Transcript Learned Helplessness

Aversive Conditioning
Reinforcement Punishment
Positive
contingency
Negative
contingency
Chocolate Bar
Electric Shock
(passive avoidance)
Excused from
Chores
(active avoidance)
Effect on Behavior
No TV
privileges –
omission training
Some potential problems with
punishment
• Moral issues
• Side effects
• Only shows subject what NOT to do.
• Timing of punishment
Punishment on a VR schedule
Cumulative record of pecking in birds
Pecking reinforced on a VI 3-min schedule
Pecking punished on a FR schedule
When there is a discriminative
stimulus for punishment
Student #1
Student #2
Sreward Only
Sreward & Spunishment
Negative reinforcement – Active Avoidance
Negative
Reinforcement Escape
Avoidance: Experimental Paradigm
Light = CS
Light  Shock
Shuttling stops
shock
The shuttle box
Two-Process Theory of Avoidance
Light  Shock
( = Pavlovian Conditioning)
-Light elicits fear
Shuttling  Reduction of Fear (= negative reinforcement)
Is the termination of a shockassociated CS reinforcing?
Phase 1
Pavlovian
Conditioning
ToneShock
Phase2
Escape (no shocks)
Shuttling turns off
Tone
Fear in Active Avoidance
Fear of the CS declines with extensive
avoidance training
Phase 1
Active
avoidance
training
Phase 2
Does
avoidance
CS suppress
lever
pressing?
Two-Process Theory of Avoidance
Light  Shock
( = Pavlovian Conditioning)
-Light elicits fear
Shuttling  Reduction of Fear (= negative reinforcement)
What should happen with extensive training?
Learned Helplessness Paradigm
“Triadic” Design
Phase 1
Group A: Escapable Shock
Group B: Yoked Inescapable Shock
Phase 2
Escape/Avoidance
training
Group C: Exposure to apparatus only
(For Group A shock can be terminated by rotating a wheel.)
Phase 2 Results
Inescapable shock
escapable shock
Possible Explanations
• Learned Helplessness: Organisms learn that their
behavior is ineffectual
• Poverty of activity: inescapable shock reduces the
variability in behavior that is so crucial for operant
conditioning
• Inattention: animals stop attending to their own
behavior
Effects of Marking
Inescapable shock
Marking group
escapable shock
Learned Helplessness in the
Spinal Cord?
Grau and Colleagues
Operant Procedure: Shock
administered whenever leg is
extended. Spinal cord learns
to keep leg flexed to avoid
shock.
Learned Helplessness:
Experience of
uncontrollable legshock
(yoked group) prevents
subsequent avoidance
learning with controllable
shock
LH in Humans
LH produced by…
insoluble math or logic problems
living in a crowded dorm