Chapter 3: Classical Conditioning: Foundations
Chapter 3 begins with a brief examination of the history of classical conditioning. The research of Pavlov, Twitmyer, Vul’fson and Snarskii is presented. The historical accounts are used as a basis for defining the classical conditioning paradigm. Several experimental situations, including fear conditioning, eyeblink conditioning, sign tracking, and taste-aversion learning, are described in detail. The specifics of excitatory and inhibitory conditioning are then presented. These specifics include definitions, conditioning and control procedures, and measurement of the conditioned responses. The chapter concludes with an examination of the prevalence of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning mechanisms involved in responses during causal judgment, food preference learning, nursing, and sexual behavior are presented.
Chapter 4: Classical Conditioning: Mechanisms
Chapter 4 provides an examination of the mechanisms of classical conditioning. The chapter begins by presenting research about the factors that contribute to effective conditional and unconditional stimuli. These factors include stimulus novelty, intensity, salience and belongingness. Several models that attempt to characterize the nature of the conditional response are explored, and the effects of the US and CS on the CR are presented. Evidence supporting and contradicting the stimulus-substitution model, homeostatic models, and behavior systems theory is evaluated. Tests of S-R versus S-S learning are then presented. The chapter concludes by addressing the question of how conditioned and unconditioned stimuli become associated. The blocking effect is presented as an introduction to several models of associative learning including the Rescorla-Wagner model, attentional models, the temporal coding hypothesis, the relative waiting time hypothesis, and the comparator hypothesis.