Rescorla Wagner Model of Psychology - Assignment Example

 Rescorla and Kamin in their publications argue that connections are only discovered when a rare episode accompanies conditioning a simple CS. Basically in a simple conditioning model, the US (beta) is surprising in the initial few times it occurs thus associated with prominent stimuli that herald it. In an inhibitory experiment, when the association between the CS from the first phase and the US has been deduced, the US is no longer disturbing because it can be predicted by CS1.

In phase 2 however, the US is not surprising as CS1 and CS2 are experienced. This does not initiate any level of knowledge transfer hence no contact is made between US and CS2. This was evaluated and discussed in detail by Rescorla and Wagner (1972) as a formal model of conditioning with V designated to represent the capacity of relatedness between a CS and the US. A change in the magnitude of strength of V, which occurs on each trial of conditioning, is called DV. A high association between a CS and the US leads to less limited induction associated with the US. From the explanations above, the Rescorla-Wagner formula states that the change in the associative strength of the CS during a trial will depend directly on (a) the salience of the CS (alpha), (b) the strength of the US (beta), and (c) the difference between the maximum associative value of the CS and its current value (lamina - V).

Before the experiment is undertaken, CS has no association with the US, hence V is zero. The strength of CS drifts northwards during the first trial, On the first trial the CS associates with the US and gains a strength of all, relative to the saliences of the CS-US. During the second phase, the associative strength V is abL therefore change in strength inherent in the second pairing CS and US Sis ab(L – abL) The second value obtained is much smaller in comparison to the first value. The reduction wholly reflects the idea that CS is associated with the US hence the US is less surprising. With more experimental trials, a sigmoid curve, that reaches an asymptote at L, predicts a gradually depreciating rate of learning.