On Sat, 08 Feb 2014 16:22:10 -0800, Jeffry Ricker wrote:
My question was: would pairing an animal with a terrified mother
be an example of classical or vicarious conditioning? My take on
this is that a terrified expression on a mother's face would actually
be a UCS for the child (the CS would be the animal). It would
not be the same as if the child watched a stranger's expression
of fear when viewing the same animal, which is what I understand
vicarious conditioning to be.
If you take a look at the following chapter, you'll see that the example
you use above is approximated at the beginning (p454, Chapter 20) and
is put into the vicarious conditioning situation on page 464 (in the
section
"Learning from others"; see:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PLw__BGAGRoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA454&dq=%22The+vicarious+learning+pathway+to+fear+40+years+on%22&ots=KswKEWrSoo&sig=IITudYvpXO2S7uVac_ckk5foWIE#v=onepage&q=%22The%20vicarious%20learning%20pathway%20to%20fear%2040%20years%20on%22&f=false
To the observer, the mother's face becomes an unconditioned
stimulus and if it expresses fear, the observer associates a fear
response to it. That's what's learned.
My question probably is theoretically and conceptually muddled,
but that is exactly why I'm asking the question: in order to start to
clear up my muddled understanding so that I can teach these
concepts better.
It could be the case that your question is not what is muddled but
the explanation that is given that is muddled, in part, because it tries
to straddle conditioning and cognitive conceptions. There appears
to be both more and less than meets the eye but what do I know.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
P.S. I suppose that Janet Leigh's shock at being stabbed in the shower
is a UCS and the shower is CS but doesn't really sound right to me.
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