MODULE 2: WEEK 4 [FEB 19-23] reflexes, relatively impermanent.

Because these psychic

CHAPTER 3 | PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING [CHANCE] reflexes depend on experience, they vary considerably from
individual to individual. Pavlov called these conditional
PREVIEW reflexes because they “depend on very many conditions”.
Pavlovian conditioning is not about teaching dogs to slobber at the sound of a bell,  An unconditional reflex consists of an unconditional stimulus (US)
nor is it about learning that one event predicts another. It is about one of the major and the behavior it evokes, the unconditional response (UR).
ways that events change our behavior, including the behavior we call thoughts and Unconditional stimuli are typically events that are important to survival.
feelings. Understanding it is central to understanding people, including ourselves.  Pavlov’s next question was, How does a neutral stimulus (one that
does not naturally evoke a reflex response) come to do so? How, for
example, does a food dish become a CS for salivating?
o Pavlov found that virtually any stimulus could become a
1. BEGINNINGS
conditional stimulus if it regularly preceded an unconditional
 One of Pavlov’s goals was to understand how the body breaks food
stimulus.
down into chemicals that can be absorbed into the blood. This process
 Each pairing of CS and US is one trial, and the procedure (or
starts with the salivary reflex: When food is taken into the mouth, it
experience) is best known as Pavlovian or classical conditioning.
triggers the flow of saliva. The saliva dilutes the food and starts
o However, it also goes by a variety of other names, including
breaking it down chemically. In a typical experiment on the salivary
sign learning, signal learning, stimulus learning, S-S learning,
reflex, Pavlov would bring a dog into the laboratory, put food into its
respondent learning, and probably one or two others.
mouth, and observe the result.
 There are two defining elements of Pavlovian conditioning.
 Pavlov was fascinated by the adaptability of the glands.
o [1] First, the behavior elicited by the US is a reflex response,
o So, the reflex action of the gland depended on the nature of
such as salivating, eye blinking, sweating, or jumping in
the stimulus.
response to a loud noise.
 The cleverness of the glands did not end there, however. When a dog
o [2] Second, the appearance of the two stimuli is independent
had been fed several times, it began to salivate before anything was
of behavior; the CS and the US are presented regardless of
put into its mouth. In fact, it might start salivating as soon as it entered
what the animal or person does.
the laboratory.
 What fascinated Pavlov was that the dogs did not salivate when they
were first brought into the laboratory, but only after they had been fed
there repeatedly. 3. HIGHER-ORDER CONDITIONING
o How could this be? How could experience alter the action of  The basic Pavlovian procedure consists of presenting a neutral
a gland? This question preoccupied Pavlov to the point of stimulus followed by an unconditional stimulus. Suppose, however,
making him shift his attention to psychic reflexes. that a neutral stimulus precedes a well-established CS. The CS is not
a US, yet thanks to conditioning it does elicit a CR. So, if you paired a
neutral stimulus with the CS, would the neutral stimulus become
another CS?
2. BASIC PROCEDURES
o G. P. Frolov decided to find out.
 There are, Pavlov concluded, two distinct kinds of reflexes.
 First he trained a dog to salivate at the sound of a
o [1] One kind is the largely inborn and usually permanent
ticking metronome by following the ticking with food.
reflex found in virtually all members of a species and that
When the metronome was well established as a CS
varies little from individual to individual. Pavlov called these
for salivating, Frolov held up a black square and
unconditional reflexes because they occur more or less
then activated the metronome:
unconditionally.
o [2] The second type of reflex is not present at birth; it must be
acquired through experience and is, compared to innate
  At first the dog salivated at the sound of the
metronome but not at the sight of the black square.
After several pairings of the two stimuli, however, the
dog began salivating when it saw the square. The
black square had become a CS for salivating even
though it had never been followed by food:
 The procedure of pairing a neutral stimulus with a
well-established CS is called higher-order
conditioning.
 Higher-order conditioning greatly increases the importance of
Pavlovian conditioning because it means that many more stimuli can
come to elicit conditional responses
 Higher-order conditioning may be even more important to humans
than it is to rats. Among people, words are particularly likely to become
conditional stimuli by being paired with conditional stimuli—including
other words.
4. MEASURING PAVLOVIAN LEARNING
 In most studies of Pavlovian conditioning, the CS and US are
presented close together. Given that the US is by definition capable of
evoking the UR, how is it possible to tell when learning occurs?
o Suppose, for example, that you sound a tone and then, 2
seconds after the tone stops, you put food into a dog’s mouth.
How can you tell when the dog is salivating to the tone as
well as to the food?
o One answer is to note when salivation begins. In this case,
you can measure the amount of learning in terms of the
latency of the response—the interval between the onset of
the CS and the first appearance of saliva. As the number of
CS–US pairings increases, the response latency diminishes;
the dog may begin salivating even before the tone stops
sounding
 In some conditioning studies, the interval between CS onset and the
appearance of the US is so short that using response latency as a
measure of learning is difficult. One way to test for conditioning in
these situations is to use test trials (also called probe trials).
o This involves presenting the CS alone (i.e., without the US)
periodically, perhaps on every fifth trial. If the dog salivates
even when it gets no food, the salivation is clearly a
conditional response to the tone. Sometimes, test trials are
presented at random intervals.
o Learning is thus represented as an increase in the frequency
of the conditional response.
 One problem in attempting to measure Pavlovian learning is a
phenomenon known as pseudoconditioning. Pseudoconditioning is
the tendency of a neutral stimulus to elicit a CR after a US has elicited
a reflex response.
o A strong stimulus, such as a needle jab, can sensitize you to
other stimuli so that you react to them more or less as you
would react to the strong stimulus. If a nurse jabs you with a
needle, you may then wince when he coughs, even if he did
not cough before jabbing you. You wince, not because
conditioning has occurred, but because the needle jab has
sensitized you to other stimuli.
 If a stimulus has not been paired with a US, any effect it produces
cannot be the result of conditioning. A problem arises, however, when
a stimulus has been paired with a strong US.
o Is the behavior that occurs a conditional response, or is it the
result of the earlier exposure to a strong stimulus? We can
determine the answer by presenting the CS and US to control
group subjects in a random manner so that the stimuli
sometimes appear alone and sometimes appear together.
o After this we can compare the performance of these control
subjects with experimental subjects for which the CS and US
always appear together.
o If subjects in the experimental group perform differently from
subjects in the control group, the difference in behavior may
be attributed to conditioning.
5. VARIABLES AFFECTING PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING
 The course of Pavlovian conditioning depends on several variables.
5.1. HOW THE CS AND THE US ARE PAIRED
 Pavlovian conditioning involves the pairing of stimuli. The amount of
learning that occurs depends to a large extent on how the stimuli are
presented. There are four basic ways of pairing stimuli
o [1] In trace conditioning, the CS begins and ends before the
US appears. There is, then, a gap between the two stimuli.
Trace conditioning gets its name from the assumption that the
CS leaves some sort of neural trace.
o [2] In delay conditioning, the CS and US overlap. That is,
the US appears before the CS disappears
 Some researchers distinguish between short-delay
and long-delay procedures. The difference refers to
the length of time the CS is present before the US
appears.
 In the short-delay procedure, the CS may be
present from several milliseconds (a millisecond is
0.001 second) to a few seconds before the US
appears.
 In the long-delay procedure, the CS may persist
for several seconds or even minutes before the US
appears. 5.2. CS-US CONTINGENCY
 Initially, short- and long-delay procedures produce  A contingency is an if–then statement. One event, X, is contingent on
similar results: A conditional response begins to another event, Y, to the extent that X occurs if and only if Y occurs.
appear soon after the CS appears. But in the case  Various experiments have suggested that the effectiveness of
of long-delay conditioning, the CR latency (the Pavlovian procedures varies with the degree of contingency between
interval between the onset of the CS and the CR) CS and US.
gradually increases. o In one study, Robert Rescorla exposed rats to a tone followed
o Both trace and delay procedures can produce conditional by a mild shock.
responses, and most studies of Pavlovian conditioning o The results showed that the amount of learning depended on
involve one of these two procedures. However, other how reliably the CS predicted shock. When the CS was
procedures for pairing CS and US are possible. nearly always followed by the US, conditioning occurred.
o [3] In simultaneous conditioning, the CS and US coincide When a shock was about as likely to occur in the absence of
exactly. Both stimuli begin and end at the same time. The a CS as in its presence (the 40% group), little or no learning
simultaneous appearance of CS and US is probably rare in took place.
the natural environment, but something approximating it may o Rescorla concluded that contingency was essential to
occur. Pavlovian learning, but later work raised doubts about this.
 Simultaneous conditioning is a weak procedure for o Nevertheless, we can say that, other things being equal, the
establishing a conditional response. rate of Pavlovian conditioning will vary with the degree of
o [4] In backward conditioning, the CS follows the US. CS–US contingency.
 It is very difficult to produce a CR with the backward o In the laboratory, it is a simple matter to ensure rapid learning
procedure. Pavlov described some attempts made by creating a high degree of contingency between the CS
at backward conditioning in his laboratory. and US. Pavlov was able to pair a ticking metronome with
food so that if the metronome was ticking, the dog always got
food, and if it was not ticking, the dog never got food. Outside
 the laboratory, however, life is more complicated. A stimulus
will sometimes precede a particular US and other times will
appear alone—or, to be more precise, it will appear with
stimuli other than the US.
5.3. CS-US CONTIGUITY
 Contiguity refers to the closeness in time or space between two
events. In Pavlovian conditioning, contiguity usually refers to the
interval between the CS and US. This interval is called the
interstimulus interval (ISI).
o In trace conditioning, the ISI is the interval between the
termination of the CS and the onset of the US; in delay
conditioning, where the two stimuli overlap, it refers to the
interval between the onset of the CS and the onset of the US.
 In general, the shorter the ISI, the more quickly conditioning occurs.
However, the simultaneous procedure, with no interval at all, is
ineffective. The optimum interval depends on a number of variables.
 One important variable is the kind of response being learned.
o For instance, in establishing a conditional eyeblink response,
the ideal CS–US interval is usually less than one-half second.
In fear conditioning, in which a stimulus is paired with a
stimulus that arouses fear, the ISI may be much longer,
perhaps several minutes.
o And it is possible to obtain very good results with long CS–US
intervals in studies of taste aversion. Taste aversion
conditioning usually consists of pairing a distinctive taste
with a substance that induces nausea.
 The optimum CS–US interval also varies according to the type of
conditioning procedure used, with short intervals generally being less
important in delay conditioning than in trace conditioning. However,
even in trace conditioning, extremely short intervals may not work well,
as a study by Gregory Kimble demonstrates.
 It is difficult to generalize about the role of contiguity in Pavlovian
conditioning. Although shorter intervals are generally preferable to
longer ones, the ideal interval varies in complex ways from situation to
situation.
o Contiguity is complicated, but it cannot be ignored because it
affects the success of any given conditioning procedure one
way or another.
5.4. STIMULUS FEATURES
 Researchers have used all sorts of stimuli in conditioning experiments,
but not all are highly effective. The physical characteristics of the
CS and US affect the pace of conditioning.
 It might seem that, given several neutral stimuli, one would serve as a
CS as well as another. But although nearly any stimulus can become a
CS, some serve the purpose far more readily than others.
o This is illustrated by experiments in which the CS consists of
two or more stimuli presented simultaneously. Such a
compound stimulus is paired with a US for one or more
trials, after which the experimenter tests for conditioning by
presenting the compound stimulus and each component of
the CS alone.
 In one of the first studies of compound stimuli, one
of Pavlov’s assistants simultaneously presented cold
and tactile stimulation to a dog, followed by a few
drops of mild acid in the mouth (a US for salivation).
 Then the experimenter tested the dog with the cold
stimulus alone, the tactile stimulus alone, and the
compound stimulus.
 The results revealed that although both the tactile
stimulus and the compound stimulus were effective
conditional stimuli, the cold stimulus alone was
utterly ineffective.
 This phenomenon is known as overshadowing because, as Pavlov
noted, “The effect of one [stimulus] was found very commonly to
overshadow the effect of the others almost completely”. The
overshadowed stimulus does not go entirely unnoticed; it simply does
not become an effective CS.
 Perhaps the chief distinguishing characteristic of an effective CS is its
intensity: Strong stimuli overshadow weak ones.
 The intensity of the US is also very important, with stronger stimuli
producing better results, in general, than weaker ones.
 It is possible, however, for either a CS or a US to be too intense. In
eyelid conditioning, a bright light may make a better CS than a dim
one, but if the light is very strong, it may be an unconditional stimulus
for blinking and will therefore interfere with learning.
 Some stimuli are inherently more likely to become conditional stimuli
than others.
  The ability of a stimulus to become a CS also depends on the nature
of the US. In general, conditioning proceeds best when both the CS
and the US affect internal receptors or when both affect external
receptors
5.5. PRIOR EXPERIENCE WITH CS AND US
 The effects of a conditioning procedure depend partly on the
individual’s previous exposure to the stimuli that will serve as CS and
US.
 Research shows that the appearance of a stimulus without the US
interferes with the ability of that stimulus to become a CS later. This
phenomenon is called latent inhibition.
o It probably occurs at least partly because prior exposure
undermines the contingency between the CS and US during
training.
o If a CS sometimes appears alone during training, conditioning
proceeds more slowly, so it is hardly surprising that exposure
to the CS alone before training interferes with conditioning.
Janice McPhee and colleagues (2001) added a 28-day
interval between the CS preexposure and the conditioning
session, yet the preexposure still interfered with conditioning.
 Latent inhibition suggests that novel stimuli (stimuli with which the
individual has had little or no experience) are more likely to become
conditional stimuli than are stimuli that have appeared many times in
the absence of the US.
o But what if the novel stimulus is part of a compound stimulus
that includes an effective CS? Suppose, for example, that a
researcher conducts an experiment on Pavlovian learning in
rats, first by repeatedly pairing a tone and an electric shock,
then by repeatedly pairing a compound stimulus consisting of
the tone and a novel stimulus (light) with the shock. What will
happen if the researcher now presents the light alone?
o Leon Kamin performed this experiment and found that the
light did not become a CS. This phenomenon, called
blocking, resembles overshadowing in that one stimulus
interferes with the ability of another to become a CS. In
overshadowing, however, the effect is the result of
differences between the stimuli in characteristics such as
intensity; in blocking, the effect is due to prior experience
with one part of a compound stimulus.
 Blocking would seem to be a useful phenomenon. Exposure to a
stimulus that signals an important event, such as the availability of
food or a danger such as a predator, helps us prepare for that event
and thereby survive. But there is little additional benefit from duplicate
signals; in blocking, we are merely ignoring duplicate signals.
o Blocking might, however, work against us. When we eat
foods that make us sick to our stomach, we tend to feel
nauseated when we taste those foods again. We therefore
avoid those foods, and that can help us survive.
 There is another way in which experience with a neutral stimulus can
affect later conditioning.
o Suppose two neutral stimuli, such as a bell and a light, are
repeatedly presented together but are not paired with a US.
Then one of these stimuli, perhaps the bell, is repeatedly
paired with an unconditional stimulus so that it becomes a
CS. What effect will this procedure have on the capacity of
the light to become a CS?
o Wilfred Brogden, using dogs as subjects, paired a light and
a bell for 2 seconds 20 times a day for ten days. Then, for
some of the dogs, he repeatedly paired the bell with a mild
shock to one of the animal’s front legs to elicit a reflex
movement.
o Next, Brogden presented the light to see what would happen.
He found that this stimulus often elicited a CR even though it
had never been paired with the US. Brogden called this
phenomenon sensory preconditioning. Dogs that had not
been exposed to the bell–light pairing did not respond to the
light in this way. In general, then, a stimulus will become a CS
more rapidly if it has been paired with another stimulus that
has since become a CS.
5.6. NUMBER OF CS-US PAIRINGS
 Because conditioning requires the pairing of stimuli, it seems logical
that the more often the CS and US appear together, the more likely a
conditional response is to occur. In general, nature accepts this logic.
However, the relationship between the number of stimulus pairings
and the amount of learning is not linear: The first several pairings
are more important than later ones.
 From a survival standpoint, the curvilinear relationship between CS–
US pairings and learning makes excellent sense. If important events
reliably occur together, the sooner the individual adapts, the better.
 The number of CS–US pairings required to produce a CR varies
greatly. In some cases a hundred or more pairings produce only a
weak CR; in others, a single pairing is effective.
5.7. INTERTRIAL INTERVAL 6.
 The CS–US interval is important to learning. Another interval that
affects the rate of conditioning is the gap between successive trials.
(Recall that each pairing of the CS and US is one trial.) The intertrial
interval can vary from about a second to several years.
 In general, experiments comparing various intertrial intervals find that
longer intervals are more effective than shorter ones. While the
optimum interval between CS and US is often a second or less, the
best intertrial interval may be 20 seconds or more.
5.8. OTHER VARIABLES
 The variables discussed thus far are perhaps the most important, but
many others affect the course of Pavlovian conditioning.
o Harry Braun and Richard Geiselhart compared eyelid
conditioning in children, young adults, and senior citizens.
Learning was closely related to age; in fact, the procedure
was not effective in establishing a conditional eyeblink in the
oldest subjects.
o Temperament can also affect conditioning. Pavlov noticed
that some dogs are highly excitable, whereas others are
much more sedate. He found that these differences, which
may be largely due to heredity, affect the rate of learning: the
more excitable dogs learned faster.
o Stress also affects conditioning. Janet Taylor found that
7.
anxious students acquired conditional responses more
quickly than those who were more relaxed.
o Richard Servatius and colleagues also found that, in general,
stress facilitated Pavlovian learning, but Michael Zorawski
and his colleagues found that the effects of stress may vary
with gender.
 The variables that affect conditioning interact in important ways.
o For example, combining naturally significant stimuli (e.g.,
pictures of snakes) and intense USs is particularly likely to
produce a strong CR quickly. It is easy to see how natural
selection favors such propensities.
o Many other variables affect the course of conditioning. Once
a conditional response is well established, however, it tends
to be quite durable and may last for many years. In fact,
undoing the effects of conditioning can be difficult, or even
impossible.
EXTINCTION OF CONDITIONAL RESPONSES
 If, however, the CS is repeatedly presented without the US, the
conditional response will become weaker and weaker. The procedure
of repeatedly presenting the CS alone is called extinction.
 At first glance, extinction looks something like forgetting. However,
forgetting refers to a deterioration in performance following a period
without practice.
o Extinction is a very different procedure. Thus, we can view
extinction as a form of conditioning in which the CS is paired
with the absence of the US.
 Pavlov discovered that if, after a response seemed to have been
extinguished, he discontinued training for a time and then presented
the CS again, CR appears again. This reappearance of a CR after
extinction is called spontaneous recovery. If Pavlov once again
presented the CS alone several times, the CR would rapidly
extinguish.
 Multiple extinctions may eliminate spontaneous recovery, but this does
not mean the effects of conditioning have been entirely undone. This is
evident from Pavlov’s observation that an extinguished CR usually can
be reestablished far more readily than it was established initially.
 Like conditioning, extinction of conditioning is influenced by numerous
variables.
THEORIES OF CONDITIONING
 There is no unified theory of Pavlovian conditioning, no set of
propositions that together account for all of the findings in the
conditioning literature. However, a number of theories have been
proposed, and each has its supporters.
7.1. STIMULUS SUBSTITUTION THEORY
 Pavlov’s attempt to understand conditioning focused on the nature of
the conditional response. What exactly is the CR? His answer: The
CR is the UR.
 Remember that Pavlov was a physiologist, so his approach was to
think about the physiological mechanisms involved in reflexes. He
assumed that in an innate reflex, the US stimulates nerve fibers, which
in turn stimulate other nerve fibers that evoke the UR. These neural
links are what would now be called hard wired; that is, part of the
innate structure of the organism.
  What happens during conditioning? Pavlov proposed that conditioning
involves the formation of a new neurological connection between the
CS neurons and the US neurons. By repeatedly pairing a bell with
food, Pavlov said, a new neural link is formed from the CS neurons to
the US neurons so that the bell comes to stimulate the US area of the
brain, which then triggers the UR.
o A US and a well-established CS both stimulate the area of
the brain that evokes the UR. Thus, the CR and the UR are
the same; the difference is that in one case the neural link to
the US area is innate, and in the other it is acquired.
 According to Pavlov, then, conditioning does not involve the
acquisition of any new behavior, but rather the tendency to respond in
old ways to new stimuli. The CS merely substitutes for the US in
evoking the reflex response, hence the name stimulus substitution
theory.
 Higher-order conditioning might also be accounted for by stimulus
substitution theory: A CS2 presumably stimulates the CS2 region of
the brain, which stimulates the CS1 region, which stimulates the US
region, which evokes the CR.
 But not all the facts from conditioning research support
stimulus substitution.
o A critical problem is that there is evidence that the CR and
UR are not the same. As a rule, the conditional response is
weaker than, occurs less reliably than, and appears more
slowly than the UR. These differences are not too
troublesome; however The CS may simply be said to provide
weaker stimulation of the US area of the brain; hence, the CR
is weaker than the UR.
 But there are often qualitative differences between conditional and
unconditional responses.
 A more serious problem for Pavlov’s theory is the finding that the CR is
sometimes the opposite of the UR.
7.2. PREPARATORY RESPONSE THEORY
 Gregory Kimble proposed that the UR is an innate response
designed to deal with a US, but the CR is a response designed to
prepare for the US. This is known as preparatory response theory.
o A study by M. S. Fanselow illustrates. If a rat receives an
electric shock, it responds by jumping.
o Fanselow preceded the shock with a tone. The rats soon
responded to the tone, but not by jumping; instead they
“froze.”
 One interpretation of this result is that the rats
innately respond to painful stimuli by jumping, but
respond to events that precede pain by freezing. In
the wild, rats do not often get electrical shocks, but
they do get attacked by animals—snakes, cats,
dogs, foxes, and people, among others.
 If a rat is quietly snacking on some grain in a barn
and suddenly a house cat sinks its teeth into the
rat’s neck, the rat might break free and survive if it
suddenly leaps into the air. However, if the rat leaps
into the air when it merely sees a cat or hears it
meow, this could lead to a fatal attack. By freezing,
the rat improves the odds that it will go unnoticed,
and prepares it to jump or run if the cat attacks.
7.3. COMPENSATORY RESPONSE THEORY
 Shepard Siegel offers a variation of the preparatory theory called
compensatory response theory. Siegel argues that the CR prepares
the animal for the US by compensating for its effects.
o The unconditional response to morphine, for instance,
includes decreased sensitivity to pain, but the CR to stimuli
associated with morphine is increased sensitivity to pain.
o In this case, the person prepares for the drug by suppressing
the body’s response to it. This means that when people
repeatedly take a drug in a particular setting, aspects of the
setting may become CS for reduced responses to the drug.
 Siegel’s theory may also account for certain cases of sudden death
following drug use.
o Such deaths are commonly attributed to accidental overdose,
but sometimes they occur following a dose that, given the
person’s history of drug use, should not have been fatal.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the deaths are sometimes
due to the absence of stimuli normally present when people
take the drug.
7.4. RESCORLA-WAGNER MODEL
 The Rescorla-Wagner model argues that there is a limit to the amount
of conditioning that can occur in the pairing of two stimuli. One
determinant of this limit is the nature of the US.
 o Pairing a bell with a bit of juicy steak, for example, is more
likely to produce strong conditioned salivation than pairing a
bell with a piece of dry bread, and dry bread is likely to work
better than a piece of cardboard.
 Nor are the characteristics of the US the only variables affecting
learning. Certain stimuli become CS in a few pairings, while other
stimuli can be paired with a US hundreds of times without much effect.
 There is a limit to how much a dog can salivate, and this means that
there is a limit to the amount of conditioning that can occur, even with
the most effective CS and US. Further, each time a CS and US are
paired and some learning occurs, the individual gets closer to reaching
the maximum amount of conditioning possible.
 The rate at which conditioning proceeds is not, however, uniform. The
first pairing of CS and US usually produces more learning than the
second pairing, and the second produces more learning than the third,
and so on.
o Rescorla and Wagner realized that these ideas—that there is
a limit to the amount of conditioning that can occur, that the
limit depends on characteristics of the CS and US, and that
each successive pairing produces less learning—can be
stated mathematically in a formula:
 The formula looks complicated, but it merely expresses in
mathematical form the ideas just covered.
 The amount of learning on any given trial is indicated as a change
(∆, delta, the symbol for change) in the strength of the association
(V, for value) on that trial (n). This number is determined by a
constant (c, a number falling between 0 and 1) based on the
characteristics of the CS and US being paired; the total amount of
learning that can occur (lambda, λ, a number equal to or greater
than 0) with the US being used; and the amount of learning that has
occurred as of the previous trial.
o The formula means that if you want to predict the amount of
learning on a given trial, you subtract the amount of learning
that has occurred as of the previous trial from the maximum
amount of learning that can occur and multiply that number
by a constant representing the conditionability of the stimuli
paired.
 The [1] first thing you are likely to notice is that increasing the potency
of the stimuli used results in a huge increase in the amount of learning
on the first trial. The [2] second thing you might notice is that more
learning occurs in three trials than occurred in five trials with a weaker
US.
o Blocking occurs because by the time CS1 is combined the
stimuli with CS2, nearly all the learning that can occur has
already occurred. In a sense, the first CS “uses up” what the
US has to offer, and there just is not much conditioning
available.
 Blocking occurs, then, because there’s very little learning left to occur.
In a sense, the US has “taught” nearly everything it can.
7.5. OTHER CS THEORIES
 The Nicholas Mackintosh (1974) offers one. His theory suggests that
learning depends on which events in the environment we attend
to, and that depends largely on how well that event predicts the
US.
o Thus, if a tone is followed by a shock 90% of the time, it is
likely to be noticed and so will become a CS; if it is followed
by shock 10% of the time, it is far less likely to attract
attention and therefore unlikely to become a CS.
o Unfortunately, sometimes an event reliably predicts the US
yet does not become a CS as readily as one that is less
predictive.
 John Pearce and Geoffrey Hall also assume that attention to the CS
is of critical importance in conditioning. According to their theory,
organisms pay attention to novel events, not familiar ones. So, if the
appearance of a US is surprising, we will pay attention to the events
that precede it.
o Thus, if a CS occurs alone on one trial, and then the US
follows it on the next, this is a surprise and draws attention to
the CS, so learning occurs. This theory also has its critics,
however
 MODULE 2: WEEK 4 [FEB 19-23]
CHAPTER 4 | CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: MECHANISMS [DOMJAN]
CHAPTER PREVIEW
Chapter 4 continues the discussion of classical conditioning, focusing on the
mechanisms and outcomes of this type of learning. The discussion is organized
around three key issues. First, I will describe features of stimuli that determine
their effectiveness as conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. Then, I will
discuss factors that determine the types of responses that come to be made to
conditioned stimuli and how conditioning alters how organisms respond to
the unconditioned stimulus. In the third and final section of the chapter, I will
discuss the mechanisms of learning involved in the development of
conditioned responding.
1. WHAT MAKES EFFECTIVE CONDITIONED AND UNCONDITIONED
STIMULI?
 The question was first posed by Pavlov but continues to attract the
attention of contemporary researchers.
1.1. INITIAL RESPONSES TO THE STIMULI
 According to their definitions, the CS does not elicit the conditioned
response initially but comes to do so because of becoming associated
with the US. By contrast, the US is effective in eliciting the target
response from the outset (unconditionally) without any special training.
 Pavlov’s definitions were stated in terms of the elicitation of the
response to be conditioned. Because of this, identifying potential CSs
and USs requires comparing the responses elicited by each stimulus
before conditioning. Such a comparison makes the identification of
CSs and USs relative
1.2. NOVELTY OF CONDITIONED AND UNCONDITIONED STIMULI
 The behavioral impact of a stimulus depends on its novelty. Highly
familiar stimuli elicit less vigorous reactions than do novel stimuli.
 Novelty is also important in classical conditioning. If either the
conditioned or the unconditioned stimulus is highly familiar, learning
occurs more slowly than if the CS and US are novel.
1.2.1. THE LATENT-INHIBITION OR CS-PREEXPOSURE EFFECT
 Numerous studies have shown that if a stimulus is highly familiar, it will
not be as effective as a CS than if it were novel. This phenomenon is
called the latent-inhibition effect or CS-preexposure effect.
Experiments on the latent-inhibition effect involve two phases.
o [1] Participants are first given repeated presentations of the
CS by itself. This is called the preexposure phase because it
comes before the Pavlovian conditioning trials. CS
preexposure makes the CS highly familiar and of no
particular significance because at this point the CS is
presented alone.
o [2] After the preexposure phase, the CS is paired with a US
using conventional classical conditioning procedures. The
common result is that participants are slower to acquire
responding because of the CS preexposure.
o Thus, CS preexposure disrupts or retards learning.
 Latent inhibition is like habituation. Both phenomena serve to limit
processing and attention to stimuli that are presented without a
US and are therefore inconsequential.
 The primary theoretical explanation of latent inhibition is that CS
preexposure reduces attention to the CS.
1.2.2. THE US-PREEXPOSURE EFFECT
 Experiments on the importance of US novelty are similar in design to
CS-preexposure experiments.
 The US-preexposure effect has been observed not only in appetitive
conditioning but also in a variety of other situations, including fear
conditioning, taste aversion learning, and drug conditioning.
1.3. CS AND US INTENSITY AND SALIENCE
 Another important stimulus variable for classical conditioning is the
intensity of the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.
o More vigorous conditioned responding occurs when more
intense conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are used.
 Stimulus intensity is one factor that contributes to what is more
generally called stimulus salience. The term salience is not well
defined, but it roughly corresponds to significance or noticeability.
o Theories of learning typically assume that learning will occur
more rapidly with more salient stimuli. One can make a
stimulus more salient or significant by making it more intense
and, hence, more attention-getting.
o One can also make a stimulus more salient by making it more
relevant to the biological needs of the organism.
 Another way to increase the salience of a CS is to make it more like
the kinds of stimuli an animal is likely to encounter in its natural
environment.
1.4. CS-US RELEVANCE, OR BELONGINGNESS
 Another variable that governs the rate of classical conditioning is the
extent to which the CS is relevant to or belongs with the US
  Garcia and Koelling’s experiment demonstrates the principle of CS–
US relevance, or belongingness.
o Learning depended on the relevance of the CS to the US.
 Taste became readily associated with illness, and
audiovisual cues became readily associated with
peripheral pain.
 Rapid learning occurred only if the CS was
combined with the appropriate US
 The CS–US relevance effect obtained by Garcia and Koelling was not
readily accepted at first. However, numerous subsequent studies have
confirmed the original findings
o The selective-association effect occurs even in rats one
day after birth. This observation indicates that extensive
experience with tastes and sickness (or audiovisual cues and
peripheral pain) is not necessary for the stimulus-relevance
effect.
o Rather, the phenomenon appears to reflect a genetic
predisposition for the selective learning of certain
combinations of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.
1.5. LEARNING WITHOUT AN UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS
 As it turns out, Pavlovian conditioning can also take place in situations
where you do not encounter a US. There are two different forms of
classical conditioning without a US. One is higher-order conditioning
and the other is sensory preconditioning.
1.5.1. HIGHER-ORDER CONDITIONING
 Irrational fears are often learned through higher-order conditioning.
 Higher-order conditioning occurs in two phases.
o [1] During the first phase, a cue (call it CS1) is paired with a
US often enough to condition a strong response to CS1.
o Once CS1 elicited the conditioned response, pairing CS1 with
a new stimulus CS2 was able to condition CS2 to also elicit
the conditioned response. The conditioning of CS2 occurred
in the absence of the US.
 As the term “higher order” implies, conditioning may be considered to
operate at different levels. If after becoming conditioned, CS2 were
used to condition yet another stimulus, CS3, that would be third-order
conditioning.
 The procedure for second-order conditioning is similar to the standard
procedure for inhibitory conditioning.
o In both cases, one conditioned stimulus is paired with the US,
and a second CS is paired with the first one without the
unconditioned stimulus
 Why does such a procedure produce conditioned inhibition in some
cases and excitatory second-order conditioning under other
circumstances?
o One important factor appears to be the number of non-US or
nonreinforced trials. With relatively few noUS trials,
secondorder excitatory conditioning occurs. With extensive
training, conditioned inhibition develops
 The existence of second-order conditioning is of considerable
significance because it greatly increases the range of situations in
which classical conditioning can take place. With second-order
conditioning, classical conditioning can occur without a primary US.
The only requirement is the availability of a previously conditioned
stimulus
1.5.2. SENSORY PRECONDITIONING
 Associations can also be learned between two stimuli, each of which
elicits only a mild orienting response before conditioning.
o Consider, for example, two flavors (i.e., vanilla and cinnamon)
that you often encounter together in pastries without ill
effects. Because of these pairings, the vanilla and cinnamon
flavors may become associated with one another.
 What would happen if you then acquired an aversion
to cinnamon through food poisoning or illness?
Chances are your acquired aversion to cinnamon
would lead you to also reject things with the taste of
vanilla because of the prior association of vanilla
with cinnamon.
o This is an example of sensory preconditioning.
 As with higher-order conditioning, sensory preconditioning involves a
two-stage process.
o [1] The cinnamon and vanilla flavors become associated with
one another in the first phase when there is no illness or US.
Let’s call these stimuli CS1 and CS2. The association
between CS1 and CS2 that is established during the sensory
 preconditioning phase is usually not evident in any behavioral
responses because neither CS has been paired with a US
yet, and, therefore, there is no reason to respond.
o [2] During the second phase, the cinnamon flavor (CS1) is
paired with illness (US), and a conditioned aversion (CR)
develops to CS1. Once this first-order conditioning has been
completed, the participants are tested with CS2 and now
show an aversion to CS2 for the first time. The response to
CS2 is noteworthy because CS2 was never directly paired
with a US.
2. WHAT DETERMINES THE NATURE OF THE CONDITIONED RESPONSE
 Classical conditioning is usually identified by the development of a
new response to the conditioned stimulus. A large variety of responses
can become conditioned.
 Why does one set of responses become conditioned in one situation
but other responses develop to the CS in other circumstances?
2.1. THE US AS A DETERMINING FACTOR FOR THE CR
 The most obvious factor that determines the nature of the conditioned
response is the unconditioned stimulus that is used.
 Interestingly, even small variations in the nature of the US can produce
changes in the nature of the CR.
 The fact that the form of the conditioned response is determined by
the US encouraged Pavlov to propose the stimulus substitution
model.
o According to this model, the association of a CS with a US
turns the conditioned stimulus into a surrogate US. The
conditioned stimulus comes to function much like the US did
previously. Thus, the CS is assumed to activate neural
circuits previously activated only by the US and elicit
responses similar to those elicited by the US.
 The stimulus substitution model correctly emphasizes that the nature
of the CR depends a great deal on the US that is used in a
conditioning procedure. However, in many situations the CR does not
resemble the UR.
2.2. THE CS AS A DETERMINING FACTOR FOR THE CR
 Another important factor that determines the form of the CR is the
nature of the conditioned stimulus.
 The stimulus-substitution model predicts that CS–US pairings will
generate responses to the CS that are similar to responses elicited by
the food US.
2.3. THE CS-US INTERVAL AS A DETERMINING FACTOR FOR THE CR
 Another variable that is a major factor in what kinds of responses
become conditioned is the interval between the conditioned stimulus
and the unconditioned stimulus.
 Generally, conditioning with a short CS–US interval activates
responses that are appropriate for immediately dealing with the US. In
contrast, conditioning with a long CS–US interval activates responses
that prepare the organism for the US over a longer time horizon.
2.4. CONDITIONED RESPONDING AND BEHAVIOR SYSTEMS
 The most successful framework for addressing these issues so far has
been behavior systems theory.
o Different systems of behavior have evolved to enable animals
to accomplish various critical tasks such as procuring and
eating food, defending their territory, avoiding predation,
producing and raising offspring, and so on.
 Behavior systems theory assumes that the presentation of a US in a
Pavlovian conditioning procedure activates the behavior system
relevant to that US
o Classical conditioning procedures involve superimposing a
CS–US relationship on the behavioral system activated by
the US. As a CS becomes associated with the US, it
becomes integrated into the behavioral system and elicits
components of that system.
 Behavior systems theory readily explains why the US is an important
determinant of the CR. The theory is also consistent with the fact that
the nature of the CR depends on the type of CS that is employed.
 The most innovative prediction of behavior systems theory is that the
form of the CR will also depend on the CS–US interval that is used.
The CS–US interval is assumed to determine where the CS becomes
incorporated into the sequence of responses that makes up the
behavior system.
2.5. S-R VERSUS S-S LEARNING
 Conditioned behavior was viewed as a response elicited directly by the
CS. According to this idea, conditioning establishes a new stimulus–
response, or the S–R.
 An important alternative view is that subjects learn a new stimulus–
stimulus (S–S) connection between the CS and the US. According to
this interpretation, participants respond to the CS not because it elicits
a CR directly but because the CS activates a representation or
memory of the US. Conditioned responding is assumed to reflect the
status of the activated US representation.
 How might we decide between S–R learning and S–S learning
mechanisms? A popular research method that has been used to
 decide between these alternatives involves the technique of US
devaluation.
o [1] The basic strategy of a US devaluation experiment is
illustrated in Figure 4.11.
 Two groups of mildly food-deprived rats received
conditioning in which a tone was repeatedly paired
with pellets of food. This initial phase of the
experiment was assumed to establish an association
between the tone CS and the food US, as well as to
get the rats to form a representation of the food that
was used. Conditioned responding was evident in
increased activity elicited by the tone.
o [2] In the next phase, the experimental group received a
treatment designed to make the US less valuable to them.
This US devaluation was accomplished by giving the rats
sufficient free food to completely satisfy their hunger.
Presumably satiation reduced the value of food and thus
devalued the US representation. The deprivation state of the
control group was not changed in Phase 2, and, therefore,
the US representation remained intact for those rats (Figure
4.11). Both groups then received a series of test trials with the
tone CS. During these tests, the experimental group showed
significantly less conditioned responding than the control
group.
2.6. PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING AS A MODIFICATION OF RESPONSES TO
THE UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS
 Standard definitions of Pavlovian conditioning emphasize that the CS
comes to elicit a new response as a result of being paired with a US.
However, learning to respond to a CS is useful to an organism only if
the CR helps it cope with the US.
 To be of biological benefit, Pavlovian conditioning should enable the
organism to interact with the US more effectively.
 Two different experimental designs that are used to demonstrate
conditioned modification of the UR.
o [1] In the common testing design, two groups are
compared. During training, one group receives a conditioned
stimulus (A) paired with the US while the other group gets
stimulus A and the US unpaired. Following these contrasting
histories, both groups receive stimulus A followed by the US
during a test trial. However, instead of focusing on how the
organism responds to A, investigators measure responding
during the US.
o [2] In the common training design, all of the participants
receive a procedure in which stimulus A is paired with the US
and stimulus B is presented unpaired. Following this common
training, responding to the US is evaluated following
presentations of stimuli A and B
 Research has shown that Pavlovian conditioning modifies responding
to the US in a wide range of situations.
o This phenomenon has come to be called conditioned
diminution of the UR.
2.6.1. CONDITIONED ANALGESIA
 Conditioned diminution of the UR is a prominent phenomenon in
aversive conditioning and in conditioning experiments where
pharmacological agents serve as unconditioned stimuli. In both these
cases, a conditioned stimulus elicits physiological processes that
serve to counteract the effects of the US.
o An aversive stimulus activates the defensive behavior
system… Interestingly, exposure to an aversive stimulus or
physical injury results in the release of endogenous opiates
that counteract the pain induced by the injury.
2.6.2. CONDITIONED DRUG TOLERANCE
 Tolerance to a drug is said to develop when repeated administrations
of the drug have progressively less effect. Tolerance develops with
nearly all psychoactive drugs.
 There is now substantial evidence that drug tolerance can result from
Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlovian conditioning is involved because
each administration of a drug constitutes a conditioning trial in which
cues that accompany administration of the drug are paired with the
pharmacological effects of the drug. Thus, drug administration cues
constitute the CS and the pharmacological effects are the US.
 2.6.3. CONDITIONED REPRODUCTION AND FERTILITY
 Pavlovian conditioning also results in changes in responding to the US
in appetitive conditioning situations. These effects have been
examined most extensively in studies of sexual conditioning.
3. HOW DO CONDITIONED AND UNCONDITIONED STIMULI BECOME
ASSOCIATED?
 What are the mechanisms of learning, or the underlying processes
that are activated by conditioning procedures to produce learning?
3.1. THE BLOCKING EFFECT
 To get an intuitive sense of the blocking effect, consider the following
scenario. Each Sunday afternoon, you visit your grandmother who
always serves bread pudding that slightly disagrees with you. Not
wanting to upset her, you politely eat the pudding during each visit
and, consequently, acquire an aversion to bread pudding. One of the
visits falls on a holiday, and to make the occasion a bit more festive,
your grandmother makes a special sauce to serve with the bread
pudding. You politely eat the bread pudding with the sauce, and as
usual you get a bit sick to your stomach. Will you now develop an
aversion to the sauce? Probably not. Knowing that bread pudding
disagrees with you, you probably will attribute your illness to the
proven culprit and not learn to dislike the newly added sauce.
 Two conditioned stimuli are employed (example: the taste of the bread
pudding and the taste of the special sauce).
o [1] In Phase 1, the experimental group receives repeated
pairings of one of the stimuli (A) with the US. This phase of
training is continued until a strong CR develops to stimulus A.
 In the next phase of the experiment, stimulus B is
presented together with stimulus A and paired with
the US. After several such conditioning trials,
stimulus B is presented alone in a test trial to see if it
also elicits the CR. Interestingly, very little
responding occurs to stimulus B even though B was
repeatedly paired with the US during Phase 2.
o In Phase 2 of the blocking design, the control group receives
the same kind of conditioning trials (A+B paired with the US)
as the experimental group. However, for the control group,
stimulus A is not conditioned prior to these compound-
stimulus trials. Rather, during Phase 1, the control group
receives presentations of stimulus A and the US in an
unpaired fashion. In many replications of this design, stimulus
B invariably produces less conditioned responding in the
experimental group than in the control group. (For a more
detailed discussion of controls for blocking, see Taylor et al.,
2008.)
 The blocking effect was initially investigated in fear conditioning using
the conditioned suppression technique with rats. Subsequently, the
phenomenon has been demonstrated in various other conditioning
preparations with both human participants and laboratory animals.
 Since the time of Aristotle, temporal contiguity has been considered
the primary means by which stimuli become associated. The blocking
effect is a landmark phenomenon in classical conditioning because it
calls into question the assumption that temporal contiguity is sufficient
for learning. The blocking effect clearly shows that pairings of a CS
with a US are not enough for conditioned responding to develop
 Why does the presence of the previously conditioned stimulus A block
the acquisition of responding to the added cue B?
o Kamin, who discovered the blocking effect, explained the phenomenon by
proposing that a US has to be surprising to be effective in producing
learning. If the US is signaled by a previously conditioned stimulus (A), it
will not be surprising.
3.2. THE RESCORLA-WAGNER MODEL
 The idea that the effectiveness of a US is determined by how
surprising it is forms the basis of a formal mathematical model of
conditioning proposed by Robert Rescorla and Allan Wagner
 With the use of this model, investigators have extended the
implications of the concept of US surprise to a wide variety of
conditioning phenomena.
 According to the Rescorla–Wagner model, an unexpectedly large US
is the basis for excitatory conditioning and an unexpectedly small US
(or the absence of the US) is the basis for inhibitory conditioning
3.2.1. APPLICATION OF THE RESCORLA-WAGNER EQUATION TO THE
BLOCKING EFFECT
 The Rescorla–Wagner model clearly predicts the blocking effect. In
applying the model, it is important to keep in mind that expectations of
the US are based on all of the cues available during the conditioning
trial.
3.2.2. LOSS OF ASSOCIATIVE VALUE DESPITE PAIRINGS WITH THE
US
 One unusual prediction is that the associative value of a CS can
decrease despite continued pairings with the US.
 o How might this happen? Stimuli are predicted to lose
associative value if they are presented together on a
conditioning trial after having been trained separately.
3.2.3. CONDITIONED INHIBITION
 Excitatory conditioning involves the acquisition of positive associative
value and ceases once the organism predicts the US perfectly on each
reinforced trial.
o On nonreinforced trials, the CS+ and CS– are presented
together. Once the CS+ has acquired some degree of
conditioned excitation (because of its presentation on
reinforced trials), the organism will expect the US whenever
the CS+ occurs, including on nonreinforced trials. However,
the US does not happen on nonreinforced trials. Therefore,
this is a case of overexpectation.
3.2.4. EXTINCTION OF EXCITATION AND INHIBITION
 In an extinction procedure, the CS is presented repeatedly without the
US.
 Repeated nonreinforced presentations of the CS+ will result in a
progressive reduction of the associative value of the CS+ until VCS+
reaches zero
3.2.5. PROBLEMS WITH THE RECORLA-WAGNER MODEL
 One of the difficulties with the model is that its analysis of the
extinction of conditioned inhibition is not correct.
 Another difficulty is that the Rescorla–Wagner model views extinction
as the reverse of acquisition, or the return of the associative value of a
CS to zero.
o Rather extinction appears to involve the learning of a new
relationship between the CS and the US (namely, that the US
no longer follows the CS).
3.3. ATTENTIONAL MODELS OF CONDITIONING
 Attentional theories differ in their assumptions about what
determines how much attention a CS commands on a
conditioning trial.
 Early theories postulated a single attentional mechanism.
o For example, Pearce and Hall proposed that the amount of
attention an animal devotes to a CS is determined by how
surprising the US was on the preceding trial.
 Animals have a lot to learn if the US was surprising,
and that increases attention to the CS on the next
trial. In contrast, if a CS was followed by an
expected US, not much learning is necessary and
the CS commands less attention on the next trial.
o More recent attention theories assume that there are
several different forms of attention relevant to learning
and conditioned behavior.
 For example, Hogarth, Dickinson, and Duka
suggested that there are three types of attention.
 The first category, “looking for action,” is
the attention a stimulus commands after it
has become a good predictor of the US and
can generate a CR with minimal cognitive
effort. Looking for action is similar to the
attentional mechanism of Mackintosh
(1975) and reflects the behavioral control
by well-trained cues.
 The second category, called “looking for
learning,” is the type of attention that is
involved in processing cues that are not yet
good predictors of the US and therefore
have much to be learned about. Thus,
looking for learning is similar to the Pearce
and Hall (1980) attentional mechanism I
described earlier.
 The third category, “looking for liking,”
refers to the attention that stimuli command
because of their emotional value (how
much they are liked or disliked).
 In addition to specifying different categories of
attention, investigators are starting to identify the
neural circuits responsible for these differences
 An important feature of attention theories is that they assume that the
outcome of a given trial alters the degree of attention commanded by
the CS on future trials
 The assumption that the outcome of a given trial influences what is
learned on the next trial has made attention models unique in
explaining a number of interesting. However, attention models cannot
explain one-trial blocking.
3.4. TIMING AND INFORMATION THEORY MODELS
 Neither the Rescorla–Wagner model nor attentional models were
designed to explain the effects of time in conditioning. However, time is
 obviously a critical factor. One important temporal variable is the CS–
US interval.
 The generally accepted view now is that in a Pavlovian procedure,
participants learn not only that a CS is paired with a US, but when that
US will occur. Based on their findings, Williams and colleagues went
even further to claim that learning when the US occurs trumps learning
whether it occurs.
 The idea that participants learn about the point in time when the US
occurs is called temporal coding. The temporal coding hypothesis
states that participants learn when the US occurs in relation to a CS
and use this information in blocking, second-order conditioning, and
other paradigms in which what is learned in one phase of training
influences what is learned in a subsequent phase
 Another important temporal variable is the interval between
successive trials. Generally, more conditioned responding is
observed with longer intertrial intervals. In addition, the intertrial
interval and the CS duration (or CS–US interval) act in combination to
determine responding.
 Conditioning trials consisted of an (white noise) presented just before
delivery of food into a cup. The conditioned response that developed
to the CS was nosing of the food cup (goal tracking). Each group was
conditioned with one of two CS durations, either 10 seconds or 20
seconds, and one of six intertrial intervals (ranging from 15 seconds to
960 seconds). (Intertrial intervals were measured from one US
delivery to the next.) Each procedure could be characterized in terms
of the ratio of the intertrial interval (I) and the CS duration, which
Holland called the trial duration (T).
 Why is conditioned responding determined by the I/T ratio?
o A ratio suggests a comparison, in this case between
events during the intertrial interval (I) and the
conditioning trial (T).
o What is being compared has been expressed in various ways
over the years.
o According to the relative waiting-time hypothesis, the
comparison is between how long one has to wait for the US
during the CS versus how long one has to wait for the US
during the intertrial interval (the interval from one US
presentation to the next).
 When the US waiting time during the CS is much
shorter than during the intertrial interval, the I/T ratio
is high. Under these circumstances, the CS is highly
informative about the next occurrence of the US and
high levels of responding occur.
 In contrast, with a low I/T ratio the US waiting time
during the intertrial interval is similar to the US
waiting time during the CS. In this case, the CS
provides little new information about the next US,
and not much conditioned responding develops.
3.5. THE COMPARATOR HYPOTHESIS
 The relative-waiting-time hypothesis and related theories were
developed to explain the effects of temporal factors in excitatory
conditioning.
o One of their important contributions was to emphasize that
conditioned responding depends not only on what happens
during the CS but also on what happens in other aspects of
the experimental situation.
 The idea that both these factors influence learned performance is also
central to the comparator hypothesis and its successors developed
by Ralph Miller and his collaborators.
 The comparator hypothesis was motivated by an interesting set of
findings known as revaluation effects.
o As we discussed, the Rescorla–Wagner model interprets the
blocking effect as a failure of learning to CSB. The presence
of CSA blocks the conditioning of CSB.
 The comparator hypothesis takes a different approach. It assumes that
what is blocked is responding to CSB, not learning about CSB. If that
is true, then responding to CSB should become evident if the block is
removed somehow.
o A number of studies have shown that such extinction of CSA
following the blocking procedure unmasks conditioned
responding to CSB. This is called a revaluation effect
because it involves changing the conditioned value of a
stimulus (CSA) that was present during the training of the
target stimulus CSB. The unmasking of responding to CSB
shows that blocking did not prevent the conditioning of CSB
but disrupted performance of the response to CSB.
 Inspired by revaluation effects, the comparator hypothesis is a
theory of performance rather than learning. It assumes that
conditioned responding depends not only on associations between a
target CS and the US but also on associations that may be learned
between the US and other stimuli that were present when the target
CS was being conditioned.
o These other stimuli are called the comparator cues and
include the experimental context and other discrete CSs. In
 the blocking experiment, the target stimulus is CSB and the
primary comparator cue is the previously trained CSA that is
present during the conditioning of CSB.
 Another key assumption of the comparator hypothesis is that it only
allows for the formation of excitatory associations with the US.
Whether conditioned responding reflects excitation or inhibition is
assumed to be determined by the relative strengths of excitation
conditioned to the target CS as compared to the excitatory value of the
comparator stimuli that were present with the target CS during training.
 Unlike the relative-waiting-time hypothesis, the comparator
hypothesis emphasizes associations rather than time. In its
simpler form, the theory assumes that organisms learn three
associations during the course of conditioning.
o A comparison of the direct and indirect activations determines
the degree of excitatory or inhibitory responding that occurs
 An important corollary to the theory is that the comparison that
determines responding is made when participants are tested for
their conditioned behavior. Because of this assumption, the
comparator hypothesis makes the unusual prediction that extinction of
comparator–US associations following training of a target CS will
enhance responding to that target CS.
o It is through this mechanism that the comparator hypothesis
is able to predict that the blocking effect can be reversed by
extinguishing the blocking stimulus (CSA).