Why Do I Care About Pavlovian Conditioning Anyway?

Drug tolerance & other homeostatic functions

Conditioning of the immune system
Ex: Solvason et al (1988); Buske-Kirschbaum et al
(1994)
odor (camphor) interpheron trials
eventually, camphor produced immune
response
Behavioral Therapy
Treatment of phobias = extinction
i.e., systematic desensitization, flooding
drug treatment extinction of conditioned craving

Clinical application of Pavlovian conditioning principles

Systematic desensitization
increasingly intense/natural/real stimuli
anxiety hierarchy
thematic
spatial-temporal
cue-controlled relaxation
counterconditioning

Clinical application of Pavlovian conditioning principles

Clinical application of Pavlovian conditioning principles

Clinical application of Pavlovian conditioning principles

Systematic desensitization
increasingly intense/natural/real stimuli
anxiety hierarchy
thematic
spatial-temporal
cue-controlled relaxation
counterconditioning
Flooding
intense, prolonged exposure
latent inhibition in chemotherapy

Why Do I Care About Pavlovian Conditioning Anyway?

Important aspect of your everyday life
Often not even conscious of process
Strong component of emotional responses
e.g., letter from an old friend
e.g., picture preference / odor conditioning
Examples:
Feel hungry when you expect food
Fearful responses to prior painful situations
Learning what pleases/upsets people in your life
Learning tendencies of opponents (and
sequences of moves) in games/contests

Why Do I Care About Pavlovian Conditioning Anyway?

newspaper potty time

Why Do I Care About Pavlovian Conditioning Anyway?

Video
Human conditioning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnL4fjMzsSU

Why Formal Models?

Heuristic value
Predicts new findings
Veridical mental picture?

Why analyze these models here?

importance of R-W model
skills learning
formal modeling & analytical thinking

Models of Conditioning
Hulls Habit Strength & Drive Theory
Formal description (1943, 1952)
Evaluation of the model
Excitatory learning curve
Problems

Models of Conditioning
Hulls (1943) Change in Habit Strength
(Habit Strength)

HR = 1 100.0305N

(Reaction Potential)

ER = SHR * D

(Reactive Inhibition)

IR

(Conditioned Inhibition)
(Effective Reaction

I = 1 + 100.0305N

S R

R = (SHR * D ) (IR + SIR )

Potential)
strength of association / amount of learning
drive
fatigue
inhibitory associations

Models of Conditioning
Hulls (1952) Revision
(Effective Reaction Potential)
R = ( SHR * D * V * K ) (IR + SIR )

(V = stimulus-intensity dynamism; K = incentive motivation)

Models of Conditioning
Hulls (1952) Revision
R = ( SHR * D * V * K ) (IR + SIR )

Models of Conditioning

Models of Conditioning
Criticisms of Hulls Theories
Complicated
Application of excitatory and inhibitory
functions deemed arbitrary
Does not handle:
Blocking
Overshadowing
Latent Inhibition
Etc

Models of Conditioning
What should you know about Hulls theory?
Parts of model yes!
habit strength (associative weight)
drive
reactive inhibition (fatigue)
conditioned inhibition (separate)
Equations no
except
SHR = 1 100.0305N
+ pros & cons!

(Habit strength)

Models of Conditioning
Spences anticipatory goal response
classical conditioning of stimulus-reward
leads to approach responses to that situation
orienting to the CS!
Example:
Justin goes to movie theater, gets great
popcorn
Drool
Friday

Theater

Go to theater

Popcorn!