Animal Learning and Conditioning

What are the three main recovery phenomena that characterise extinction?
1. Spontaneous recovery - re-emergence of extinguished conditioned response after delay
2. Renewal - shift in learning can renew extinguished learning and bring back original response
3. Reinstatement - exposure to the US re-instates original response
What is the main conclusion of the Garcia cue-to-consequence experiment?
Stimuli are selected as cues dependent upon the nature of the subsequent reinforcer.
In the experiment rats were given:
A. water + sound > electric shock (rats attributed shock to the sound)
B. water + sound > toxin or x-ray (rats attributed water to the toxin/x-ray)
Trial and error learning was first studied in a systematic manner by which scientist?
C. Loyd Morgan - animal behaviour should be explained in the simplest possible way
Edward Thorndike - first lab experiment with cat and puzzle box (cat had to escape to receive food,
would eventually find a lever and learn that this results in escape and thus food)
Following acquisition of lever pellets, rats were returned to the home cage for free access to
lab chow or trained pellets. When tested does this experience and hunger or satiety during
test influence subsequent levels of lever press responses (under extinction - no food
conditions)?
All rats receive same accession procedure. Groups 1 and 2 have free access to pellets in home
cage. Groups 3 and 4 have free access to lab chow.

What is the standard experimental design for blocking?

Group 1.
Phase 1: A+
Phase 2: AB+
Group 2.
Phase 1:
Phase 2: AB+
Two groups
Two phases
Two stimuli

Mike LePelleys Lectures

How does Kapur explain the precedes of hallucinations?
Stimuli are attributed too much salience ie. things are more exciting than they ought to be. This
results in a disorder or attention, and a focus on irrelevant stimuli. As a result, patients with
psychosis are unable to filter the relevant from the irrelevant. Hallucinations form because internal
representations have abnormal salience, to the point where they appear to have come from
someone else, rather than from oneself.
internal and external representations given the same salience
What did Perruchet find happened to the probability of an eye blink (anticipatory) and
reported expectancy of an air puff as the number of tone-air puff pairings increases?
When repeated CS-US pairings happen in a row, it decreases the conscious expectancy of the US
ie. people dont expect another US to come. But their body reacts in the opposite way: with
repeated CS-US pairings in a row, the eye-blink responses becomes more frequent. The mind
doesnt expect it but the body does - double dissociation.
anticipatory eye-blinks increase, but you expect it less (gamblers fallacy)
Which conditioning phenomenon occurs at a reduced rate in people with schizophrenia
compared with healthy controls?
Latent inhibition
What phenomenon is the change in liking of a stimulus following pairing with either a
negative or positive outcome?
Evaluative conditioning
What is the negative transfer effect? Which model of associative learning is supported by
this phenomenon?
Negative transfer effect = when learned, previously adaptive responses to one stimulus interferes
with the acquisition of an adaptive response to a novel stimulus similar to the first.
increase the size of the outcome
cue which has previously been paired with medium version of the outcome, and then big version
of the outcome
new cue you havent seen before attracts more attention
Pearce-Hall Model
Are attentional set shifts learned more rapidly for extradimensional or intradimensional
shifts? Which model of learning can best explain this finding?
Intradimensional shifts are learned more rapidly (stimuli appearing in the same dimension) than
extradimensional shifts (stimuli appearing in a different dimension).
Mackintosh Model (pay attention to cues that are good predictors and ignore those that are not)

Gavins Lectures
What did the studies of infant monkeys reveal about attachment? Who developed these
experiments?
Harlow (1958) did studies on infant attachment in monkeys. Showed that monkeys would rather
spend time with a cloth (warm, soft) mother than a wire (cold, hard) mother even when the wire
mother was providing food. Shows that contact comfort is far more important variable than nursing
in determining infant attachment.
Which allele of the serotonin transporter gene 5HT predicts the occurrence of depression?
Is this entirely genetic, environmental or both?
Having two short alleles of the 5HT serotonin transporter gene can predict the occurrence of
depression. Having these alleles alone does not predict depression, nor does maladaptive
environmental situations. But measuring the interaction between the two is a good indicator.
Lesions to which brain region lead to an increase in frequency of meals, production of
insulin and body fat but not increased portion size?
Ventromedial hypothalamus
Which peptide can reduce meal size and increase the number of meals consumed?
CCK
How does the opponent process theory explain the occurrence of drug addiction?
A state = drug euphoria or rush
B state = drug withdrawal (opposes the physiological response to the drug)
The more you engage with A state, the more the B-state is strengthened (comes on faster, gets
stronger, lasts longer). This causes loss of effectiveness of the drug reward and also causes
withdrawal which usually results in taking more drugs.
Continued administration of which drug leads to increased release of dopamine in the
striatum and increased locomotor activity (movement) in response to administration of the
drug?
MDA (and cocaine)

Amys Lectures
Name the receptors that alcohol acts on and whether alcohol is an antagonist or an agonist
GABA receptors. Alcohol is a GABA agonist (which means it increases inhibition).
Glutamate antagonist.
Can neurogenesis occur? Which area of the brain provides evidence for this and what
enhances neurogenesis?
Yes - hippocampus. Exercise and enriching environments can enhance neurogenesis.
What role do the physiological qualities of drugs play in associative learning? (Which
stimulus do they represent in classical conditioning?)
US - something you have a reopens to, regardless of whether or not its been taught to you.
Which genes are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimers disease?
Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), Amyloid Precursor Protein and Presenilin 2
What did the experiments of Lashley demonstrate about the effects of brain lesions on
learning and memory in rats?
Principle of mass action = that performance deficits correlate with the lesion extent ie. the greater
the lesion, the poorer the performance.

What are some treatment strategies for Alzheimers disease?

- Fish oil

- Memantine (NMDA antagonist)

- Red wine