<aside> 💡 10/4: Chapter 9, 245-253 + Study Questions

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Study Questions

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• Procedures that produce a decline in responding
• Extinction = occur after a response/association has been established using Pavlovian or instrumental conditioning
• Goal: reverse the effects of acquisition
  • True acquisition is rarely achieved / may not be possible
• Extinction does not erase previous learning. Evidence:
  • Spontaneous recovery
  • Renewal
  • Reinstatement
• S-O and R-O associations survive extinction procedures
• Instead of erasing old learning, extinction involves learning a new S-R association
• Inhibition comes from the “frustrative” effects of the unexpected absence of reward
• Frustration produced by nonreward is responsible for several paradoxial reward effects:
  • Partial-reinforcement extinction effect
  • Intermittent
• These permit organisms to learn about nonreward to immunize them against the effects of extinction

• Acquisition of conditioned behavior involves procedures in which a reinforcing outcome occurs
  • Pavlovian: US is presented as consequence of the CS
  • Instrumental: reinforcing outcome is presented as a consequence of the instrumental response

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Extinction: active process produced by the omission of an expected US, or reinforcer

• Pavlovian: repeated presentations of the CS without the the US

• Instrumental: no longer presenting the reinforcer when the response occurs </aside>

• Extinction looks like it is the opposite of acquisition, and has been characterized this way by the RW model → this is incorrect

• Forgetting: decline in responding that may occur because of the passage of time and does not require the non-reinforcement of the CS

• Social phobia, fear of flying, claustrophobia, other pathological fears and phobias are treated with a form of exposure therapy

  • Participants are exposed to cues that elicit fear in the absence of the aversive US
  • Exposure to the actual fearful stimulus is the best way to do exposure therapy, although this is not always practical
    • Having clients imagine scenarios
  • Also used in treating drug addiction
    • Aims to extinguish the cues associated with the drug-taking behavior

Effects of Extinction Procedures

Struggling with your key to get into your apartment

• Don’t give up after first try
• Struggle for a while
• Jiggle the key in the lock in a bunch of different ways
• If none of these worked, you would eventually quit