Introduction
In classical conditioning of behavior, spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the Conditional Response (CR) that was extinguished previously. This is followed by the acquisition and extinction which involves first describing the Conditional Response and then deriving Conditional Stimulus (CS) and later, eliminating the conditional response by disassociating the conditional stimulus from unconditional stimulus.
Method
1. The file of experiment 2, Extinction was opened and from the experiment menu, “Remove Sniffy from Time Out” was selected. This removed Sniffy from the chamber and left it in the home cage for 1 day. OK button was pressed on the prompted dialogue box to ensure return of Sniffy to the room of experiment.
2. From the experiment menu, Design Classical Conditioning Experiment was selected and settings were made in the dialogue box of Classical Conditioning Experiment Design to allow extinction session of 15 trials for Sniffy.
3. Run command for Classical Conditioning Experiment was selected after closing the dialogue box.
4. File was saved after the experiment stopped running.
Results & Discussion
After the execution of stage 3, two graphs are obtained. One is Movement Ratio which demonstrates the ratio of movement with the trials. Another graph obtained is CS Response Strength which demonstrates the strength of capacity of tone to obtain a fear response from Sniffy.
CS Response Strength Mind
During spontaneous recovery, the movement ratio begins from 0.25 approximately and then keeps on fluctuating throughout the experiment with eventually leveling off at 0. This fluctuation in movement ratio and eventual decrease signifies that the conditional stimulus of the tone to induce fear in Sniffy is acquired and is fluctuating. With the fluctuation in the movement ratio, the conditional stimulus response strength mind window also demonstrates similar pattern, depicting that the capacity of tone as the psychological process to induce fear is fluctuating. The movement ratio graph illustrates the alteration in the behavior of Sniffy and CS response strength mind graph illustrates the alterations in the psychological state of Sniffy which influences the changes in Sniffy’s behavior.
In the case of real rat, the altered response of the rat towards the CS can only be recorded by the psychologists. This alteration of behavior is considered to be resulting from the alterations in psychological processes. The capacity acquired by the conditional stimulus to elicit conditioned behavior is observed to be the result of increasingly powerful fear response.
With the conditional stimulus presentations, the CS response strength mind graph demonstrates the current strength of fear experienced by Sniffy with also representing the strength of fear response expected from the next conditional stimulus. In the graphs obtained, the ratio eventually drops to zero which depicts that tone is unable to induce fear response in Sniffy and the CS response strength window depicts that the alteration in behavior is due to the CS’s losing the capacity to produce the fear response.
Conclusion
The conditioned response of fear from the condition stimulus reappears after the lapse of time and the extinction activity, which is spontaneous recovery.
