Deck 3: Classical Conditioning: Foundations

Question 1

Describe the similarities and differences among habituation, sensitization, and classical conditioning.

Answer 1

Habituation and sensitization are neurologically based responses to our environment. Classical conditioning teaches how one event and another event are related. All three are for the purpose of survival in the environment, either by reflex or by expectations associated with events.

Question 2

What is object learning, and how is it similar to or different from conventional classical conditioning?

Answer 2

Classical conditioning referred to the training or eliciting of a response through association of a stimuli with an expected outcome. Object learning involves eliciting a response through association of visual features of one stimulus with the features of another stimulus.

Question 3

Why is it difficult to identify the type of conditioning procedure that produces the best conditioning?

Answer 3

To collect conclusive evidence of conditioning an effective test trial must be devised that includes a control group separate from a test group. Additionally the controlled stimulus and the uncontrolled stimulus must be presented in a way that allows them to be associated with each other independent of prior presentations of either stimulus; pseudo-conditioning must also be ruled out. Even with an appropriate design and control, conditioned responding to one of the stimulus is possible.
A search for the best conditioning procedure has been difficult to conclude. Delayed, simultaneous, trace, and backward conditioning have all been proven successful. These successes however, identify different mechanisms for learning, and the differences in methodology of stimulus introduction and temporal factors are not controlled the same way in each method. The difficulty to find the best method is also complicated by what association is being learned; at times the association between stimuli are learned, and other times it is the temporal aspect that is associated.

Question 4

What is a control procedure for excitatory conditioning, and what processes is the control procedure intended to rule out?

Question 5

Are conditioned excitation and conditioned inhibition related? If so, how?

Question 6

Describe procedures for conditioning and measuring conditioned inhibition.

Question 7

Describe four reasons why classical conditioning is of interest to psychologists.