Example of what animals will and will not learn under Garcia's
Biological Constraints
Rats will learn taste predicts illness, but not that taste predicts shock
rats will learn sound predicts shock, but not that sound predicts
nausea
summation test
Train an inhibitor with only one CS, the present it with another CS,
finds that the inhibitor typically will lower response to both CS
(shows animal learns the inhibitor as a separate cue, not a compound
cue)
Retardation Test
use the inhibitory CS as an excitatory CS and see if learning is
impaired, finds learning happens in opposite direction
delayed conditioning
CS terminates when US begins, or CS overlaps with US, creates a
good CR (most effective)
trace conditioning
a delay is given between CS and US occurring, the longer the gap the
slower learning happens
simultaneous conditioning
CS and US are presented at the same time, does not produce strong
response bc CS cannot be used to predict US
backwards conditioning
, CS is presented after the US, makes CS more likely to inhibit than
stimulate
overshadowing
A classical conditioning concept referring to an animal's inability to
infer a relationship between a particular stimulus and response due to
the presence of a more prominent stimulus.
Blocking
Animal acquires response to a CS in phase 1, in phase 2 that CS is
placed sequentially with a new CS, animal fails to learn CS2 because
having learned CS1 predicts US --> blocks learning of other cues
Attentional account assumes
1. That the organism has a limited attentional capacity
2. That a CS must be attended for learning to occur
informational account
1. Random group- If probability of shock is the same regardless of the
signal --> no learning
2. Informative group- If prob of shock is much greater given a signal -
-> conditioned excitation
3. Conditioned inhibition- If probability of shock is much lower given
a signal --> conditioned inhibition
Rescorla-Wagner model
a cognitive model of classical conditioning; it holds that the strength
of the CS-US association is determined by the extent to which the
unconditioned stimulus is unexpected
Lambda (Rescorla-Wagner model)
Asymptote of conditioning that the US can support, the stronger the
US the higher this is (between 0-1)
"V" (Rescorla-Wagner Model)