Respondent eliciting functions
US
CS
Operant evocative functions
SD
S
Operant consequential functions
Reinforcing SR+ and SR‐
Punishing SP+ and SP‐
The Biological Influence on Conditioning
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The physical structure of the organism limits what they can learn (you can’t teach a pig to fly).
The sensory systems of the organism determines what stimuli will effect behavior (and which stimuli will be more or less salient).
The biological make‐up
of the organism determines what can
The biological make
up of the organism determines what can function as reinforcement and how quickly new responses can be learned.
The biological context also determines the general limits and sensitivity of behavior/environmental relationships.
The biological context influences which types of responses are best maintained by avoidance or escape conditioning. The escape or avoidance response must be “biologically relevant” in the sense that it is what the organism is likely to do in nature to avoid or escape danger.
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Instinctive drift
Sign Tracking
Autoshaping
p g of pigeon key pecks for food.
pg
yp
Negative Automaintenance of responses that prevent reinforcement (omission procedure)
Respondent Control Effecting Operant Contingencies
Operant Contingencies Effecting Respondent Control
Taste Aversion Learning
B t
Between species differences i diff
Within species differences Adjunctive Behavior 8
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In each of these cases a biologically relevant stimulus (such as food) follows a stimulus involved in an operant contingency. This temporal relationship meets the criteria for a CS‐US pairing that produces respondent conditioning. The responses that result (conditioned responses) are h
h
l ( di i
d
)
outside the operant relationship and thus cannot be explained with operant principles alone.
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Approaching or orienting toward a stimulus that signals the onset of food (or some other biologically relevant event)
When species‐specific behavior patterns intrude upon trained operant behavior
Raccoons trained to place tokens in a “piggy bank” for food reinforcement began to “wash” the tokens instead.
Raccoons instinctively “wash” their food before eating. US (food)UR (wash)
CS (token) CR (wash)
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Presenting a localized stimulus (lighted response key) and then delivering food 10 seconds later to pigeons.
Pigeons come to peck the lighted response key when it is presented (which is the “autoshaped” response).
When the lighted key is pecked food is presented g
y p
p
immediately (reinforcing the keypeck response).
Dogs will “beg” towards a buzzer if that buzzer frequently precedes the presentation of food
frequently precedes the presentation of food
Operant contingency
SD (buzzer)R (approach food dish)  SR+ (food)
Respondent contingency
US (food)  UR (food related responses)
CS (buzzer)  CR (begging)
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Use the autoshaping procedure of presenting a lighted key and then giving food 10 seconds later.
If the pigeon pecks the lighted key, food is not given (omission procedure)
To receive food in 10 seconds, the lighted key must ,
g
y
NOT be pecked.
Most pigeons peck the lighted key when it is associated with food presentation and therefore miss several food presentations.
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The Miller experiments attempted to demonstrate that autonomic responses (like heart rate, GSR, intestinal contractions, etc.) could be operantly conditioned directly.
In most cases these autonomic responses are associated with nonautonomic responses (such as voluntary muscle p
(
y
responses).
The nonautonomic responses “mediate” the “conditioning” which makes it appear that the autonomic responses are being operantly conditioned.
The Miller experiments were convincing in demonstrating operant conditioning of reflexive responses.
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Between species differences in the respondent conditioning of stimuli (rats vs. quail). Wilcoxon, Dragoin, and Kral (1971) compounded taste (salty) and a visual stimulus (blue) in water and paired this with nausea. They found that rats responded to the taste properties of
They found that rats responded to the taste properties of the stimulus as the CS . The quail responded to the visual properties of the stimulus as the CS. Species differences produced opposite overshadowing effects
Within species differences between stimulus modality and respondent conditioning (taste to illness and sight/sound to pain). Garcia and Koelling (1966) used bright/noisy water and flavored water paired with shock or poison.
They found that the rats drank less water when taste stimuli and poison were paired
visual/auditory stimuli and pain were paired They found no conditioning with taste and pain or visual/auditory and poison.
They concluded that biological influences limit which stimuli can be conditioned to an unconditioned stimulus.
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Taste Aversion is interpreted as respondent conditioning with 3 unusual characteristics.
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“An excessive and persistent behavior pattern that occurs as a side‐effect of reinforcement delivery”.
Respondent conditioning occurred even after long delays between the CS and US Conditioning occurred after one pairing only
Not any neutral stimulus can be conditioned with any unconditioned stimulus. Examples are schedule‐induced‐polydipsia in rats (excessive drinking when given small frequent
(excessive drinking when given small, frequent meals) and some drug related behaviors in humans (smoking and drinking alcohol).
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