Second-order conditioning with and without unconditioned stimulus presentation

The effects of presenting various episodes after serial presentation of two conditioned stimuli (CS2-CS1 sequences) on second-order conditioning to CS2 were examined in three experiments using rat subjects in an appetitive conditioning situation. In Experiment 1, presentation of food unconditioned stimuli (USs) immediately after CS2-CS1 sequences interfered with second-order conditioning of CS2. In Experiment 2, postsequence presentation of a "surprising" US interfered with second-order conditioning more than did presentation of an "expected" US; similarly, less second-order conditioning of CS2 was observed when postsequence nonpresentation of a US was surprising than when US omission was expected. In Experiment 3, the interfering effect of US presentation on second-order conditioning was smaller when a brief delay was introduced between presentation of the CS2-CS-1 sequence and the US. The results are discussed in terms of an information-processing theory recently proposed by Wagner and his colleagues.     

Cerebellar stimulation as an unconditioned stimulus in classical conditioning.

Implanted rabbits with chronic stimulating electrodes in white matter underlying lobule HVI of the cerebellar cortex. Stimulation elicited movements of the face or neck and, when paired with a tone CS, produced learning comparable to that seen with peripheral unconditioned stimulus/stimuli (UCS). CS-alone trials produced extinction. Reinstatement of paired trials produced reacquisition with savings. Additional groups received either explicitly or randomly unpaired CS–UCS trials before paired conditioning. Low-frequency responding during these sessions indicated that the paired training results were associative and not due to pseudoconditioning or sensitization. Explicitly unpaired sessions retarded learning on subsequent paired trials compared with groups that received either randomly unpaired or no CS–UCS preexposure. These results are interpreted in terms of the role of the cerebellum and associated pathways in classical conditioning of motor responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heart rate conditioning with pentobarbital as a conditioned stimulus and amphetamine as an unconditioned stimulus.

Injected pentobarbital (PB) into rats 20 min after they were placed in an apparatus where heart rates were recorded. Amphetamine was injected after they were removed from the apparatus 29–30 min later. A Pavlovian conditioned response (CR) began after 3 or 4 trials in the form of a failure of conditioned Ss to show the same decline in heart rate obtained in controls after the PB injection. On later trials, the amphetamine was not injected until 50 min after the PB, and the CR was most obvious during the period 30–50 min after the PB injection. The pharmacological effects of PB were necessary for conditioning because the CR was not obtained (a) when normal saline was substituted for the PB after successful conditioning or (b) when saline was used instead of PB throughout. Because of the speed and effectiveness of the conditioning, we believe the mechanism responsible for it has homeostatic regulation as its natural role. It was puzzling that environmental cues seemed to have a role in the conditioned stimulus complex, because conditioning was not apparent when the drug–drug pairings were administered in the home cage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rabbit eyelid conditioning as a function of unconditioned stimulus duration.

Reports eyelid conditioning data for 85 male New Zealand white rabbits, employing UCS durations of 50, 100, and 200 msec. Ss with a 50-sec UCS were slower to start conditioning than the 100- or 200-msec groups. The 200-msec group reached a lower terminal performance level than the other 2 groups. Results are related to drive-reduction theory and to possible technical difficulties in the presentation of the cheek-shock UCS. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of inflation of the unconditioned stimulus value following conditioning.

Conducted 3 experiments using a conditioned suppression procedure in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Exp I and II (N = 56) found that exposure to a more severe shock either before or after conditioning elevated the CR established by a moderate shock. Exp III (n = 32) found 2nd-order conditioning immune to such modification. These findings parallel earlier results with habituation of the UCS in the absence of the CS. They encourage the view that organisms form memories of the UCS independently of associative connections with the CS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Classical conditioning with electrical stimulation of cerebellum as both conditioned and unconditioned stimulus.

Stimulating electrodes were implanted in rabbit cerebellum, providing an electrical conditioned stimulus (CS) activating cortical parallel fibers and thence Purkinje and other cells, and an electrical unconditioned stimulus (US) activating underlying white matter and eliciting unconditioned responses. Paired CS-US presentations led to the development of conditioned responses, which showed extinction following CS-alone trials and reacquisition with significant savings on reinstatement of paired trials. Increased local excitability as a result of paired training (but not following unpaired stimulus presentations) was observed in cerebellar cortex, as manifested in substantial decreases in CS threshold for response elicitation in all subjects. This preparation offers a model for the study of plastic neuronal interactions within cerebellar networks critically involved in associative learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the respective contributions of awareness of unconditioned stimulus valence and unconditioned stimulus identity in attitude formation through evaluative conditioning.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a central mechanism for both classic and current theories of attitude formation. In contrast to Pavlovian conditioning, it is often conceptualized as a form of evaluative learning that occurs without awareness of the conditioned stimulus–unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) contingencies. In the present research, the authors directly address this point by assessing the respective roles of US valence awareness and US identity awareness in attitude formation through EC. Across 4 experiments, EC was assessed with evaluative ratings as well as evaluative priming measures, and the impact of valence and identity awareness on EC was evaluated. EC effects on priming and rating measures occurred only for CSs for which participants could report the associated US valence, and US identity awareness did not further contribute to EC. This finding was obtained both for semantically meaningless (i.e., nonword letter sequences) and meaningful (i.e., consumer products) CSs. These results provide further support for the critical role of contingency awareness in EC, albeit valence awareness, not identity awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual approach conditioning: Tests of unconditioned stimulus devaluation using hormone manipulations.

Contents of learning that result from CS–unconditioned stimulus/stimuli (UCS) pairings in sexual approach conditioning were explored with male Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). Sexual motivation of Ss conditioned to approach an arbitrary stimulus in a Pavlovian sexual conditioning paradigm was reduced by exposing them to a short photoperiod. Decreased sexual motivation resulted in a decline in sexually conditioned approach behavior (Exps 1 and 2). Responding was restored when Ss were returned to a long photoperiod (Exp 1) and when exogenous testosterone was administered (Exp 2). Decreased sexual motivation did not affect food-conditioned approach behavior (Exp 3). These results suggest that sexually conditioned approach behavior is mediated by a representation of the UCS, which is activated by the CS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discrete signals for the unconditioned stimulus fail to overshadow contextual or temporal conditioning.

Conditioned freezing in Sprague-Dawley rats evoked by contextual and temporal cues that reliably preceded a shock unconditioned stimulus (UCS) was unaffected by the presence of a redundant conditioned stimulus (CS). No overshadowing of contextual and temporal conditioning was found after either 5 or 15 days of conditioning, regardless of whether the time of UCS presentation within sessions was fixed or alternated and despite efforts to minimize the influence of 2nd-order associations. These results suggest that contextual and temporal cues may acquire associative strength independently of discrete CSs under some conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intertrial unconditioned stimuli preferentially interfere with delay conditioning.

One way to minimize excitation acquired by the conditioned stimulus (CS) is to introduce intertrial presentations of the unconditioned stimulus (US). However, even in the presence of frequent intertrial USs, Experiments 1a and 1b found that rats anticipated the customary arrival time of a food pellet US when it occurred before (embedded)—versus coincident with (delay)—the termination of a white noise CS. Delay conditioning emerged in Experiment 2 in the absence of intertrial USs; hence, the detrimental effects of intertrial USs depended on the CS-US relationship, delay versus embedded, and not the duration of CS-US interval. Experiments 3a, 3b, and 4 found that random USs located in the early portion of the intertrial interval increased the control acquired by contextual stimuli at the expense of temporal stimuli occasioned near CS termination. Our results suggest that delay relationships leave the CS especially vulnerable to the deleterious effects of intertrial USs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When pentobarbital is the conditioned stimulus and amphetamine is the unconditioned stimulus, conditioning depends on the type of conditioned response.

Injections of drugs into rats were used as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and as unconditioned stimuli (UCSs). With heart rate (HR) conditioning, the pentobarbital CS produces a higher HR than under control conditions. With avfail (aversion failure) conditioning, the pentobarbital CS loses much of its capacity to induce a conditioned taste aversion. HR conditioning was obtained with forward delays of up to 30 min and backward delays of up to 270 min, where the delays are defined by the interinjection interval. Avfail was obtained with forward delays of up to 270 min but not with backward delays. Neither HR conditioning nor avfail were context specific but could be demonstrated in a test apparatus after pairings that occurred in the home cage. This indicated that the external environment was not an important part of the effective stimulus complex. When HR conditioning was obtained, its latency and duration was not related to the delay between the CS and UCS injections or whether they were forward or backward. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Classical conditioning and conditioning-specific reflex modification of rabbit heart rate as a function of unconditioned stimulus location.

Heart rate conditioning is used as an index of conditioned fear and is important for understanding disorders of anxiety and stress, including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One important feature of PTSD is that patients generalize conditioned fear from danger signals to safety signals especially when the two signals have overlapping features. What has not been determined is whether generalization occurs between unconditioned stimuli with overlapping features. In the current experiment, heart rate conditioning and conditioning-specific reflex modification of rabbit heart rate were examined as a function of two different unconditioned stimulus locations. Heart rate conditioning occurred at identical terminal levels whether electrical stimulation was presented near the eye or on the back. Despite different heart rate response topographies to electrical stimulation at the two locations, conditioning-specific reflex modification was detected near the eye and on the back and appeared to generalize between the locations. Interestingly, only conditioning-specific reflex modification detected on the back persisted for a week after heart rate conditioning. This persistence may be a model for some features of post traumatic stress disorder. Overgeneralization of unconditioned responses to unconditioned stimuli similar to the trauma may also be an important aspect of PTSD modeled here. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Classical nictitating membrane conditioning in the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) as a function of unconditioned stimulus locus.

Examined the effects of different placements of electrodes used to present a shock UCS on conditioning the rabbit nictitating membrane response (NMR) in 2 experiments with 32 New Zealand and 24 albino rabbits. Ss were conditioned with shock leads attached either circumorbitally, at the ear base, or at the ear tip. In 1 circumorbital shock group, nictitating membranes of both shocked and unshocked eyes were monitored. Circumorbital, ear base, and ear-tip shock yielded best to poorest performances, respectively, and the shocked membrane yielded better performance than the unshocked one. Analysis of UCR and CR latencies and peak amplitude, as well as slow motion films of responses, suggests that poorer performance resulted from the elicitation of other responses, of which the NMR may have been a secondary or indirect component. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of changing the unconditioned stimulus on appetitive blocking.

In four experiments we examined the effects of the unconditioned stimulus (US) on appetitive blocking. In Experiments 1{a}, 1{b}, and 2 we established that substituting food for water, or water for food, in the compound stage did not attenuate blocking relative to groups that received the same US throughout conditioning. Experiment 3 showed that satiation with the US used prior to compound conditioning with a different US does not affect blocking. Experiment 4 revealed that changing the location of US delivery, as well as the quality of the US, also leaves blocking unaffected. It is suggested that these results demonstrate that blocking occurs, provided that there is no change in the affective properties of the US. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Posttraining shifts in the overshadowing stimulus–unconditioned stimulus interval alleviates the overshadowing deficit.

Two conditioned lick suppression experiments explored the effects on overshadowing of a posttraining change in the temporal relationship between the overshadowing conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US). Rats received either trace (Experiment 1) or delay (Experiment 2) overshadowing training. Then pairings of the overshadowing CS and US were given with either a trace or delay temporal relationship. Overshadowing was alleviated by shifting the overshadowing CS–US temporal relationship so that it no longer matched the overshadowed CS–US temporal relationship. These outcomes are explicable in terms of an integration of the comparator hypothesis, which states that cue competition effects (e.g., overshadowing) will be maximal when the information potentially conveyed by competing CSs is equivalent, and the temporal coding hypothesis, which states that CS–US intervals are part of the information encoded during conditioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulation at a site of auditory-somatosensory convergence in the medial geniculate nucleus is an effective unconditioned stimulus for fear conditioning.

The medial division of the medial geniculate nucleus (MGm) and the posterior intralaminar nucleus (PIN) are necessary for conditioning to an auditory conditioned stimulus/stimuli (CS), receive both auditory and somatosensory input, and project to the amygdala, which is involved in production of fear conditioned responses (CRs). If CS–unconditioned stimulus (UCS) convergence in the MGm-PIN is critical for fear conditioning, then microstimulation of this area should serve as an effective UCS during classical conditioning, in place of standard footshock. Guinea pigs underwent conditioning (40–60 trials) using a tone as the CS and medial geniculate complex microstimulation as the UCS. Conditioning bradycardia developed when the UCS electrodes were in the PIN. However, microstimulation was not an effective UCS for conditioning in other parts of the medial geniculate or for sensitization training in the PIN or elsewhere. Learning curves were similar to those found previously for footshock UCS. Thus, the PIN can be a locus of functional CS–UCS convergence for fear conditioning to acoustic stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioned increases in locomotor activity produced with morphine as an unconditioned stimulus, and the relation of conditioning to acute morphine effect and tolerance.

In 5 experiments with 164 male Wistar rats, Ss administered morphine (5 mg/kg, sc) during each of several daily sessions in an open field showed an increase in locomotor activity. Since increases were not observed in Ss given morphine in a different environment (home cage) and saline in the open field, it is concluded that they were due to conditioning. Increases in activity were retained over a 7-day rest period; they were also produced when a 2nd opiate (5 μg/kg etorphine) was substituted for morphine, were not seen when 2 mg/kg naloxone (ip) was administered during treatment, and were present in Ss showing tolerance to opiate-produced hypoactivity. Morphine's direct effect on activity is believed to have a biphasic dose–response curve; therefore, the relation of dose to conditioning was also studied. Increases in activity were the only conditioned behaviors observed; they were present only at the higher doses (16, 4, and 1 vs .25, .065, and 0 mg/kg), and they occurred whether or not the dose was associated with unconditioned hypoactivity. Discussion deals with the relation of conditioning and morphine tolerance, the question of whether the UCS of morphine conditioning is a compensatory or a direct effect of morphine, and the similarity of conditioned increases in activity produced by morphine and by other reinforcing stimuli. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mechanisms of second-order conditioning with a backward conditioned stimulus.

Five conditioned suppression experiments with rats examined the conditions under which backward pairings endow a first-order conditioned stimulus (CSI) with the ability to serve as a secondary reinforcer. Experiments 2-5B found evidence for excitatory second-order conditioning (SOC) if, during first-order pairings, the US-CS I interval was 0 s rather than 3 s. Levels of SOC were comparable after forward and backward pairings (Experiments 1-3), and were unaffected by extinction of CS I after SOC (Experiment 3). These results suggest that forward and backward CSIs support SOC for the same reason, and they call into question the need to invoke any special mechanism such as memory integration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Failure to produce conditioning with low-dose trimethylthiazoline or cat feces as unconditioned stimuli.

Trimethylthiazoline (TMT), a derivative of fox feces, has been reported to fail to produce aversive conditioning as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) when presented in large amounts. Experiment 1 evaluated very low TMT levels that nonetheless produced defensive behaviors in rats during exposure. Although each level (0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 μl TMT) produced significant change in defensiveness, none resulted in significant changes the following day in the absence of TMT. Experiment 2 evaluated cat urine, cat feces, and cat fur/skin odor against a no-odor control. Urine produced no significant changes, but feces and fur/skin odors elicited virtually identical changes in defensive behaviors during exposure. When tested the next day in the absence of odor, the fur/skin odor-exposed group showed significant differences on the same behaviors as during exposure, but the feces-exposed group showed no differences on any measure. Results suggest that lack of conditioning to TMT may relate to the type of predator odor rather than the amount, predator species, or possible lack of odor components in TMT that are present in natural feces. Predator feces may also be less effective as a UCS because they are poorly predictive of the actual presence of the predator. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of unconditioned stimulus magnitude on the emergence of conditioned responding.

Although unconditioned stimulus (US) magnitude influences conditioning, no experiment has addressed whether it influences a decision point at which the organism first responds (Gallistel & Gibbon, 2000). Two appetitive conditioning experiments with rats confirmed that the rate of food cup entries and proportion of head jerking were related to the number of pellets (US) provided after the conditioned stimulus. In addition, the onset of responding measured by the number of reinforcers to a criterion or by a quantitatively identified change point also reflected US magnitude. Two aversive conditioning experiments also found that the amount and onset of freezing were related to footshock intensity. All experiments identified a trial at which responding increased abruptly in individual subjects. However, the point where the increase occurred was earlier with larger USs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)