What is referred to unconditioned responses are elicited by unconditioned stimulus?

Introduction

Living organisms are naturally endowed with a variety of unconditioned responses that prepare them to interact with their environment in an adaptive and usually favorable manner (Baum 2017). Organisms do not have to learn these responses since they biologically received them. These type of responses (i.e., unconditioned responses) appear when an organism comes across stimuli which automatically, and naturally, trigger them (Thines 1987). For instance, a puff of air to an individual’s eye area automatically induces a response of an eyeblink (Shanks 1995). The person has not learned to respond with an eyeblink in the presence of this stimulus (i.e., puff of air); he/she naturally and automatically exhibits...

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Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

   Christoforos Christoforou

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1. Christoforos Christoforou

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1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

   Dr. Todd K. Shackelford

2. Rochester, Michigan, USA

   Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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1. University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

   Menelaos Apostolou

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Christoforou, C. (2018). Unconditioned Response. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1043-1

Researchers have used heart rate CRs as model CRs to identify the areas where memories are formed and stored. These CRs are advantageous because the locations of the motor neurons that produce them are known. Thus, structures that send projections to activate these neurons leading to the expression of the CR can be identified using anatomical methodology. The subsequent identification of areas that send information to the areas that in turn activate the motor neurons, including the pathways by which CS and US information, access these areas, exposes an entire circuit that contributes to memory. Identification of the circuit permits the identification of sites of CS and US convergence and sets the stage for analyses of the structural changes that form the substrates for memory of the CS–US association.

5.1.2 Ethological models

In contrast to the conditioned responses, the ethological models are based upon naturally occurring behavior. The most important and frequently used models are the elevated plus-maze, the open-field, and the dark–light-box models. The elevated plus-maze uses the conflict between exploration and aversion to elevated open places. In this test, the anxiety is generated by placing the animal on an elevated open arm, where height and openness rather than light are responsible for anxiogenic effects. The device is shaped as a plus sign with two open arms and two arms enclosed by high walls. The time that rodents spend on the open arms and the number of entries are related to the anxiolytic effects. The open-field test investigates the distance traveled by rodents in a locomotor box within a given time interval. Usually, rodents avoid open areas and try to remain at the edge of the locomotor box. The overall distance traveled and the transitions of the central area of the box are related to the anxiolytic potency by a treatment. The dark–light box uses the number of transitions between a light and a dark, closed compartment as measure of anxiety, since rodents prefer the dark compartment. Peptide receptor ligands such as CRF (Arborelius et al. 1999) and cholecystokinin tetrapeptide (CCK-4) (Bradwejn and Vasar 1995) show anxiogenic effects in all three paradigms, whereas other substances such as atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) (Wiedemann et al. 2001) and neuropeptide Y (Heilig and Widerlöv 1995) indicate anxiolytic-like effects.

1.1 Response Form

Under food deprivation, the form of the CR evoked by a light and tone compound reveals its associative origins: if the CR is rear behavior, then responding is the consequence of light-food associations, but if the CR is head jerk behavior, responding reflects tone-food associations. Taking advantage of this fact, Ross and Holland (1981) reported that in the simultaneous FP, the form of the CR during XA presentations was characteristic of X–US associations, whereas in the serial FP, the rats displayed CRs characteristic of A–US associations. Thus, Ross and Holland's observations suggested that in a simultaneous FP discrimination X acts as a simple CS, but with a serial FP discrimination X acts as an occasion setter. A more complicated pattern of results for simultaneous FP discriminations as a function of the relative intensity of the feature and target stimuli was later reported by Holland (1989c).

2.2 The Etiology of Dental Anxiety

The research strongly supports the notion that, especially for children, dental anxiety is a classically conditioned response to dentistry (ter Horst and de Wit 1993). Given that modern anesthetics are thought by dentists to be very effective in alleviating discomfort during dental treatment, and given that the need for invasive treatment has declined for many people owing to the introduction of fluoride in the water supply of many areas, it is surprising to find that levels of dental anxiety have not declined to the expected extent in the latter part of the twentieth century. There seems to be several reasons for this. First, it appears that many more patients experience discomfort during treatment than is often assumed. Depending on how it is measured, up to 77 percent of patients report that they feel some pain during their visits to the dentist. Second, it has been argued that the notion of ‘preparedness’ is particularly relevant here. Just as humans might be innately prepared to become anxious about small animals such as spiders and rats because they posed a realistic threat in our evolutionary past, so too might sitting in the dental chair, with an adult placing sharp instruments in our mouths be one in which anxiety is quick to develop. It might take only the slightest degree of discomfort for anxiety to occur. Although classical conditioning is generally seen as the prime mechanism for the onset of dental anxiety, other learning modalities may also contribute. There is evidence that dental anxiety can be modeled by hearing about someone else's discomfort (Corkey and Freeman 1994). Finally, the role of biological factors merits attention. Dentally anxious individuals score higher on personality questionnaires measuring emotional lability or neuroticism, and children who have a ‘difficult child’ type of temperament are more likely to be dentally anxious. Such research suggests that dental anxiety might be more likely to develop in individuals who have other psychological difficulties (Aartman et al. 1997).

One of the most important methodological issues in this area concerns the retrospective nature of almost all studies. Although it is likely that negative experiences contribute to onset, it is also likely that current levels of anxiety affect interpretations of dental experiences. Owing perhaps to hypersensitivity, an anxious patient might interpret sensations felt in the dental chair as painful, whereas a nonanxious patient may interpret such sensations differently. Certainly, highly anxious patients expect to experience more pain than patients with low anxiety, even if their actual experiences do not differ. Memory processes may also play a role. Kent (1985) asked patients after their appointment to indicate the amount of pain they felt. Three months later, they were asked to indicate the level of pain they remembered having experienced. Whereas those with low anxiety gave reports that corresponded closely to their immediate postappointment ratings, those with high anxiety recalled much higher levels of discomfort. In fact, their reports corresponded most closely to their preappointment expectations. Such studies indicate that retrospective studies are open to severe criticism.

5.1 Biofeedback

In the early development of learning theory, it was generally believed that while responses of the skeletal motor system could be instrumentally conditioned, responses of the ANS could only be classically conditioned. Because they were not under conscious, voluntary control, ANS responses would not respond to operant reinforcement contingencies. However, beginning in the early 1960s, investigators such as H. Kimmel, B. Engel, N. Miller, and D. Shapiro began to demonstrate that rewarding organisms, including humans, for specific ANS activity increased the amount of such autonomic activity, and that this could occur whether or not a human subject was aware of the reinforcement contingency. Thus, it was demonstrated that people could learn to increase the size and number of skin conductance responses, or to increase or decrease heart rate or blood pressure, if they were rewarded for doing so by the arrival of pleasant stimuli or the avoidance of unpleasant ones. It was soon discovered that people could learn these things if their only reward was being told that they were acquiring a desired response or performing a task set for them by, for instance, lowering the pitch of a tone that was controlled by their heart rate, or moving the needle on a dial that indicated blood pressure.

These findings were soon applied to treating the symptoms of many psychosomatic disorders. Such disorders typically involve ANS dysfunction (migraine headache, hypertension, Raynaud's syndrome) or loss of control of skeletal muscle tension (tension headache). In clinical biofeedback applications, the patient is given an external stimulus, such as a tone or meter reading, that indicates the level of muscle tension, cerebral vasoconstriction, blood pressure, etc., and the patient's task is to lower the pitch of the tone, move the meter indicator to the left, etc. This approach has been used with varying degrees of success as a therapeutic method in a wide variety of psychosomatic disorders (Carlson et al. 1994), and the training parameters that maximize its effectiveness have been widely studied.

1 Basic Terms

The pairing of an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus—CS) with a biologically relevant stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus—US) comes to elicit a response (conditioned response—CR) that is usually but not always similar to the response previously associated with the unconditioned stimulus (the unconditioned response—UR). In fear conditioning, the US is an aversive fear-eliciting stimulus such as painful electric shock or loud noise, the CS is a neutral tone or light stimulus. The unconditioned and the conditioned response consist of changes on the subjective, the behavioral and the physiological level and include (in humans) enhanced subjective fear and responses such as freezing, changes in heart rate and skin conductance, the release of stress hormones, reduced pain sensitivity and startle reflex potentiation.

The development of the CR is based on the formation of an association between a neutral stimulus and a stimulus with innate biological significance (Rescorla 1988). Most studies involving fear conditioning have used cue rather than context conditioning, i.e., discrete CSs were presented rather than using the environment of the animal (e.g., the cage) as CS. In addition, delay conditioning where the CS terminates with the US rather than trace conditioning where the CS and US are separated in time were used in most studies. Fear can be viewed as a specific reaction to threatening stimuli. It can turn into an anxiety disorder when the fear becomes disproportionate to the stimulus that elicits it or when fear is experienced in inappropriate situations.

4 Clinical Interventions Involving Operant and Respondent Conditioning

Respondent (also known as classical, or Pavlovian) conditioning (see Classical Conditioning and Clinical Psychology) involves the pairing of unconditioned and conditioned stimuli, which ultimately leads to a conditioned stimulus that elicits a conditioned response. One of the more useful clinical heuristics has been research on how respondent and operant conditioning can combine to explain important clinical problems.

The best-known problem that has been addressed by considering both operant and respondent conditioning is the theory of the acquisition and maintenance of phobic behaviors. It has been suggested that phobic behaviors are acquired by classical conditioning but maintained by operant conditioning. Consider the simple example of someone bitten by a dog. In respondent conditioning terms, the dog bite is an unconditioned stimulus that produces the unconditioned response of pain and fear. Following such an incident, the next time the person approaches a dog, their fear and anxiety rises as the stimulus (the dog) gets closer. So far, the acquisition of the fearful response can be understood using a classical conditioning paradigm. If the person were to approach a variety of dogs, the fearful response would extinguish naturally, because extinction in classical conditioning is accomplished by presenting the conditioned stimulus (a dog) in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus (the dog bite). If this were the case, phobic responses would extinguish naturally over time. However, in many instances when one sees the dog and anxiety increases, a person simply turns around and walks away, thus avoiding the feared object. When that happens, the avoidance behavior is negatively reinforced (increased) by the removal of the anxiety. This increases the probability of avoiding the dog the next time such a stimulus is encountered. The avoidance of the phobic object prevents the natural extinction of phobic anxiety, because the phobic object (now a conditioned stimulus) is avoided and therefore extinction cannot occur.

Avoidance is an important issue in clinical psychology. Avoidance responses are operants that prevent the occurrence of aversive consequences before they are actually experienced. This behavior is maintained by negative reinforcement. Clinically, the liability of avoidance behavior is that the person engaging in such behavior does not experience the opportunity to test whether the anticipated aversive consequences are still in effect. Thus, the circumstances that led to the initial aversive consequences may have changed, but if the person continues to avoid the original stimulus conditions, the changes will go undetected. There may also be avoidance of other stimuli due to generalization that leads to additional restrictions in healthy functioning.

What is an unconditioned response elicited by?

What is an unconditioned response called?

Why is it called unconditioned stimulus?

What does the unconditioned stimulus evoke?