PSY260: - L5&L6

Reading §

1. If you are nervous about driving in the rain because you once slid off the road when it was raining, you may have become () to driving in the rain.¹
2. If you don’t mind getting fillings at the dentist because you’ve had so much dental work in the past, you probably are () to dental drills.²
3. If you’ve become habituated to the beeping of a fire alarm with a low battery near your bedroom, then having a crow attack you in your bedroom may () your responses to the beeping.³
4. Researchers can tell when a baby perceives an object as novel by monitoring the duration of its ().⁴
5. When stimuli are () in intensity, habituation is faster.⁵
6. Long-term habituation is more likely to occur after () exposure than after () exposure.⁶
7. A physiological response that researchers sometimes use to monitor the effects of habituation and sensitization is the ().⁷
8. The suggestion that sensitization and habituation are independent processes is a major feature of ().⁸
9. When an organism learns but does not provide observable evidence that learning has occurred, the process is referred to as ().⁹
10. The () task makes it possible to determine when a rat is familiar with a particular object.¹⁰
11. Sensitization of the gill-withdrawal reflex in Aplysia is associated with increased release of () by ()¹¹
12. Learning-related changes in the receptive fields of cortical neurons provide evidence of ().¹²
13. Neurons in the hippocampus that respond strongly in particular locations are called ().¹³
14. Repeated exposures to highly stressful events during development can lead to ().¹⁴
15. Devices called (), created to facilitate sensory processing in patients who have lost some sensory function, work better over time because of ().¹⁵

Lecture §

Non-associative Learning

• PDF
• What are the 2 major non-associative learnings?

  • Habituation	Sensitization
    Decrease behaviour	Increase behaviour
    Innocuous stimulus	Noxious stimulus
    Repeated exposure	Single trial (more helps)
    Stimulus specific	Generalizes

  • Habituation:
    • Acoustic Startle Response
      • Independent variable: time/trials
      • Dependent variable: mouse’s startle response
    • Characteristics
      • Stimulus specific
      • What is dishabituation and difference between spontaneous recovery?
        • Dishabituation: novel stimulus can lead to recovery of responses after an individual has habituated to familiar stimuli; connected to stimulus specific characteristic (some generalization, but very small)
        • Spontaneous recovery Reappearance (or increase in strength) of a previously habituated response after a short period of no stimulus presentation
        • Dishabituation require another stimulus recovery does not
      • Long Term Formation: Repetition -> Lasting
      • Spaced Repetition: Breaks between reppetition -> slow & lasting habituation
      • Intensity:
        • Strong stimulus -> less habituation
        • Weaker sitmulus -> more habituation
  • Sensitization
    • What is the difference between sensitization and Classical Conditioning?
      • Sensitization Stimulus is not paired with the bell (difference with Classical Conditioning)
      • Difference between sensitization and Classical Conditioning is timing with stimulus
    • What is the difference between sensitization and dishabituation?
      • Does not need to be noxious stimulation
      • Dishabituation is a recovery to normal baseline response when the animal receives a different environmental stimulus
      • Sensitization is an increase in the magnitude of the response above the original baseline
    • Long term effect for sensitization
      • More synapses
    • Effect for serotonin (stabilizer or excitation)?
      • Serotonin does not only do one thing, it can be stabilizer or it can be an excitation does. It depends on what area of the brain it is effecting
• What are the two major theories with non-associative learning?
  • Dual process theory: Proposes that behavioral changes caused by repeated exposures to a stimulus reflect the combined effects of habituation and sensitization
  • Opponent Process Theory: a way for organisms to maintain emotional stability
    • Two emotional processes: one that is pleasurable and one that is less pleasant
    • Repeated experiences have different effects on the initial reaction versus the rebound reaction, causing the initial response to habituate faster than the rebound
• What is the difference between familiarity and priming?
  • Familiarity requires conscious sense; priming does not
  • Familiarity
    • Exposure based learning
    • An organism typically responds more to a novel stimulus than to a stimulus it was previously exposed to, providing evidence of .
  • Priming:
    • Exposure to a stimulus, even without a conscious memory of that exposure, affects the organism’s response to the stimulus later
• What is the difference between perceptual learning and statistical learning?
  • Perceptual learning requires explicit training; statistical does not
  • Perceptual learning:
    • Repeated experiences with a set of stimuli improve the organism’s ability to distinguish those stimuli
  • Statistical learning
    • Learning driven by repeated exposures to perceptual events that increases the familiarity and distinctiveness of those events.
• How can you explain perceptual learning by the Dual process theory
  • Exposure to shared features among stimulus would cause one to habituate twice
  • Exposure to unique features of stimulus would only habituate once
  • Thus, the unique features are habituated less, making it more likely to provoke response
• Spatial learning
  • Involves latent learning about features of the environment (including encountered objects) through exploration
  • Related to Cognitive map by Tolman
  • Hippocampus
    • The hippocampus has place cells: cells whose receptive field seems to be a particular location or place that is familiar
    • Grid cells: receive inputs from place cells, creating a cognitive map
• Mechanisms for habituation
  • Aplysia Withdrawal Reflex
  • Repeated exposure will cause synaptic depression
  • In long-term habituation, some sensory-motor synapses actually pruned away
  • Habituation is homosynaptic (occurring in one synapse without affecting nearby synapses.)
• Mechanisms for sensitization
  • Aplysia Withdrawal Reflex
  • Repeated exposure activate interneuron carrying neuromodulators such as Serotonin
    • Serotonin increase the glutamate vesicles available
  • Cause action potential to fire at a stronger response
  • Sensitization is heterosynaptic (involves changes in several synapses)
  • Calcium channels respond to the action potentials, but they don’t contribute to the activation of the action potentia
• Mechanisms for perceptual learning
  • Sensory Cortex: input from senses relay to specific locations in the sensory cortex
  • Receptive field: neuron within the cortex has a distinct field to receive from
  • Cortical plasticity: refinement in the receptive fields of neurons of the sensory cortex due to development or experience

Question §

• Autism disorder are more sensitive and more likely to respond to repeated noise exposure, is this a dysfunction in their habituation process?
  • https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04780-1
• Will duel process learning be on the test?
• Research what rate experiment with the place cell
  • what the experiment is trying to multipulate

Footnotes §

1. Sensitized ↩

2. Habituated ↩

3. renew/increase/dishabituate ↩

4. orienting response/fixation time ↩

5. low ↩

6. mass, spaced ↩

7. EDA: electrodermal activity ↩

8. dual process theory ↩

9. latent learning ↩

10. Novel object recognition ↩

11. serotonin, interneuron ↩

12. cortical plasticity ↩

13. place cells ↩

14. sensitization ↩

15. sensory prostheses, perceptual learning ↩