Associative Learning Outcomes and Its Variations - Research Paper Example

? Psychology Research Report Affiliation with more information about affiliation, research grants, conflict of interest and how to contact Psychology Research Report Abstract: With the background of psychology, the research was focusing on the association learning and its differences on the basis of context and stimulus. The study method reveals the result that it shows a significant association between the behavior and stimulus in this study ‘meal-disease association’. It’s variation according to situations and conditions. Introduction: This study report deals with the associative learning outcomes and its variations. Associative learning is the process in which an association between two or more stimuli or behavior and the stimulus or contexts is learned. In this study the association learning belongs to ‘meals and diseases where, setting or context is restaurants’. “As povlovian conditioning is a form of associative learning as it strengths stimulus-outcome association” (Bouton 2002: 977). Contexts are important in learning and it refers to the situations or circumstances in which the event, study or experiment occurs. Context of this study refers to the restaurants. Along with these all individual or group differences according to context will be there in associative learning. Contexts are the setting, and the approach and result of the study varies according to context. As they influence the test result, it is very important to study the context influence. Extinction is also a factor. It refers to the changes in the response. “Extinction should be context specific” (Bouton 2002: 982). However, in many of the studies and experiments extinction is essential and it should preserve the original stimuli (Bouton 2002: 981). Extinction refers to the gradual reduction in conditioned response due to the diminished response. “Extinction does not destroy the first learned information but instead it reflects the new learning. As a result acquires a second meaning along with first” (Bouton 2002: 976). This study reflects on the ambiguous group and as a result the pairing differences have happened, whereas renewal effect refers to the recovery of an extinguished conditioned response as the result of change in context where that extinction took place. Result Section: Test result shows significant association between meal-disease and restaurants. Along with that it shows association learning differences in relation with stimuli or context. As per the response of the participants the results are extracted .both the tests were significant. While concentrating towards the casual rating test, in this method the participants were responding to the question. They have to produce a scale rating according to their thought which pertains to the restaurant-meal-disease. While comparing with training response scale rating, one will get the complete information about individual judgements and changes that happened in the meal–disease pairing across the restaurants. Results: Mean rating from the casual rating: Consistent Group: How likely will meal M01 served in restaurant A cause a disease: 6.8 How likely will meal M01 served in restaurant B cause a disease: 6.1 Test of this difference, p=0.34 How likely will meal M02 served in restaurant A cause a disease: 6.8 How likely will meal M02 served in restaurant B cause a disease: 5.7 Test of this difference, p=0.43 Ambiguous Group: How likely will meal M01 served in restaurant A cause a disease: 5.9 How likely will meal M01 served in restaurant B cause a disease: 4.1 Test of this difference, p=0.02 How likely will meal M02 served in restaurant A cause a disease: 5.2 How likely will meal M02 served in restaurant B cause a disease: 3.0 Test of this difference, p=0.03. Test results show significant association between meal-disease and restaurants. Test results also reveal the difference in response or test rating. A makeable mean test difference values is there in case of both participants. 1st Test Condition: In consistent participant’s ‘P’ value is to 0.34 and the same test result in ambiguous participants the ‘P’ value is 0.02. In 2nd condition it is of about 0.43 and 0.02. Discussion: Even though both of them are agree with the statement there is a difference in score. This shows significant difference in associative learning. These differences have occurred due to the contexts, extinction and renewal effects. In this study, pairing differences happened in the trials when comparing to the training section. This finally contributed to the P value, as it shows the significant difference. Both the groups were succeeded in the association learning study as they stated their response on rating scale. But when we compare the groups even though they achieved the goal performance difference still exists. For example: How likely would meal M01 served in Restaurant A cause disease? Mean rating among consistent group was of “6.8” and ambiguous group was about “5.9”. The test results depend upon the context and condition of the group. Among the consistent group they were having clear learning or information but in case of ambiguous group they were working on doubtful condition and multiple assumptions. Because of this there is difference in meal-disease pairing among the groups. These all reflected in associative learning test results. This is an associative learning study experiment. Association between food and diseases is studied .and it was conducted anonymously among some psychology students so conscious manipulation of stimuli and behaviour not yet occured.allocation was done randomly, as the participants to either ‘consistent’ or ‘ambiguous conditions’. Due to this reliability increased. Exposure to stimuli has occurred, as participants were offered with some ideas that they have to work as an epidemiologist. In a sense, the study about food based illness mainly occurring in the city, they provided with restaurant names along with different meals names. However, restaurants are considered as contexts or setting. As part of the study they have to find out food born disease occurrence in relation with each meals of different restaurants through various trials, which means ‘Association learning of stimuli behaviour or effect on various contexts’. They are instructed to produce the experiment results in the method of rating scale as the score should lie in that ranging from 0-8. Where ‘0’ indicate meals followed by no disease, 4 shows unsure and 8 is about they were sure .repeated trials and results were giving more idea about association learning. Context extinction and differentiation of stimuli was done in 8 restaurants, meals from the list of 20 and diseases also were differentiated. Experiment continued in 2 different training phases for the 2 groups. They are: Phase1:- Studied 4 meals in a restaurant (restaurant A) and 4 different meals in an another restaurant( C) trial presentations were done in randomized order and each restaurant-meal-disease repeated for 5 times. Phase 2:- Learned about 4 meals in a new restaurant (B) and 4 other meals in another new restaurant (D) followed 5 repeats of each restaurant-meal-disease combination. It shows the extinction and exposure to different stimulus to attain the relevant result. However, the study conducted among the groups: Group 1:- Consistent group, meals from Phase 1 were presented in Phase 2, the participants were not exposed to any contradictory information about the relationship between any meals and the diseases that followed them – there was always a consistent relationship between a Meal and the disease that followed it. Group2:- Ambiguous group, the participants learned that some of the meals seen in Phase 1 could be followed by different Outcomes in Phase 2. The conditions were settled in different manner among the groups, Purpose is to reveal exact relationship and more over subjective individual exposure to associative learning. To an extent the results have been influenced by context. Both of the groups have received causal test and memory tests which signify the association between meal-disease and restaurants. Moreover, group result shows specific exposure difference to the specified factors. This report results explain that associative learning implication is essential to conduct a study or to do an experiment in psychology. More over it helps to study how one variant is associated with the other one. In this case food-disease and restaurant relation was extracted. Clear understanding and learning will lead to better evaluation and test results. References Bouton, M. 2002. Context, Ambiguity, and Unlearning: Sources of Relapse after Behavioural Extinction. Biological Psychiatry, Vol.52 (10), pp-976-986. Retrieved September 13, 2013, from Read More