Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Human Learning and Cognition

Fall 2003

Questions - Week 5 Terry, Chapter 3

1. What is classical conditioning and why is this important?

Classical conditioning, otherwise known as Pavlovian conditioning, is when an organism forms a simple association between two previously unrelated stimuli. One of the stimulus is important to the organism and is called an unconditioned stimulus. The other stimulus is a conditioned stimulus. The association made between tho two must be learned as there is a demonstrable change in behavior as a result of the association having been made. As the result of the association the organism will have transferred the natural responses to the unconditioned stimulus to the conditioned stimulus even though prior to the their dual and temporally controlled exposure they were not at all related. In a nutshell this is what classical conditioning is.

Although for the purposes of trying to control the process and/or concepts of morality classical conditioning experiments are usually carried out in a laboratory and with organisms other than humans, it is possible to see how this can be applied to the outside world and to the human world in general. Conditioning is simple type of learning which takes habituation just one baby step further. In conditioning we are taking what was learned through habituation and extending on to another stimulus which just so happens to co-occur in the world. Such type of learning is obviously largely responsible for our uncanny ability to survive for it means that we can extend our behaviors beyond a simple flight response generated by habituation. It may also be the very underpinning of our ability for language.

The very defining feature of language is its arbitrariness as proposed by de Saussure; that is the arbitrariness of the actual structures (but never the meaning). We would then wonder, if there is no logical reason why some structural units should be expected to be found adjacent to others (to think so would be ludicrous) then how did they come to co-occur like they do? This is a question of linguistic evolution and unfortunately can not concern us here. What does concern us here, however, is the question of how a child can learn these patterns. There must be a type of learning which supports the rather quick learning of language. Conditioning might just be the missing link.

Think about context. Context is the clue to all learning and those that can see it and differentiate its parts is the good learner.

2. How might classical conditioning-type studies be carried out on language?

Feature-hopping

The basic idea in the feature hopping sequence is that all words are composed of sets of features. Some of these features are direct attributes of the word while others are less direct attributes and take the form of links to other different words and concepts. Now, when two stimulus (and in this case won't really talking about here is the language and functions) are linked and a new stimulus comes in the two stimulus are associated. It is in this association that features hop or are mapped from one stimulus onto the other. It is therefore possible for us as language teachers were very interested in language learning to try to devise a test to see how features of 1 linguistic stimulus are mapped onto another linguistic stimulus. For us as second-language teachers this of course would be done in relation to feature mapping across the two languages. We would assume that the mapping would occur from the dominant language to the less dominant language at least in the initial stages. This can become simply by having lexical items co-occur and then test to see if the features of 1 map onto the other.

Co-occurrence

The idea studying co-occurrence comes from basic observations that in order for two stimulus to be associated they need to co-occur and not just once but probably several times depending on the type of stimulus they are in the intervals between the co-occurrences. Well, one thing that we can do as a way of testing is to have some lexical items co--occur and then to test and see if the students or subjects after certain period of time also use these to reoccur. This is simple learning pattern of association.

Feature generalization

The underlying idea of behind feature generalization is that a stimulus (and that includes words/phrases/sentences) are composed of features we know that association can actually be extended from the original associated link to other things or concepts which have similar features. So, for example is somebody associates the actual animal dog with the lexical item dog than the attributes of the animal dog will he mapped onto the lexical item. When the learner encounters a similar word to dog, such as pooch or canine or anything else then we would expect them to map the same types of features on based on the fact that there seemed to be common features. This of course could be turned into an experiment in the classroom.

3. What is extinction and how does it work?

Extinction is the eradication of the conditioned response due to breaking the co-occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus. An interesting thing about extinction (and this gives us valuable insight on learning and forgetting in general) is that the effects of extinction are only temporary so long as the pattern of co-occurrence is reinstated at a later date. This confirms what we said last week about the theory that once learned things are never actually forgotten though they might go dormant for a period of time. In any case, the potential for recovery is always there - maybe. What probably actually happens in extinction situation is that the costs of recovering the information simply becomes comes too high. This is based on the idea of firing. We know that firing is a process in the brain by which electricity is entered into a neuron. Each neuron requires a different amount of electricity to fire it, or make it work. The amount of electricity required is called the threshold level. As a year on is used more and more often the threshold level will go down. So, to a large extent the threshold levels of neurons are determined by their frequency. If neurons are not used frequently their threshold levels are going to go up and the longer they're not used to more they'll go up. Once they reach a certain level it becomes hardly unlikely that these neurons will be fired because they simply cost too much energy. The brain due to its plasticity will simply find another way around and threshold levels will therefore continue to go up in what seems to be a rather vicious cycle. This doesn't mean we can't fired a neurons that are required or coded for a certain association it just means that we avoid doing it because it's not efficient. If we need at some point to actually do that we can but it is going to cost energy.

4. How does contiguity affect conditioning?

Contiguity refers to the timing of the conditioning. This relates to the intervals between the presentation of the two stimuli as well as the order of the stimuli. I looking at contiguity the biggest lesson we need to take from this is that a forward sequence is the most effective. This probably because a forward sequence would allow the organism to effectively prepare for the coming unconditioned stimulus. It is also very important to remember that contiguity as a variable in conditioning is very much reliant on the task itself, the species involved in the experiment, and the type of response expected. All this ties into brain differences among species and among the different functions as related to the type of response expected. If the stimulus is visual in nature then the neurological structure of the optic nerve and how this is connected to other parts of the brain becomes an important factor. Also, some experiences are more intense than others, such as food poisoning, and this will have a large effect on contiguity.

5. What other things affect conditioning?

There are several other factors that have a strong effect on conditioning. They are:

Prior exposure - familiarity,

Compound stimuli,

Surprise,

Relevance,

and Inhibition.

Prior exposure is a sword that cuts both ways. Prior exposure in which the two stimuli did co-occur wills serve to reenforce or heighten the conditioned response. Prior exposure, however, in which the two stimuli did not co-occur will increase the chances that a conditioned response will not occur.

When compound conditioned stimuli are presented several different effects occur depending on the timing and salience of the conditioned stimulus in relation the unconditioned stimulus. Most of this is intuitive and, therefore, does not require further explanation here as are the effects of surprise and blocking when two or more conditioned stimuli are used..

The amount of relevancy of the two stimulus to each other seems to have a fairly large effect on not only what will be associated but also on how quickly the association will take place.

An inhibitory response is one in which the absence of the unconditioned response will cause a conditioned response. What is interesting for us is that an inhibitory response can only be generated based on an understanding (knowledge) of the components that go into making the unconditioned stimulus. In order to know that something will not happen you need to be able to predict under what conditions it would happen and to know about what elements are present and what elements are missing.

6. How is conditioning related to learning?

Classical conditioning as mentioned in the answer to question 1 is a simple example of what is called associative learning. This is learning where one learns to associate two previously unrelated concepts, ideas, stimulus. It should be obvious that we are following the stimulus-stimulus (s-s) model here.

7. How can classical conditioning be used to explain some language learning phenomenon?

Form to function mapping

According to some theories of language basis of language itself is the mapping of forms to functions. A good indicator of this is the fact that all language has to be uttered or exist in a functional framework. This means that we always say things for a particular reason which not only has to be cleared to the speaker but also to the listener. Therefore we can see that functions are the basis and the groundwork of all language. As they go to learn language we have functions as our basic stimulus we then hear a piece of language which co--occurs within the context of the function. They are associated and their features are mapped onto each other. This is form to function mapping and it is the basis of language. For devotion mapping is based on the type of learning which we see in classical conditioning. There's an association between a specific function which we notice in the world and seems to be like, at least initially, an unconditioned stimulus, and the conditioned stimulus which is a piece of language itself. Associations are formed initially between functions and chunks of language. Because we know that stimulus that share features will associate with other things, such as the initial unconditioned stimulus (in this case the function) we can easily see how similar forms will be associated with single functions. And it works the other way around as well. Similar functions will mapped onto singular forms simply because the functions have similar features.