The Blocking Effect on Human Associative Learning of Changing the Unconditioned Stimulus



The Blocking Effect on Human Associative Learning of Changing the Unconditioned Stimulus

Introduction

The process whereby cues become associated with primary rewards has been studied in animals dating back to the early 1900s, beginning perhaps with Ivan Pavlov. This procedure is termed classical or Pavlovian conditioning. Here, a neutral stimulus (CS) is paired with a primary reward or an unconditioned stimulus (US). After several pairings, the CS is then able to control or drive behavior (US- directed behavior) because the CS has acquired properties associated with that US. Thus the CS elicits a conditioned response. In the original studies conducted on this behavior, Pavlov conditioned by pairing the sound of a bell or the presentation of a light with the delivery of an appealing food. After several pairings, the sound of the bell alone was sufficient to trigger behavioral responses normally associated with food delivery, such as salivation.

This was interpreted as evidence that the cues came to represent some properties associated with the food with which it was paired 7. It was not clear from these studies what properties of the food were being represented by the bell. Studies over the past century have shown that multiple parallel representations are actually formed 8, 9. Among these are representations linking the cue to a representation of the actual food itself (i.e. a specific outcome property, also known as a stimulus-outcome or SO relationship) and to the feeling or emotion associated with that food (i.e. an affective property, also known as stimulus-affect or SA relationship).

Despite the loss of interest in factors such as the temporal contiguity between 1960 through the 1980s by the development of reference models that emphasize coding competition, interest in the role of representations in the temporal expression pattern has recently gained momentum. Some models show that modern synchronization called temporal information is encoded into a partnership and contributes significantly to the expression of the learned association.

Block the data support this view CS-US-4 time was reported by many different laboratories. However, very few studies have examined the role of temporal specificity in blocking and data from these earlier studies are mixed regarding the impact of differences in the temporal relationship with the U.S. in lockout procedures between the indexes and locking security. Kohler and Ayres (1979), with themes of rats in a delayed conditioning, changing the temporal characteristics of the indices between the phases of basic training and is a way to block any test or a fixed variable duration. In this series of experiments the blocking and blocked cues were always simultaneous in the compound phase. In one of their conditions subjects were presented with the blocking cue in the elemental phase that had fixed 2-min duration while in another condition the blocking cue had a variable duration averaging 2 min. In both conditions, the blocking cue terminated with US (footshock) delivery. In the compound training phase subjects were either trained with the same fixed or variable duration ...