Pierce W D, Cheney C D 2017 Behavior Analysis And Learning

Pierce W D Cheney C D 2017behavior Analysis And Learning

Identify the assignment instructions clearly: provide a novel example of respondent conditioning, describe habituation, define and contrast contiguity and contingency, explain extinction and generalization processes, discuss the roles of stimulus novelty and familiarity, explain second-order conditioning, and describe conditioned suppression. Eliminate any extraneous information or instructions unrelated to the core questions and focus solely on what the assignment asks for.

Paper For Above instruction

Respondent conditioning, also known as classical conditioning, involves learning through association between stimuli. To illustrate this concept with a novel example not discussed in Pierce and Cheney’s "Behavior Analysis and Learning," consider the scenario of a person developing an allergic reaction to a specific scent after exposure in a particular context. For example, suppose an individual starts experiencing sneezing and watery eyes (UR) whenever they smell lavender (US) in a certain room (initial context). Over time, the scent of lavender (US) paired repeatedly with the environmental context (which initially is neutral) results in the room itself becoming associated with the allergic response, transforming the context into a conditioned stimulus (CS). In this case, the neutral stimulus (NS) could be the room's distinct smell before any associations, which then becomes a CS after conditioning, eliciting symptoms (CR) similar to the original UR, which was the allergic reaction (UR).

In terms of the formal steps: Initially, the unconditioned stimulus (US) is the scent of lavender, which naturally causes the allergic response (UR). The neutral stimulus (NS) is the environmental context, such as the specific room where exposure occurs. After repeated pairings, the neutral stimulus (NS) (the room) acquires the capacity to evoke the allergic response, transforming into the conditioned stimulus (CS). The conditioned response (CR) is the allergic symptoms triggered by mere exposure to the environment, while the unconditioned response (UR), the natural allergic reaction, remains unchanged. This example demonstrates respondent conditioning with real-world relevance and clarity.

Respondent habituation refers to a decrease in physiological or behavioral responses to a stimulus after repeated presentations without any consequence. For example, imagine initially feeling startled by a loud noise, but over repeated exposures, the startling response diminishes and eventually ceases. Habituation occurs because the stimulus no longer predicts any significant event, leading to decreased responsiveness, conserving energy, and preventing overreaction to non-threatening stimuli.

Contiguity is the principle that two stimuli are paired together in time—meaning they occur close together in succession. For example, hearing a bell immediately followed by food delivery exemplifies contiguity. A contingency, however, refers to the predictive relationship between stimuli—where the presence of one stimulus reliably predicts the occurrence of another. The key difference is that while contiguity emphasizes temporal proximity, contingency emphasizes the predictive or controlling relationship between stimuli. For instance, if ringing a bell reliably predicts food, this involves both contiguity (the sound and food are close in time) and contingency (the bell predicts the food). By contrast, mere contiguity without predictive dependence (e.g., two stimuli that are close in time but not predictive of each other) does not establish a contingency.

Respondent extinction involves the diminishing or disappearance of a conditioned response (CR) when the conditioned stimulus (CS) is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (US). The process occurs because, over time, the CS no longer predicts the US, weakening the association. Extinction explains why conditioned responses fade when the pairing is broken—learning that the CS no longer signals the US—as documented on page 191 of Pierce and Cheney. For example, if the sound of a bell (CS) previously paired with food (US) no longer results in food, the salivation response (CR) gradually diminishes and eventually stops.

Respondent generalization occurs when a stimulus similar to the conditioned stimulus (CS) also evokes the conditioned response (CR). For example, if a person is conditioned to fear a white rat (CS), they might also exhibit fear towards similar fuzzy objects like a white rabbit. Generalization occurs because stimuli with shared features activate overlapping neural pathways, resulting in similar responses. This phenomenon explains why fears or phobias can extend beyond the original trigger, impacting other similar stimuli.

Stimulus novelty and familiarity influence US and CS pre-exposure effects. Novel stimuli tend to evoke stronger conditioning because they are unfamiliar, making them more salient. Familiar stimuli, being well-known, may produce weaker conditioning responses since they are less attention-grabbing. The US pre-exposure effect (also called latent inhibition) occurs when prior exposure to the US without pairing reduces the strength of subsequent conditioning. Conversely, pre-exposure to the CS may either inhibit or facilitate conditioning depending on the context and stimulus familiarity, affecting how readily associations are formed.

Second-order conditioning involves pairing a previously conditioned stimulus (CS1) with a new neutral stimulus (NS) to produce a new conditioned stimulus (CS2). For example, if a bell (CS1) predicts food, and a light (NS) is paired with the bell without food, the light may become a second-order CS, eliciting salivation. This process explains how complex fears and phobias develop; for instance, a person might fear a specific dog (CS1) and then develop a fear of a certain leash or park (second-order stimuli) associated indirectly with the original fear, compounding the phobia.

Respondent conditioning can explain placebo effects through the power of learned associations. For example, if a patient receives a sugar pill (no active medication) but has previously experienced relief from a real drug in a similar context, the context itself (CS) may evoke physiological responses (CR) akin to the drug effect. This learned response occurs because the patient’s expectations, shaped by prior experiences, trigger real physiological changes via conditioned responses.

Finally, the conditioned suppression procedure involves training an organism to reduce a motivated behavior, such as lever pressing, when presented with a conditioned stimulus associated with an aversive US. For example, if a tone (CS) has been paired with an electric shock (US), the subject’s lever pressing for food diminishes during the tone, indicating conditioned suppression of behavior. This technique helps measure the strength of conditioned fear responses and is widely used to study emotional responses and anxiety disorders.

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