Pavlovian Conditioning (aka classical or respondent conditioning

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Pavlovian Conditioning(aka classical or
respondent conditioning

• Ivan Pavlov
• 1849-1936

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Pavlovs dog
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Respondent Conditioning Learning Curve

• The more often the pairing occurs, the stronger
  the response
• Early pairings are more important than later
  pairings

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Extinction

• If the conditioned stimulus is no longer followed
  by the unconditioned stimulus, responding will
  gradually slow down and finally cease.
• The conditioned stimulus no longer signals the
  onset of an important event so it is ignored by
  the organism.

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Acquisition and Extinction
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Spontaneous recovery

• Some time following extinction, the response will
  reappear, though not at its previous level

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Disinhibition

• If a novel stimulus is introduced with the CS on
  a single trial during extinction, the strength of
  the CR increases then gradually decreases
• This indicates that extinction is a learning
  process which is disrupted by the novel stimulus
• During extinction, the organism is learning not
  to respond

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Generalization

• Generalization Stimuli resembling the CS will
  also produce the CR although never having been
  associated with the US

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Discrimination

• Discrimination If stimuli resembling the CS and
  eliciting the CR are presented repeatedly without
  ever being associated with the US, those stimuli
  will cease to elicit the CR (they will
  extinguish)

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Factors Affecting Conditioning1. Contiguity

• Contiguity is the closeness in time and space
  between the CS and US.
• The more closely they are associated, the
  stronger the conditioning.
• The longer the delay between the CS and the US,
  the more difficult it is to condition the CS.
• However, in some instances very long delays can
  still result in strong conditioning.

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Food aversions (Garcia Effect)

• Substances which lead to vomiting are readily
  developed as conditioned stimuli, with just one
  pairing and following a long delay in the
  reaction.
• Foods which make us sick will lead to avoidance
  of that food, perhaps for a lifetime.

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2. Contingency

• Contingency represents the number of times that
  the CS is paired with the US.
• Maximum contingency is obtained when the CS
  precedes the US on every trial.
• The less often the CS precedes the US, the weaker
  will be the conditioned response.
• If the CS precedes the US on 50 of the trials or
  less, little conditioning will occur.

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3. Stimulus Features

• The physical characteristics of the CS and US
  affect the rate of conditioning.
• Some stimuli more readily serve as CSs than
  others.
• If a compound stimulus (2 or more stimuli
  together) is paired with a US, only one of the
  stimuli will become a CS.
• This is known as overshadowing in which one
  stimulus prevents the other from conditioning.

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Overshadowing

• If two stimuli are presented together and
  followed by a US, one may dominate the other and
  prevent it from becoming a CS
• A determining factor in overshadowing is salience
  (intensity or noticeability) of the stimulus
  the more salient the stimulus, the more likely it
  is to dominate
• Sense organs stimulated will also determine
  salience (e.g., auditory vs. visual)

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4. Prior Experience with CS and US

• Experiencing a stimulus prior to associating it
  with a US decreases the likelihood that it will
  become a CS.
• This is known as latent inhibition.
• This suggests that novel stimuli are more likely
  to become CSs than are stimuli that have been
  experienced many times in the absence of the US.

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Blocking

• If a CS is paired with another stimulus, the
  second stimulus will not come to elicit the CR.
• The first stimulus is a sufficient predictor of
  the US and the second stimulus is redundant and
  therefore unnecessary
• Not every stimulus present when the US occurs
  will serve as a CS

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Latent Inhibition

• If a neutral stimulus is presented often without
  pairing it with a US, then an attempt is made to
  make it a conditioned stimulus, it will take
  significantly longer to do so than otherwise.
• Experiencing a stimulus prior to conditioning
  increases the time it takes to make it a
  conditioned stimulus.

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Sensory Preconditioning

• If two neutral stimuli are paired for many
  repetitions, then one of them is made a CS, the
  second will also produce the conditioned response.

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5. Temperament

• Hereditary differences in temperament may
  influence conditionability.
• Some dogs are highly excitable while others are
  very sedate.
• Pavlov found that more excitable dogs are more
  readily conditioned than dogs that are not easily
  aroused.
• This probably also holds true for people in whom
  it was found that more anxious people are more
  easily conditioned.

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Higher-Order Conditioning

• Once a stimulus has been developed as a CS, it
  can then serve as a US to develop a second CS
• This is known as second-order conditioning
• This second CS can then serve as a US to develop
  still another CS (third-order), etc.

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Higher-Order Conditioning
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Semantic Conditioning

• Words can become CSs
• Words associated with USs or strong CSs can
  become CSs themselves
• Once this happens, the words can evoke the same
  emotional response as the US did initially

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Prejudice

• Words with bad associations can be paired with
  words for groups of people, producing bad
  associations toward those people
• Words such as dirty, thieving, clannish, smelly,
  etc., when used to describe people can make us
  prejudiced toward those people

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Baked Fresh

• The above was seen printed on a box of donuts
• What does it have to say about the use of
  classical conditioning and selling?

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Use in Advertising

• Pairing pleasant images with products makes us
  more agreeable to purchase and use of the product

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Classical conditioning of emotional responses

• Pictures of peoples faces were paired with
  either a pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant odor.
• When later asked to evaluate the faces the
  subjects the highest ratings were given to those
  pictures that had been associated with the
  pleasant odor.
• The lowest ratings were given to those pictures
  which had been paired with the unpleasant odor
  Todrank, Byrnes, Wrzesniewski, Rozin, 1995)

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Immunological Reactions

• The immune system is susceptible to conditioning.
  
• Allergic reactions can be conditioned as can
  immune suppression in response to chemo-therapy.
• Increases as well as decreases in immune
  functioning have been found capable of being
  classically conditioned.

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• Rats were given saccharine-flavored water as the
  CS which was paired with a drug that suppresses
  the activity of the immune system.
• A few days later the rats were injected with a
  substance that should produce an attack by the
  immune system.
• Rats given the saccharine water just prior to the
  injection had a weaker immune response than rats
  given plain water.
• The saccharine produced a CR, the weakening of
  the immune reaction (Ader Cohen, 1975).

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• A group of mice were exposed to the odor of
  camphor as a CS which was associated with an
  injection of interferon which produces an
  increase in immune reactions.
• After a few pairings, the camphor odor itself was
  enough to produce an increase in the immune
  reaction (Solvason, Ghanata, Hiramoto, 1988).
• A similar study was done with humans with similar
  results (Buske-Hellhammer, Kirschbaum, Stierle,
  Jabaij, Hallhammer, 1994).

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Opponent Process Theory

• The typical pattern of an emotional response,
  according to the theory
• The solid bar shows the time in which an
  emotion-eliciting stimulus is present

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Affects of Conditioning on Opponent Processes

• As conditioning continues, the opponent process
  (CR) increases in size and counteracts the UR

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Opponent Process Theory

• According to the theory, a persons emotional
  reaction (manifest affective response) is jointly
  determined by the underlying a- and b-processes
• The proposed time course of these processes
  during the first few presentations of an
  emotional-eliciting stimulus is shown on the left
• The right side shows the predicted patterns after
  many repetitions of the same stimulus

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• As conditioning proceeds, the b-process (or CR)
  increases in strength, counteracting the effects
  of the emotion-eliciting stimulus
• The b-process has been conditioned to the stimuli
  present when the emotion-eliciting stimulus was
  presented
• In using drugs, the high elicited by the drug
  is counteracted by the b- (or calming) process,
  thus reducing the level of the high
• In order to re-attain the high, increasing
  dosages of the drug must be ingested, which will
  again be counteracted by the b-process

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• After awhile, very high levels of the drug must
  be used to attain the original high
• These levels of drugs would be very dangerous in
  someone who had not developed a tolerance to the
  drug
• If the drug were to be ingested in a novel
  situation in which the CSs were not present, the
  b-process might not occur
• If the b-process does not occur, the drug might
  elicit a dangerously high reaction (overdose)
  which could even be deadly