experience (vs. sexually inexperienced) maintain their sexual behaviour longer
  • Diff studies of learned sexual behaviours in animals show:
  1. Male rats prefer conditioned place preference (CPP): location that has been previously paired w/mate, as do female rats if they have control over the pace of copulation
  2. In some species, mate preference is learned in early life
  3. In rats, vocalization during copulation depend on prior sexual experience (learning)
  4. Previous sexual experience in animals influences speed/efficiency of copulation
  5. Humans show classical conditioning of sexual arousal
  • Variations in humans exual behaviour (i.e. fetishes) result from learning
  • Experiment: produced boot fetish (increase in penis volume) by pairing boots w/nude women

Learned Sex Values

  • Sexual values: societies decide what sexual behaviours are normal and under which circumstances; thus, sexual values vary across cultures

o Thus, sexual values result from learning: info from same-sex friends, sexual exploration w/partner and masturbation

  • Most people learn rules of sexual behaviour during adolescence