Probability of shock in the presence and absence of CS in fear conditioning.
01 Aug 1968-Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology (J Comp Physiol Psychol)-Vol. 66, Iss: 1, pp 1-5
TL;DR: 2 experiments indicate that CS-US contingency is an important determinant of fear conditioning and that presentation of US in the absence of CS interferes with fear conditioning.
Abstract: 2 experiments indicate that CS-US contingency is an important determinant of fear conditioning and that presentation of US in the absence of CS interferes with fear conditioning. In Experiment 1, equal probability of a shock US in the presence and absence of a tone CS produced no CER suppression to CS; the same probability of US given only during CS produced substantial conditioning. In Experiment 2, which explored 4 different probabilities of US in the presence and absence of CS, amount of conditioning was higher the greater the probability of US during CS and was lower the greater the probability of US in the absence of CS; when the 2 probabilities were equal, no conditioning resulted. Two conceptions of Pavlovian conditioning have been distinguished by Rescorla (1967). The first, and more traditional, notion emphasizes the role of the number of pairings of CS and US in the formation of a CR. The second notion suggests that it is the contingency between CS and US which is important. The notion of contingency differs from that of pairing in that it includes not only what events are paired but also what events are not paired. As used here, contingency refers to the relative probability of occurrence of US in the presence of CS as contrasted with its probability in the absence of CS. The contingency notion suggests that, in fact, conditioning only occurs when these probabilities differ; when the probability of US is higher during CS than at other times, excitatory conditioning occurs; when the probability is lower, inhibitory conditioning results. Notice that the probability of a US can be the same in the absence and presence of CS and yet there can be a fair number of CS-US pairings. It is this that makes it possible to assess the relative importance of pairing and contingency in the development of a CR. Several experiments have pointed to the usefulness of the contingency notion. Rescorla (1966) reported a Pavlovian 1This research was supported by Grants MH13415-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health and GB-6493 from the National Science Foundation, as well as by funds from Yale University.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: The results lend support to the view that biological significance (inherent and acquired) protects stimuli from cue competition effects, a finding that is problematic for many contemporary theories of learning.
Abstract: Miller and Matute (1996) showed that blocking is attenuated when the blocked conditioned stimulus (CS) is “biologically significant” (i.e., when the CS has the potential to elicit vigorous responding of any kind). To the extent that blocking is representative of cue competition, this finding suggests that biological significance protects CSs against cue competition effects in general. In the present experiments, we tested this possibility by examining the influence of biological significance of CSs on other examples of cue competition, namely, overshadowing, the relative stimulus validity effect, and the degraded contingency effect in rats. In Experiment 1, we found that intense auditory stimuli induced transient unconditioned lick suppression, thereby indicating that intense sounds were of high inherent biological significance. In Experiment 2A, we found that cues with high inherent biological significance were protected from overshadowing. In Experiment 2B, this finding was extended to cues with high acquired biological significance, which was obtained through prior pairings with a reinforcer of the valence opposite to that used in the overshadowing treatment. In Experiments 3 and 4, we found that cues with high inherent biological significance attenuated the relative validity effect and the degraded contingency effect, respectively. These results lend support to the view that biological significance (inherent and acquired) protects stimuli from cue competition effects, a finding that is problematic for many contemporary theories of learning.
39 citations
TL;DR: This chapter reviews that cognitive simulation fits computational mechanisms to the constraints of psychological data, but there has been long-term debate over the appropriate starting point for this process, and suggests a more formal rational analysis.
Abstract: Categorization and concept formation are critical activities of intelligence. These processes and the conceptual structures that support them raise important issues at the interface of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. The work presumes that advances in these and other areas are best facilitated by research methodologies that reward interdisciplinary interaction. In particular, a computational model is described of concept formation and categorization that exploits a rational analysis of basic level effects by Gluck and Corter. Their work provides a clean prescription of human category preferences that is adapted to the task of concept learning. Also, their analysis was extended to account for typicality and fan effects, and speculate on how the concept formation strategies might be extended to other facets of intelligence, such as problem solving.
39 citations
TL;DR: The effects of altering the contingency between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) on the acquisition of autoshaped responding was investigated by changing the frequency of unsignaled USs during the intertrial interval.
Abstract: The effects of altering the contingency between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) on the acquisition of autoshaped responding was investigated by changing the frequency of unsignaled USs during the intertrial interval. The addition of the unsignaled USs had an effect on acquisition speed comparable with that of massing trials. The effects of these manipulations can be understood in terms of their effect on the amount of information (number of bits) that the average CS conveys to the subject about the timing of the next US. The number of reinforced CSs prior to acquisition is inversely related to the information content of the CS.
39 citations
Cites background or methods or result from "Probability of shock in the presenc..."
...This information conveyed by the CS about the expected time of the US determines the speed with which CRs emerge....
[...]
...One of these groups (Group 10–0) received all of their reinforcers after a CS presentation—no unsignaled USs were presented during the ITI....
[...]
...Support for a performance component comes from numerous studies that document excitatory associations between CS and US following exposure to the random control procedure (Benedict & Ayres, 1972; Kirkpatrick & Church, 2004; Kremer, 1971; Kremer & Kamin, 1971; Papini & Bitterman, 1990) even after excitatory CRs are no longer evident (Delamater, 1996; Rescorla, 2000)....
[...]
...There are also many examples of random control procedures in which equal reinforcement rates in the CS and ITI attenuate or prevent acquisition of CRs (Rescorla, 1968; see Papini & Bitterman, 1990, for a review)....
[...]
...However, there was a trend toward slowed acquisition in Experiment 1A, and there are other experiments on partial positive contingencies that demonstrated a strong depressive effect of ITI reinforcers (Hallam et al., 1992; Rescorla, 1968)....
[...]
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In the last 15 years, there has been a flourishing of research into the neural basis of reinforcement learning, drawing together insights and findings from psychology, computer science, and neuroscience as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the last 15 years, there has been a flourishing of research into the neural basis of reinforcement learning, drawing together insights and findings from psychology, computer science, and neuroscience. This remarkable confluence of three fields has yielded a growing framework that begins to explain how animals and humans learn to make decisions in real time. Mastering the literature in this sub-field can be quite daunting as this task can require mastery of at least three different disciplines, each with its own jargon, perspectives, and shared background knowledge. In this chapter, we attempt to make this fascinating line of research more accessible to researchers in any of the constitutive sub-disciplines. To this end, we develop a primer for reinforcement learning in the brain that lays out in plain language many of the key ideas and concepts that underpin research in this area. This primer is embedded in a literature review that aims not to be comprehensive, but rather representative of the types of questions and answers that have arisen in the quest to understand reinforcement learning and its neural substrates. Drawing on the basic findings in this research enterprise, we conclude with some speculations about how these developments in computational neuroscience may influence future developments in Artificial Intelligence.
38 citations
Cites background from "Probability of shock in the presenc..."
...Second, Rescorla (1968) found in a series of experiments that a contingency or predictive relationship is crucial for establishing an association between two stimuli....
[...]
Journal Article•
TL;DR: It appears that context can become associated with the CS when it is presented before the CS-US training, and it is concluded that contextual stimuli acquire different functions during normal conditioning.
Abstract: Procedurally, learning has to occur in a context. Several lines of evidence suggest that contextual stimuli actively affect learning and expression of the conditional response. The experimental context can become associated with the unconditional stimulus (US), especially when the US is presented in a context in the absence of a discrete conditional stimulus (CS). Moreover, context can modulate CS-US associations. Finally, it appears that context can become associated with the CS when it is presented before the CS-US training. The purpose of the present paper is to review some of the relevant literature that considers the context as an important feature of Pavlovian conditioning and to discuss some of the main learning theories that incorporate the context into their theoretical framework. The paper starts by mentioning historical positions that considered context an important variable in conditioning and then describes how the approach to contextual conditioning changed with the modern study of Pavlovian conditioning. Various forms of measurement of context conditioning are presented and the associative strength attached to context in several experimental paradigms is examined. The possible functions that context may acquire during conditioning are pointed out and related to major learning theories. Moreover, the effect of certain neurological manipulations on context conditioning is presented and these results are discussed in terms of possible functions that the context might acquire during Pavlovian conditioning. It is concluded that contextual stimuli acquire different functions during normal conditioning. A procedure in which animals are exposed to an aversive US immediately after they are placed in the experimental context is suggested as a useful control for the study of context conditioning.
38 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: This "truly random" control procedure leads to a new conception of Pavlovian conditioning postulating that the contingency between CS and US, rather than the pairing of CS andUS, is the important event in conditioning.
Abstract: The traditional control procedures for Pavlovian conditioning are examined and each is found wanting. Some procedures introduce nonassociative factors not present in the experimental procedure while others transform the excitatory, experimental CS-US contingency into an inhibitory contingency. An alternative control procedure is suggested in which there is no contingency whatsoever between CS and US. This \"truly random\" control procedure leads to a new conception of Pavlovian conditioning postulating that the contingency between CS and US, rather than the pairing of CS and US, is the important event in conditioning. The fruitfulness of this new conception of Pavlovian conditioning is illustrated by 2 experimental results.
1,328 citations
301 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, three groups of dogs were trained with different kinds of Pavlovian fear conditioning for three different types of dogs: randomly and independently; for a second group, CSs predicted the occurrence of USs; and for a third group, S predicted the absence of the USs.
Abstract: Three groups of dogs were Sidman avoidance trained They then received different kinds of Pavlovian fear conditioning For one group CSs and USs occurred randomly and independently; for a second group, CSs predicted the occurrence of USs; for a third group, CSs predicted the absence of the USs The CSs were subsequently presented while S performed the avoidance response CSs which had predicted the occurrence or the absence of USs produced, respectively, increases and decreases in avoidance rate For the group with random CSs and USs in conditioning, the CS had no effect upon avoidance
160 citations
64 citations
TL;DR: Rats in an experimental group were given 30 trials of differential CER and then the CS+ and CS− were combined during CER extinction, resulting in less suppression for the experimental group than shown by a control group, interpreted as a demonstration of the active inhibitory properties of CS−.
Abstract: Rats in an experimental group were given 30 trials of differential CER and then the CS+ and CS− were combined during CER extinction. The combination resulted in less suppression for the experimental group than shown by a control group which had a CS+ and a formerly random stimulus combined during extinction. This was interpreted as a demonstration of the active inhibitory properties of CS−.
44 citations
"Probability of shock in the presenc..." refers background in this paper
...Although such an account is plausible for the present data, it fails to explain the active inhibition of fear found by Rescorla and LoLordo (1965), Rescorla (1966), and Hammond (1967)....
[...]