Avoidance Learning & Stimulus Control

Question 1

What is an avoidance response?

Answer 1

a response that postpones or prevents an aversive event e.g. paying one’s income tax to avoid unpleasant consequences of not doing so

Question 2

What is an example of signal avoidance?

Answer 2

when an experimenter provides a signal to indicate when a shock is imminent

Question 3

Why does avoidance learning pose a dilemma?

Answer 3

because the consequence of an avoidance response is that nothing happens - how can nothing act to reinforce behaviour?

Question 4

What is the name of a theory that answers this?

Answer 4

the two factor theory of avoidance

Question 5

discuss two factor theory of avoidance

Answer 5

• pairing of tone and shock results in conditioning of fear to the tone
• when the rat jumps over the hurdle & terminates the tone its level of fear is reduced
• bc fear is aversive, termination of this state reinforces jump ( fear reduction is a form of negative reinforcement)

Question 6

according to the two factor theory of avoidance - avoidance learning depends on what two factors

Answer 6

1. classical conditioning of fear to the tone (fear is transferred from shock US to the tone CS)
2. reinforcement of the avoidance response by termination of tone (i.e. escape from fear-eliciting tone)

Question 7

how does the experiment on dogs support the two-factor theory

Answer 7

the result shows that a stimulus that is specifically trained as a CS for fear can amplify ongoing avoidance behaviour

Question 8

what is a problem with the two factor theory

Answer 8

since the mechanisms of the two-factor theory seem to require some warning stimulus, it is not obvious how it can explain free-operant behaviour

Question 9

what is the fearlessness problem as a limitation of the two factor theory

Answer 9

fear and avoidance are not as firmly linked as theory believes

• according to theory, fear provides the motive to perform the avoidance response
• BUT once the avoidance response is well learned subjects respond without apparent fear

Question 10

The basic principle of negative reinforcement is not useful when was take over

Answer 10

SSDRs

Question 11

What do cognitivists believe that avoidance responding is based on?

Answer 11

not on fear but on the subjects expectation that a response will avoid shock - it is assumed that fear is classically conditioned and that this fear plays a role in directly an initial reaction, but once an animal learns that jumping the barrier will avoid shock its behaviour thereafter is solely based on expectation

Question 12

According to the cognitivists theory, the difficulty of extinguishing avoidance behaviour is based on…?

Answer 12

two expectations:

• in the absence of a response shock will occur
• BUT if the response is made the shock will not occur
• if this analysis is right, then animals will continue to respond during extinction b/c they never get the chance to learn what would happen if they didn’t respond

Question 13

What is a limitation of the cognitivists theory

Answer 13

it has difficulty explaining evidence that fear does influence avoidance

Question 14

Discuss the fact that reinforcement does not strengthen a response universally…

Answer 14

instead it increases the likelihood of a response to the stimuli that were present during reinforcement