What is learned in patterning discriminations? Further tests of configural accounts of associative learning in human electrodermal conditioning (original) (raw)
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Evidence for the application of rules in Pavlovian electrodermal conditioning with humans
Biological Psychology, 2001
Two Pavlovian SCR conditioning experiments investigated interference effects in sequential training of positive and negative patterning discriminations in humans. In Experiment 1, positive patterning (A − , B− , AB+ ) was trained in Phase 1, immediately followed by a negative patterning schedule (C + , D+ , CD− ). We predicted that human participants would learn a specific numerosity rule in positive patterning, which interferes with the subsequent negative patterning schedule. In Experiment 2, negative patterning (C + , D+ , CD−) was trained in Phase 1, followed by a positive patterning schedule (A − , B− , AB+ ) in Phase 2. Because human participants would learn an abstract 'separate-versus-together'or 'opposite'-rule to solve the negative patterning discrimination in Phase 1, there should be less interference in positive patterning in Phase 2 where the separate/together-rule could be applied, too. In both experiments, the initial patterning discriminations were acquired successfully. In Experiment 1, human participants totally failed to solve the Phase 2 discrimination, while in Experiment 2 appropriate response differentiation developed in Phase 2. Thus, without pre-experience human participants seem to utilize a specific numerosity-rule in positive patterning and a separate/together-rule in negative patterning.
Experimental manipulation of a unique cue in Pavlovian SCR conditioning with humans
Biological Psychology, 2000
We report two experiments on positive and negative patterning in human skin conductance response (SCR) conditioning with a manipulable unique cue. In experiment 1 flashing red lights, arrayed horizontally, were used as elements and apparent movement was used as additional (unique) cue when the elements were presented in compound. Positive and negative patternings were both acquired readily, and positive patterning transferred to new stimuli (green lights, vertically arrayed). The unique cue did not influence these outcomes. Experiment 2 examined only positive patterning, using a more conventional unique cue, a visual frame that surrounded the letter stimuli on compound trials but not on element trials. The unique cue again facilitated neither acquisition nor transfer. These results do not support either the unique cue extension of the Rescorla -Wagner theory or configural theories. Human participants seem to utilize 'size' or 'number' or some other abstract feature in preference to available concrete stimuli.
Configural learning in human Pavlovian conditioning: acquisition of a biconditional discrimination
Biological Psychology, 2002
Previous studies of conditioning have shown that non-human animals are able to master discrimination problems which cannot be solved on the basis of elemental associations. Most of these discrimination problems, however, have not yet been investigated in human Pavlovian conditioning. In a skin conductance conditioning experiment we therefore assessed whether humans can solve a biconditional discrimination. Participants underwent conditioning with an AB +, CD+, AD−, CB− design and successfully mastered this discrimination. Thus, they were able to learn about the relationship of specific configurations of stimuli with the reinforcer. The results extend previous findings of configural learning in humans.
Positive and negative patterning in human classical skin conductance response conditioning
Animal Learning & Behavior, 1993
Three experiments on classical differential conditioning of the human skin conductance response to elemental and compound stimuli are reported. Subjects in Experiment 1 received both positive and negative patterning training, followed by either positive or negative patterning transfer tests on new stimuli. In positive patterning, a compound of two stimuli is reinforced and its elements are nonreinforced. In negative patterning, the elements are reinforced and the compound is nonreinforced. Subjects in Experiments 2 and 3 received either positive or negative patterning during training, followed by transfer tests on new stimuli. In Experiment 2, the transfer series began with new elements, after which their compound was presented; in Experiment 3, the new compound was presented first in the transfer series, and then the separate elements were administered. All three experiments provided evidence of the acquisition of positive patterning, while negative patterning was found only in Experiments 2 and 3. Positive patterning transferred to new stimuli, indicating that it was not attributable solely to summation of subthreshold excitation conditioned to the elements on reinforced compound trials. This finding, coupled with the negative patterning found in Experiments 2 and 3, provided support for the unique cue hypothesis. It was concluded that the assumed unique cue constituted a learned "rule," and that the actual elemental stimuli were neither perceptually nor otherwise modified during the conditioning process.
Behavioural Processes, 2017
Three experiments explored the utility of considering mechanisms of occasion setting for understanding patterning and biconditional discriminations-two more complex conditional discriminations in which the stimulus-outcome relations of occasion setting are embedded. In Experiment 1, rats were trained in an appetitive conditioning task with either a biconditional or a patterning discrimination using relatively brief CSs (10 s) and differential outcomes as USs. In this study, rats learned the positive patterning task before they had learned negative patterning, and the biconditional task was the most difficult. However, a detailed examination of the results suggested that rats trained in the biconditional task responded to the stimulus compounds mainly on the basis of individual stimulus-outcome associations. Different conditioned response (CR) topographies as a function of reinforcer type complicated interpretation of these results. Experiment 2 confirmed that the biconditional task, with the parameters used here, was not learned, regardless of whether training involved differential or non-differential outcomes. In Experiment 3 the CS duration was increased to 30 s and two different USs were used that each supported similar CR topographies. Under these conditions, we observed that whereas the positive patterning task was learned most rapidly, the biconditional discrimination was learned faster than the negative patterning task. Considered in relation to other findings on patterning and biconditional discriminations, the results suggest that elemental, configural, and/or modulatory occasion setting mechanisms may play different roles in these complex conditional discrimination tasks especially as a function of stimulus duration and differential outcome training.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 2004
Three experiments with rats investigated how the associative strengths of the representations that underlie conditional learning change when they are conditioned in compound. The results of each experiment suggest that the representation whose associative strength is most discrepant from the asymptote supported by the outcome of the trial undergoes the greatest change in associative strength. These results parallel those from simple Pavlovian conditioning (e.g., R. A. Rescorla, 2000), are inconsistent with unique-cue and configural accounts of conditional learning, and support a connectionist analysis of learning in which a "winner-takes-all" rule applies to the hidden units that can be activated and acquire associative strength at a given point in time.
Stimulus Generalization in Two Associative Learning Processes
Journal of Experimental Psychology-learning Memory and Cognition, 2004
Recent studies involving nonlinear discrimination problems suggest that stimuli in human associative learning are represented configurally with narrow generalization, such that presentation of stimuli that are even slightly dissimilar to stored configurations weakly activate these configurations. The authors note that another well-known set of findings in human associative learning, cue-interaction phenomena, suggest relatively broad generalization. Three experiments show that current models of human associative learning, which try to model both nonlinear discrimination and cue interaction as the result of 1 process, fail because they cannot simultaneously account for narrow and broad generalization. Results suggest that human associative learning involves (a) an exemplar-based process with configural stimulus representation and narrow generalization and (b) an adaptive learning process characterized by broad generalization and cue interaction.
Pavlovian conditioning and rule learning
Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 1993
The experiment reviewed here was an attempt to show that two differential Pavlovian conditioning designs, namely positive and negative patterning, can best be understood as rule learning. First, it is shown that positive patterning is equivalent to the logical rule of conjunction (AND) and that negative patterning is equivalent to the logical rule of exclusive disjunction (XOR). It is assumed that in order to learn both kinds of discrimination subjects learn to use the according rule. If this is the case, the observed differentiation should be independent of the number of reinforcements for each individual stimulus. Second, subjects should be able to transfer the rule to new stimuli. Forty human subjects were randomly divided into four groups (N = 10 each). Two factors were manipulated independently between subjects: (1) positive vs negative patterning, and (2) 2 vs 4 pairs of trained stimuli. Second interval skin conductance responses were measured. During initial acquisition positive as well as negative patterning occurred independently of number of pairs of trained stimuli (with total amount of training kept constant). Furthermore, AND as well as XOR could be transfered to new stimuli.
The study of associative learning: Mapping from psychological to neural levels of analysis
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2014
One of the major achievements of the last century of research in experimental psychology is the identification of a coherent set of theories and principles to characterize the nature of simple forms of associative learning. Major advances are also currently being made at a rapid pace in the neurobiology of associative learning, and, interestingly, we are beginning to see how a mapping from a psychological level of analysis to underlying neurobiological mechanisms is possible. This collection of papers honors the illustrative careers of four major learning theorists from the experimental psychology tradition (Robert Rescorla, Allan Wagner, Nicholas Mackintosh, Anthony Dickinson) who have helped shape our understanding of behavioral principles. The collection of works in this special issue reflects common interests among researchers working at both psychological and neurobiological levels of analysis towards a more comprehensive understanding of basic associative learning processes as they relate to several key issues identified and intensively studied by these influential learning theorists. These consist of the questions regarding (1) the critical conditions enabling learning, (2) the contents of learning, and (3) the rules that translate learning into performance. In one way or another, the separate contributions in this issue address these fundamental questions as they relate to a wide variety of currently exciting topics in the study of the neurobiology of learning and memory. The study of basic learning processes has a rich and venerable history. Early philosophers, Russian physiologists, and Darwin's evolutionary theory provided the backdrop from which modern day learning theory emerged (e.g., see Boakes, 1984). Several key issues included (a) the importance of experience in shaping learning and behavior (i.e., nature vs nurture), (b) understanding what constituted an explanatory mechanism (e.g., reflex arc conceptions vs functionalist accounts), and (c) delineating how complex behavioral systems evolved. When Pavlov (1927) and Thorndike (1898) first made public their systematic methods for studying the development of conditioned behaviors, the community was extremely excited by the prospects. These two paradigms-what have now become known as classic examples of simple forms of associative learning-allowed the scientist to measure fairly directly the