Chance Readings for Week Four

Chapter 3: Pavlovian Conditioning

Beginnings
 Pavlov began his career with research on the circulatory system and then the physiology of
digestion
 He created special surgical procedures where he could study the digestive processes of
animals over long periods of time
o He studies the salivary glands, stomach, liver, pancreas, and parts of the intestine
 One of his goals was to understand how the body breaks down food into chemicals that can
be absorbed into the blood
o The process begins with the salivary reflex
o The reflex action of the gland depended on the nature of the stimulus
o The gland responds according to the need of the saliva
 He was fascinated by the adaptability of the glands
 He shifted his attention to psychic reflexes to know why the dog salivated
before receiving any food
Basic Procedures
• Pavlov observed the external stimulus on the animal to see what triggered the psychic
secretions
• There are two distinct kinds of reflexes
○ One is the largely inborn and usually permanent reflex found in all members of a species
and is different between individuals
 This explained by the dog salivating when food is put in the mouth
 This is known as the unconditional reflex because they occur more or less
unconditionally
○ The second reflex is not present at birth and must be acquired through experience and is
compared to innate reflexes (impermanent)
 Varies from individuals
 A dog salivating from the sound of a person's footsteps
 This is known as conditional reflexes because they depend on the many conditions
○ Unconditional reflexes are inborn, unlearned, or special reflexes; conditional reflexes are
acquired, learned, or individual reflexes
• An unconditional reflex consists of an unconditional stimulus (US) and the behavior it evokes,
the unconditional response (UR)
○ Unconditional stimuli are events that are important for survival
○ Dog food is the US and salivation is the UR
• A conditional reflex consists of a conditional stimulus (CS) and the behavior it evokes, the
conditional response (CR)
○ Food dish is the CS and the salivation is the CR
• How does a neutral stimulus (one that doesn’t naturally evoke a reflex response; food dish)
come to do so?
 ○ Pavlov found that any stimulus could become a conditional stimulus if it regularly
preceded an unconditional stimulus
• Each pairing of CS and US is one trial and the procedure is known as Pavlovian or classical
conditioning
○ There are two defining elements
 First, the behavior is elicited by the US is a reflex response (salivating, eye
blinking, sweating)
 Second, the appearance of the two stimuli is independent of behavior; the CS and
US pairing is presented regardless of what the animal or person does

Higher-Order Conditioning
 The basic Pavlovian procedure consists of presenting a neutral stimulus followed by an
unconditional stimulus
 The procedure of pairing a neutral stimulus with a well-established CS is called higher-order
conditioning
o The neutral stimulus is only paired with an established CS, no the US
o Higher-order conditioning greatly increases the importance of Pavlovian conditioning
because it means that many more stimuli can come to elicit conditional responses
o Plays a role with emotional meaning of words
 Second-order conditioning is when the CS is one step away from the US
 Third-order conditioning is when a neutral stimulus is paired with a CS

Measuring Pavlovian Learning

 Ways to measure
o One way to test for conditioning in these situations (where the interval between CS
onset and the appearance of the US is too short) is to use test trials (probe trials)
 Test trials involve presenting the CS alone (without the US) periodically
o Another way to measure Pavlovian learning is to measure the intensity or strength
(amplitude) of the CR
 Problems with Measuring Pavlovian Learning
o A problem in attempting to measure Pavlovian learning is a phenomenon known as
pseudo conditioning
 This is the tendency of a neutral stimulus to elicit a CR after a US has
elicited a reflex response
 The stimulus may elicit a CR even though it has not become an
effective CS
 If a stimulus has not been paired with a US, any effect it produces is
not the result of conditioning
o A problem occurs when a stimulus has been paired with a strong US
 Is the behavior that occurs a conditional response or is it the result of the
earlier exposure to a strong stimulus?
  Difficultly of measuring Pavlovian learning is one thing that complicates its
study; another is that it is sensitive to a number of variables
 The CR depends on many conditions

Variables Affecting Pavlovian Conditioning

 How CS and US are paired
o How the CS and US Are Paired
 Pavlovian conditioning involves the pairing of stimuli
 The amount of learning that occurs depends to a large extent on how the
stimuli are presented
 There are four basic ways of pairing stimuli:
 Trace conditioning: the CS begins and ends before the US
appears
o There is then a gap between the two stimuli
o Gets this name from the assumption that the CS leaves
some sort of neural trace
o Seeing a flash of lightning and hearing thunder right after
 Delay conditioning: the CS and US overlap
o The US appears before the CS disappears
o Hearing thunder before the lighting has disappeared
o The difference between short-delay and long-delay is the
length of time the CS is present before the US appears
 They produce similar results: a conditional response
begins to appear soon after the CS appears
 With long-delay, the CR latency increases
 Simultaneous conditioning: the CS and US coincide exactly
o Both stimuli begin and end at the same time
o Weak procedure for establishing a conditional response
 Backward conditioning: the CS follows the US
o Very difficult to produce a CR
 CS-US Contingency
o A contingency is an if-then statement
o The rate of Pavlovian conditioning will vary with the degree of CS-US
contingency

 CS-US Contiguity
o Contiguity refers to the closeness in time or space between two events
 The interval between the CS and US. The interval is called the
interstimulus interval (ISI)
 In trace conditioning, the ISI is the interval between the
termination of the CS and the onset of the US
  In delay conditioning, the ISI is the interval between the onset of
the CS and the onset of the US
 The shorter the ISI, the more quickly conditioning occurs
o Taste aversion conditioning usually consists of pairing a distinctive taste with a
substance that induces nausea
o Pavlovian Flow Chart
 Used to decipher among different types of conditioning


 Stimulus Features
o The physical characteristics of the CS and US affect the pace of conditioning
 A compound stimulus is paired with a US for one or more trials
o Overshadowing is the phenomenon known to explain how the effect of one
stimulus can overshadow the effect of the other stimuli (does not become an
effective CS)
 The chief distinguishing characteristic of an effective CS is the intensity
 The ability of a stimulus to become a CS depends on the nature of the US
 Conditioning works best when both the CS and US affect internal
receptors or both affect external receptors
  Prior Experience with CS and US
o The effects of a conditioning procedure depend partly on the individual's previous
exposure to the stimuli that will serve as CS and US
o The appearance of a stimulus without the US interferes with the ability of that
stimulus to become a CS later - This is known as latent inhibition
 Latent inhibition suggests that novel stimuli (stimuli where the individual
has had little or no experience) are more likely to become conditional
stimuli than are stimuli that have appeared many times in the absence of
the US
 So something that is new is more likely to become a conditional stimulus,
since it is new, rather than something you already know and changing the
conditional response to
o Blocking resembles overshadowing in that one stimulus interferes with the ability
of another to become a CS
 In overshadowing, the effect is the result of differences between the
stimuli in characteristics (intensity)
 In blocking, the effect is due to prior experience with one part of a
compound stimulus
 We ignore duplicate signals
o Sensory preconditioning is when a stimulus elicits a CR even though it had never
been paired with the US
 Number of CS and US Pairings
o The relationship between the number of stimulus pairings and the amount of
learning is not linear; the first several pairings are more important than later ones
 Conditioning usually follows a decelerating curve
o The number of CS-US pairings required to produce a CR varies; some take
hundreds, others take a single pairing
 Intertrial Interval
o The intertrial interval affects the rate of conditioning
o It is the gap between successive trials
o Can vary from about a second to several years
o Longer intervals are more effective than shorter ones
 Other Variables
o Temperament can affect conditioning
 Differences in temperament can be due to hereditary and can affect the
rate of learning (more excited dogs learned faster)
o Stress affects conditioning
 It facilitates Pavlovian learning
 Levels of stress vary with gender

Extinction of Conditional Responses

  Once a conditional response is established, it can be maintained indefinitely so long as
the conditional stimulus is sometimes followed by the unconditional stimulus
o If the CS is repeatedly presented without the US, the conditional response will
become weaker
o The procedure of repeatedly presenting the CS alone is called extinction
 Extinction looks like forgetting, but forgetting refers to the deterioration in performance
following a period without practice
o With extinction, the practice continues, but the CS is not paired with the US; the
CS-US contingency is dissolved
 Extinction is a form of conditioning in which the CS is paired with the absence of the US
o The reappearance of a CR after extinction is called spontaneous recovery
 If Pavlov presented the CS alone several times, the CR would rapidly
dissolve
 Multiple extinctions can eliminate spontaneous recovery (that a CR will
reappear)
 An extinguished CR can be re-established more readily than it was
established initially

Theories of Conditioning
 Stimulus Substitution Theory
o Pavlov's attempt to understand conditioning focused on the nature of the
conditional response
 The CR is the UR
 He assumed that in an innate reflex, the US stimulates nerve fibers, which
stimulate other nerve fibers that evoke the UR
o Pavlov said that conditioning involves the formation of a new neurological
connection between the CS neurons and the US neurons
 A neural link is formed from the CS neurons to the US neurons so the
signal can stimulate the US area of the brain, which triggers the UR
 A US and a well-established CS both stimulate the area of the brain that
evokes the UR
 The CR and the UR are the same
 The difference is that one neural link to the US is innate and the
other is learned
o Conditioning does not involve the acquisition of any new behavior, but the
tendency to respond in old ways to new stimuli
 The CS substitutes for the US in evoking the reflex response, given the
name stimulus substitution theory
o A problem is that there is evidence that the CR and UR are not the same
 The conditional response is weaker than, occurs less reliably than, and
appears more slowly than the UR
 The CR is weaker than the UR
  They are almost opposites
 Preparatory Response theory
o Kimble proposed that the UR is an innate response designed to deal with a US,
but the CR is a response designed to prepare for the US
 This is known as preparatory response theory
 Rat freezing when seeing a cat rather than jumping
 Compensatory Response Theory
o Siegel offers a variation of the preparatory theory called compensatory response
theory
o The CR prepares the animal for the US by compensating for its effects
o Conditional Awareness

 Rescorla-Wagner Model
o In Pavlov's stimulus substitution theory, a stimulus becomes a CS by being paired
with a US repeatedly
o Rescorla found that there needed to be a contingent relationship between the CS
and US for conditioning to occur
 He believed that contingency was the critical factor in learning
 The model argues that there is a limit to the amount of conditioning that
can occur in the pairing of two stimuli
 One determinant of this limit is the nature of the US
 Certain stimuli become CS in a few pairings, but other stimuli can
be paired with a US hundreds of times without much effect
 Each time a CS and US are paired and learning occurs, the
individual is getting closer to reaching the maximum amount of
conditioning possible
 The rate at which conditioning proceeds is not uniform
o The first pairing of CS and US produces the greatest
amount of learning than the second and the second than
third and so on
o This results in the decelerating learning curve
 Other CS Theories
o

Chapter 4: Application of Pavlovian Conditioning

Fear
 Pre-Watson, fear was believed to be innate or caused by faulty reasoning.
 John Watson was the first person to study human emotions systematically
o Watson discovered conditioned emotional responses: objects that are paired
with emotion-arousing items well soon come to elicit those emotions as well.
  He found that objects that are paired with items that arouse fear will come
to elicit emotions of fear
 Emotions that are learned through Pavlovian conditioning (love, hate, fear,
disgust) are conditioned emotional responses
 Phobias are the most common behavior problems
o Little Albert was an experiment where a loud noise was a US for fear and a rat
was paired with the loud noise
 Watson's work led to improvement of treatments
o Treatment could be pairing a CS for fear (rabbit) with a positive US (crackers)
o contributed to our knowledge of phobias and other emotional problems – We have
been able to develop treatments and therapies based on Pavlovian conditioning.
 To reverse the unwanted effects of previous conditioning is counterconditioning
o Exposure therapy is when the person is exposed to the fear-evoking stimulus
while feeling relaxed
o Systematic desensitization is the best known exposure theory
 A list of scary scenes is arranged by the therapist and client and the
therapist has the client imagine them in detail while remaining relaxed
 The scene (CS) is paired with a positive US (relaxing)
 You never feel fear during this process, but preparation for the next scene
o Virtual reality exposure therapy is when someone interacts in an environment
that is neither imaginary nor real
 VRET stands for Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy that uses Pavlov’s
conditioning in a more technological fashion to alleviate fears
(counterconditioning).
 Can be used with trauma, stress, anxiety, and phobia disorders
Prejudice
 Hate toward others can be seen as a conditioned emotional response
o Suggested cure for prejudice: put the prejudiced person in contact with people in
the group he demonstrates prejudice against as a means of desensitization using
social interaction
 Staats&Staats experiment:
o Paired a neutral word with one that was presumably a CS for a positive or
negative response to demonstrate that hate could be learned just as fear was.
Ethnic words (German, Italian, French, Swedish, Dutch, etc) were flashed on a
screen at the same time as the students repeated words the experimenter said.
Some words were neutral, some were positive, and some were negative. Different
groups were tested with different words and were then asked to rate each
nationality on a scale (1=pleasant, 7=unpleasant).
 Results: The ratings showed the feelings aroused by the words Dutch and
Swedish depended on the emotional value of the words with which they
had been paired.
The Paraphilias
 defined as intense and persistent sexual interests other than sexual interest in genital
stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically, normal physically mature,
consenting human partners
o More common in men, very rare in women
 Inclusive but not limited to:
o Voyeurism: viewing a person who is nude or partially clothed or engaging in
sexual activity
o Exhibitionism: displaying one's genitals to another person without their consent
o Fetishism: an attraction to certain objects or body parts (feet)
o Sadism: inflicting pain on a sexual partner
o Machoism: being humiliated or hurt by a sexual partner
o Pedophilia: sexual activity with a prepubescent child
o Rape: having intercourse with a person without consent
 The repeated pairing of children (or pictures of children) with sexual stimulation might
result in paraphilia.
o Learning plays a large role in the development
o These aversive stimuli seemed to eventually lose their aversive qualities
o If painful/degrading experiences are repeatedly paired with pleasurable sexual
stimulation, the aversive stimuli themselves might become arousing.
 Treatment for paraphilia - Aversion therapy: A CS that elicits inappropriate sexual
arousal can be paired with a US that elicits an unpleasant response (ex. nausea).
o Treatment is not always effective, especially for pedophilia and rape, and people
tend to go into relapse. Periodic treatment is usually on a continuous basis.
o Is presenting people with noxious stimuli ethical, especially against their wills?
Other ways to treat severe paraphilia are surgical castration and chemical
castration (suppresses testosterone levels), which are even more invasive.
o Treatment has high potential for abuse – will we eventually use it to bring
unconventional people “into line”?

Taste Aversion
 Researcher John Garcia first tasted licorice when he was 10. Hours later, he came down
with the flu. He could never tolerate licorice again. (He formed a conditioned taste
aversion to it).
o In the Garcia experiment, the CS is saccharin-flavored water and the US is
irradiation
 Rats were given the choice of tap water and saccharin-flavored water.
 They preferred the sweet tasting water.
 Then some of the rats were exposed to gamma radiation while they drank
the sweet water.
  They later avoided the sweet tasting water.
 Also, the higher the level of radiation, the stronger their aversion to
the sweet water.
 Note: Irradiation is a US for nausea, sweet water = CS for nausea
o This is different in two ways:
 CS and US were only paired once (not multiple times)
 Interval of time between CS and US was long (usually a couple seconds
max.)
 The CS and US usually appear close together for conditioning to
be effective, but taste aversions occur when the US is delayed

 Latent inhibition ensures that we are more likely to develop aversions to novel/new
foods than to familiar ones.
 Conditioned taste aversions can be by-products of medical treatments,
o ex chemotherapy
o those which easily pairs with food (patients feel nauseated even before they
receive the drug – “anticipatory nausea”).
o To ensure steady nutrition, some patients eat something unimportant to their diet,
ex. jellybean, so that it pairs with the nausea; the patient’s appetite for healthy
foods will remain intact.
 Conditioned taste aversion over time can produce conditioned food avoidance

Advertising
 People are interested in making products that arouse feelings of fondness
 Advertisers do this by pairing products with stimuli that reliably elicit positive emotions
o Pairing products they want to sell with items that already arouse positive emotions

Drug Addiction
 On many occasions, the amount of drug that proves fatal is no larger than the dose
routinely taken.
o Research reveals that the UR and the CR are not necessarily the same.
o Sometimes the CR is weaker than the UR, but sometimes it can stronger than the
UR.
 In cases of addictive drugs, the body learns to prepare itself by suppressing the body’s
response to it.
o When people repeatedly take a drug in the same setting, aspects of the setting
may become CSs for reduced response for the drug (this accounts for drug
tolerance over time).
o When this stimulus is absent, drug tolerance does not occur because the body
hasn’t prepared itself.
 Also applicable to deaths following drug use.
 o Evidence suggests that the deaths are
o sometimes due to absence of stimuli normally present. Ex. different injection
procedures or unusual locations. One woman usually required 2-3 attempts to
penetrate the vein, and so she nearly died one day when she got it on the first try


Health Care
 Neutral stimulus is paired with a drug or procedure that facilitates immune functioning,
the stimulus might become a CS for a stronger response from the immune system
 Conditioning difficulties can help diagnose disorders
 Conditioning can distinguish between disorders
 The immune system is influenced by Pavlovian conditioning
 Conditioning causes a person with allergies to react in an allergic manner if something
that resembles or smells like the object is presented, but the actual allergen is not
o Allergic reactions: The release of histamines by the immune system when it
senses specific substances known as allergens.
 These histamines attack the allergens and at molecular level and cause
them to be expelled from the body (by sneezing, coughing, etc.).
o Allergens aren’t always genetic.
 Ex. A patient had an allergic reaction to an artificial rose.
o People who are allergic to a substance may become allergic to things frequently
associated with it.
 Conditioning can boost the immune system too