COMMENTS ON RELATIONSHIPS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF SOME CLASSICAL CONDITIONING PHENOMENA



opponent processes in HABITUATION

a-process:
- innate
- response to a stimulus
- always occurs at full strength

b-process:
- innate
- response to a-process, working in opposite direction
- starts weak and lags behind a-process, but over repeated presentations of a stimulus, automatically increases in strength and decreases in lag-time after the a-process
- weakens over rest period, so habituation is not permanent
- requires a-process to occur first


opponent processes in EXTINCTION

excitatory association:
- learned during acquisition phase
- response to CS when it predicts appearance of US, leading to tendency to produce CR
- starts from nothing, reaches full strength and is thereafter permanent (consider evidence of spontaneous recovery, disinhibition, and rapid reacquisition)

inhibitory association:
- learned during extinction phase
- response to CS when it predicts absence of US, leading to tendency not to produce CR
- starts from nothing, reaches full strength over the course of extinction to cancel out excitatory association
- dissipates during rest period leaving only a slight "residue" of inhibition behind (acounting for spontaneous recovery and eventual permanent inhibitory association)
- requires prior excitation as a context, since without prior expectation of something occurring, the absence of something occurring is not specifiable (but note apparent contradiction of this point in latent inhibition / CS pre-exposure effect)




Habituation
A decrease in the strength of a response after repeated presentations of its eliciting stimulus
1) each trial shows smaller decrements in responding (response strength decreases by larger amounts at first, then decreases by smaller and smaller amounts)
2) response recovers over time between blocks of trials
3) habituation occurs faster in next block of trials
4) less habituation when stimulus is more intense
5) habituation continues even when response seems to be gone
6) habituation is stimulus-specific, but generalizes to other stimuli

Extinction
A decrease in the strength of a conditioned response after repeated presentations of the CS without the US
1) each trial shows smaller decrements in responding
2) response recovers over time between blocks of trials (spontaneous recovery)
3) extinction occurs faster in next block of trials
4) extinction proceeds more slowly when CS is more intense
5) extinction continues even when response seems to be gone ("below zero" strengthening of inhibitory association past the point when it's sufficient to cancel out the excitation and produce zero response strength)
6) conditioning in general is stimulus-specific, but generalizes to other stimuli




Habituation: learning to ignore; biases behavior or attention in favor of novel stimuli (which might be more worth paying attention to)

Latent Inhibition / CS Pre-Exposure Effect: learning what not to learn; biases learning or attributions in favor of novel stimuli (which might be better predictors of some significant event, when it occurs)




Latent Inhibition / CS Pre-Exposure Effect: familiarity with CS makes a subsequent conditioning procedure less effective; as if animal learns not to consider familiar and previously non-predictive stimuli when looking for a predictor of some significant event

US Pre-Exposure Effect: familiarity with US makes a subsequent conditioning procedure less effective; as if animal has no need of predictor for a commonly occurring event

Sensitization: isolated strong US leads to increased vigilance, alertness, attentiveness; as if animal is in search of a potential predictor for a significant event; tied with habituation for title of "simplest form of learning"




Drug Tolerance: CR opposes UR; increased strength of learned compensatory CR to the contextual CSs accompanying drug administration (thus requiring larger amounts of drug US to produce a stronger UR to counter the CR)

Withdrawal: CR without UR; effect of compensatory CR to contextual CSs when drug US is not provided (and thus no UR occurs)

Paradoxical Overdose: UR without CR; effect of previously tolerated large drug dose's UR when context changes and CSs are not present (thus providing no compensatory CR to counter the strong UR)