1. Associative Learning Psychology 3906

2. Introduction • Every species tested seems to show some form of associative learning • There are many possible responses • Are they all served by some overarching ‘associative learning system?’

3. Constraints • Early on (meaning the 1960s….) people looked at so called constraints • Taste aversions • “Misbeahviour” • The whole notion of adaptive specializations of learning • Not really a clear research program

4. More recently.. • The modular view has helped out here • Intelligence is modular • Memory, for example, has many subsystems, we accept that easily • Same with perception • So learning may as well

5. What is learning? • Some event at time 1 affects behaviour at time 2 • Probably the best definition out there, though there are others • Bob Rescorla

6. What are we interested in? • Conditions for learning • Contents of learning • Effects on behaviour

7. Conditions for learning • Contingency • The “Rescorla control” vs conditioned inhibition • Compounding • Features and blocking • Surprisingness

8. The Model: • ΔVi – Si(Aj-Vsum) • i = CS • j = US • S = Salience • A = Value of the US • V = amount of conditioning • These quantities are, of course, hypothetical

9. An example • OK, say a food pellet = 100 • Say salience of a light CS = .2 • Vsum = 0 (at the start of the experiment, there is no conditioning yet

10. OK, now for the numbers • Trial 1 • ΔVi – Si(Aj-Vsum) =.2(100 – 0) =20 • Trial 2 ΔVi = .2(100-20) =16

11. Continued…. • Trial 3 ΔVi = Si(Aj-Vsum) ΔVi = .2(100-36) 12.8 • And so on…. • Less and less conditioning as time goes by • Cool eh

12. More on conditions • Gallistel’s model is more to do with duration of events and number of pairings • Events have to “go together” • Preparedness • Belongingness • No model deals with that well at all

13. I just want to belong to something…. • Spatial and temporal contiguity can be considered types of belongingness • Think about backwards conditioning, it never works • When you look at these two types of contiguity from a functional viewpoint it makes a great deal fo sense

14. Prior learning affects new learning

15. The contents of learning • Is it an association between stimuli? • Is it an association between a stimulus and a response? • It seems to depend on the preparation • How in the hell could you tell? • As usual, Bob Rescorla figured this out…

16. UR US CS S-S and S-R

17. If we could just get rid of that US – UR bond….. UR US CS

18. Rescrola (1973) • So, how do you get rid of a response that is hard wired to a stimulus? • Well, if you use CER, then your response is startle right? • How do you get rid of a startle reflex? • Habituation!! • (Bob is a smart man)

19. Design

20. Results • Less suppression in Habituation group • (In other words, more responding) • Therefore, the connection MUST be S – S • WOW!

21. But, after all of that…. • Need it be a connection? • Gallistel says that it is contingency itself that is learned • Different features of the CS and US are learned • Holland’s experiment

22. Effects on Behaviour • Learning vs. performance • The Behaviour system approach • Are Pavlovian and Instrumental learning different? • Operationally of course yes • But, what about occasion setting and within event learning

23. In sum • It may simply be that most types of what we call associative learning use many of the same modules • Cause effect realationships • Patterns • Predicting the future is pretty adaptive