Ch. 6 Paragraphs

1. Discuss how classical conditioning produces brain changes in drug-addicted people and how these changes perpetuate the addiction.
      Conditioned drug effects are common among addicts. For heroin or other drug addicts, the sight of a needle or the sensation felt when it is inserted in the skin will act as a conditioned stimulus. Brain imaging studies have shown that presenting an addict with cues that are associated with their addiction, causes activation of the prefrontal cortex as well as various parts of the limbic system. When a tolerance is developed in addicts, they will use larger doses in order to experience the same effect; in some cases a dose that would be fatal to an inexperienced user.
2. What are conditioned food aversions, how do they arise, and what is unusual about them?
       A conditioned food aversion is an avoidance of certain foods. They typically arise when someone eats a particular food and then becomes ill. Regardless of whether or not the food (especially food that's not part of a typical diet) is directly the cause of the illness, people will associate that food's smell or taste with becoming sick. A food aversion can be formed after only one trial. They are easy to produce with smell or taste, but are very difficult to produce with light or sound.
3. Discuss how expectations are involved in classical conditioning. What information does the CS provide to the participant in the experiment?
       Since the 1970s, scientist have come to find that not only did classical conditioning consist of US,CS,UR, and CR, but also that animals may predict the occurrence of events. The mental processes of prediction and expectancy is called cognitive perspective. In an experiment generally the conditioned stimulus occurs or is presented before the unconditioned stimulus so that the subject can learn to associate the CS with the US. However when the US is predicted before the conditioned stimulus, then it becomes harder to develop a CR. Cognitive perspective was first studied by psychologist Robert Rescorla in 1966.
4. Discuss FI, FR, VI, and VR schedules of reinforcement and what patterns of behavior they produce.
       With a fixed interval (FI), a reinforcement will occur in a consistent pattern. This type of reinforcement leads to students to study only before they know a test will be given. Variable interval (VI) is the randomly timed distribution of reinforcement, such as a person listening to the radio, waiting for a particular song. Fixed ratio (FR) is the consistent rate of the amount of reinforcement given, such as earning an hourly wage. Variable ratio (VR) is the highest response to reinforcement and is the unexpected amount and time of reinforcement, such as that in gambling at a slot machine. Ratio reinforcement generally leads to greater responding than does interval reinforcement. A worker who is paid by the piece is going to be more productive than one who is paid by the hour.
5. What are cognitive maps, and what evidence indicates that laboratory rats learn them rather than particular behaviors?
      Cognitive maps are spatial representations of a maze or other pathway. In a test developed and tested by Edward Tolman, and early cognitive theorist, he used three groups of rats. The first group of rats had to find its way through a maze with no reinforcement. This group showed little improvement in the number of errors it cut down after 17 days. The second group of rats were consistently given reinforcement at the end of the maze and made steady improvement by decreasing the number of errors the rats made in finding the food. The third group of rats were given reinforcement after 10 days without it. The first 11 days the rats made little improvement. But after the first day they had received reinforcement, it decreased the number of errors they made dramatically, indicating that the rats indeed had learned a cognitive map of the maze and used it when the reinforcement began. Latent learning applied to the first groups of rats that learned the maze, but without reinforcement.