Spontaneous Recovery and Extinction

Windholz, G. (2009). Pavlov's conceptualization of learning. The American Journal of Psychology, 105(3), 459. Retrieved from

PURPOSE The main goal of experiment three was to test a rat’s ability to be conditioned to perform a behavior, and then relearn the same behavior after an extinction period. After ensuring that the rat was conditioned on a continuous reinforcement schedule (CRF), the next goal in the experiment was to extinct the previously learned behavior of lever pressing and receiving a food pellet. Once the behavior was extinct, the rat was reconditioned to lever press on a conditioned reinforcement schedule. The goal of the experiment was to demonstrate that a behavior could be learned, extinct, and then relearned.

This was to see if Sniffy exhibited any forms of fear related behaviors towards the light. Second, during the acquisition trials the light that was presented for 30 seconds was paired with a shock that was given at the last second (CS). The goal was to see if Sniffy exhibited any behaviors related to fear, which is freezing (UR). This happened for 10 trials. Third, in the post- trial the light was presented without the shock. This was to see if Sniffy still exhibited fear related behaviors. Now that Sniffy has learned that the shock is associated with the light show fear related behaviors when he see the light (CR). Now for the extinction trials of the experiment, the light in the CS of light will be presented without the shock for 30 seconds. This will happened for 20 trials. Next Sniffy was removed experiment for a day then when placed back in the procedure for the extinction trials was performed again, however, for only 15 trials. This was to see if Sniffy would have spontaneous recovery after being out of the environment of the experiment for a

After the meat powder and bell were presented together several times, the bell was used alone. Pavlov’s dogs, as predicted, responded by salivating to the sound of the bell without the food. The bell began as a neutral stimulus (i.e. the bell itself did not produce the dogs. However, by pairing the bell with the stimulus that did produce the salivation response, the bell was able to acquire the ability to trigger the salivation response. Pavlov therefore demonstrated how stimulus-response are formed. He dedicated much of the rest of his career further exploring this finding. In technical terms, the meat powder is considered an unconditioned stimulus and the dog’s salivation is the unconditioned response. The bell is a neutral stimulus until the dog learns to associate the bell with food. Then the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus which produces the conditioned response of salivation after repeated pairings between the bell and food. John B. Watson further extended Pavlov’s work and applied it to human beings. Around 1921, Watson studied Albert, an 11-month-old infant child. The goal of the study was to condition Albert to become afraid of a white rat by pairing the white rat with a very loud noise. Behavior modification is a technique concerning the change in the undesired behavior and enhancing desired behavior. It is an approach that aims to modify the behavior of a

Behavioral theory is the idea that human behavior can be learned, while learning stems from experience. An individual’s experiences can lead to their behavior. Ivan Pavlov developed the concept of classical conditioning, which helped in developing behavioral theory. Pavlov developed classical condition with experiments run with animals, finding that behavioral responses “can be produced by pairing consequences with stimuli” (Lehmann & Coady, 2001). This idea can be carried over from animals to humans, as noted in individuals suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, who may have physiological or emotional responses from stimuli that remind them of the traumatic event (Lehmann & Coady,

Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner both studied learning, in which they both did different experiments on different animals and with different conditioning. Classical conditioning is the process in which two stimuli become linked; once this association has been recognized, an originally neutral stimulus is conditioned to provoke an involuntary response. The dogs in Pavlov’s studies learned to associate countless stimuli with the expectation of food, which caused in them salivating when the stimuli were presented. Pavlov revealed how such associations are learned, and referred to this process as conditioning. While the

8. Pavlov found that if he allowed his animals to rest for several hours following the extinction of a behavior, the conditioned response would spontaneously appear again upon re-presentation of the conditioned stimulus – although in a somewhat weaker form. This is called:

Background (key works): Reinforcement theory is rooted in theory of operant conditioning based primarily on the work of the American behavior scientist B.F. Skinner (Borkowski, 2011). In contrast to Ivan Pavlov’ respondent conditioning controlled by

Classical conditioning has showed me that some behaviors can be taught on a subconscious level without the organism even knowing. We are probably conditioned to many things that we are not even aware of. This is a powerful thing that shows how much we do not know about the brain and its processes. This study also helped me understand that some behaviors that are learned can be very hard to break or change. I think after learning about this concept I have found a new patience for people I come into contact with that have a behavior that I am not familiar to. Since Pavlov’s time there has been many new findings and developments made to this topic. Every day we learn more and more about the mind and how it controls us in different ways.

The first is a baseline schedule of reinforcement (Vollmer & Athens, 2011). Research has shown that that during baseline, intermittently reinforced behavior is more resistant to extinction than behavior that was on a continuous reinforcement schedule. This is called a partial reinforcement extinction effect (Vollmer & Athens, 2011) . If a behavior was intermittently reinforced, the learner has already experience deprivation to the reinforcer. Therefore, not receiving the reinforcer during extinction will not have a true effect on the display of the target behavior (Vollmer & Athens, 2011). If the target behavior was continuously reinforced during baseline the change to extinction where there is no reinforce would be considered discriminable and the behavior is more likely to diminish (Vollmer & Athens, 2011). This promotes the use of a continuous reinforcement prior to extinction to produce results more rapidly (Vollmer & Athens,

In 1903 a Russian physiologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov first developed an experiential model of learning called Classical Conditioning (Lautenheiser 1999). An example if Classical Conditioning would be ringing a bell when it is time for your pet to eat. The pet hears the bell and over time is conditioned that when the bell rings its dinner time thus begins to salivate, and eventually learns to be conditioned to responding to the bell in a specific manner. The bases was that neutral stimulus would be put together with an excitatory one and over time the neutral stimulus would, at some point down the line elicit the response that was associated with the original unlearned response. Pavlov later added an element known as the nonexcitatory, conditioned stimulus which is but together with an unconditioned stimulus (Lautenheiser 1999).

Two important learning theories of behaviourist perspective are classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov 1849-1936) experiments with dogs and operant conditioning (Thorndike’s and B.F Skinner).

Taking together, the hypothesized process of ABA renewal can be due to excitatory conditioning in context A or inhibitory conditioning in context B or both. Therefore, in order to isolate these processes, Bouton, Todd, Vurbic and Winterauer (2011) found other ways of changing the current context. Specifically, Bouton and colleagues included between-group comparison of ABA versed AAB renewal in the first experiment. During baseline training, the lever-press responses resulted in food as reinforcement on a variable interval 30 seconds (VI 30s) schedule. The trainings happened in the context A for both groups. However, extinction occurred in context A for AAB group, whereas extinction occurred in context B for ABA group. Finally, the two groups were put into test sessions in both context A and context B in a counterbalanced order. The results of this experiment found both ABA and AAB renewal after operant extinction. This revealed that renewal not only due to returning to training context as AAB group did not go back to the original context but still got the relapse effect. In addition, rats did not only learn the excitatory conditioning in which case learning to respond to get reinforcement in context A. This was because rats still responded even when

This is known as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Meat is the unconditioned stimulus because at the sight of the meat the dogs begin to salivate (Feldman, 2010).   The dog’s response to the meat educes salivation and is known as the unconditioned response (UCR). An unconditioned response is defined as a reflexive and natural response that is not connected to prior learning. Unconditioned responses always occur in the presence of the unconditioned stimulus (Feldman, 2010).   While conditioning the dogs, Pavlov would ring a bell right before the presentation of meat. Eventually, the dogs would associate the ringing of the bell with the meat. Therefore, the dogs would begin to salivate at the sound of the bell. At this point, Pavlov could state that he had classically conditioned his dogs. The bell which was a prior neutral stimulus had now become the conditioned stimulus (CS) that brought forth the conditioned response (CR) of salivation (Feldman, 2010). Moreover, we have to ask what would happen if these poor dogs were never again received food upon the ringing of the bell. This would lead to extinction. Extinction occurs when a prior conditioned response decreases in frequency and eventually disappears (Feldman, 2010).   In order for Pavlov to unconditioned his dogs he would have to break their association with the sound of the ringing bell and the presentation of food. To do so he

A biological constraint in learning theory refers to an inherited tendency to learn and create certain relationships, and it has been said that some species are much more readily than others in learning such behaviour. Therefore it involves the factors which make populations resistant to evolutionary change and the animals biological make up. In this paper I will attempt to explain the bases of the original biological approaches to learning in classical conditioning in humans and animals, make comparison between animals and the association of fears