Question

Compare and contrast Overshadowing and Blocking procedures. Define each, explain the differences in training procedures use to produce each, and explain the theoretical accounts of each.

and how would you of tried to of cured the Little Albert phobia

Answer 1

comparision in over shadowing : It is when two or more stimuli are present, & one stimulus produces a stronger response than the other because it is more relevant or salient.   for example... where we try to teach the dogs of commands-as want to teach your dog to sit. If you lure your dog to a sitting position by dangling a treat over her, & at the same time saying "sit," guess which stimulus is causing your dog to sit? In this case, smelling the treat overshadows hearing the word "sit" because the treat is more relevant than your voice

Your head movement will overshadow your verbal command. Dogs are masters in looking at our body language, so our movements are much more salient than our voice. What does happen then? You may end up with a dog that with a dog that will not sit & fail to move your head downwards, but will sit if you do not move your head

Blocking effect ^: the conditioning of an association between two stimuli, a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) is impaired if, during the conditioning process, the CS is presented together with a second CS that has already been associated with the unconditioned stimulus.

For example : Here we take the the example of blocking effect of mice : an agent (mouse) is exposed to a light (the first conditioned stimulus, CS1), together with food (the unconditioned stimulus, US). After repeated pairings of CS1 & US, the mouse salivates when the light comes on (conditioned response, CR). SO, there are more conditioning trials, this time with the light (CS1) and a tone (CS2) together with the US. Now, when tested, the agent does not salivate to the tone (CS2). Therefore, an association between the tone CS2 & the US has been "blocked" because the CS1–US association already exists.

BLOCKING & OVER SHADOWING CAN AFFECT LEARNING: While trainning the dogs we encounter some problems , thus blocking and overshadowing will help you overcome some challenges and better understand how dogs learn and the many implications derived from ignoring certain dynamics that come into play. these dynamics also take place when it comes to human learning, blocking and overshadowing are terms used when studying human psychology..

This was also explained by Rescoria -Wagner model- which states that- that if one CS ( light) already fully predicts that the US will come, nothing will be learned about a second CS ( tone) that accompanies the first CS. Blocking is an outcome of other models that also base learning on the difference between what is predicted and what actually happens

COMPARATOR :.It was argue that blocking demonstrates that the organism did not learn the association between the CS2 and the US, but this is not necessarily the case.

BACKWARD BLOCKING :The reverse of blocking is known as backward blocking. In backward blocking, the subject is exposed to the compound stimulus (CS1 and CS2 together) first, &only later to CS1 alone. In studies, subjects show a reduction in the association between CS2 and the US, though the effect is often weaker than the standard blocking effect, and vanishes under some conditions.

LITTLE ALBERT EXPERIMENT :Watson and Rayner exposed the child to a series of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks, and burning newspapers and observed the boy's reactions. The boy initially showed no fear of any of the objects that were shown.

Next time Albert was exposed to the rat, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer. The child began to cry after hearing the loud noise. After repeatedly pairing the white rat with the loud noise, Albert began to cry simply after seeing the rat.

Therefore "The rat was shown,& the baby began to cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, & began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table."

The Little Albert experiment showed how classical conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response.

Neutral Stimulus: The white rat

Unconditioned Stimulus: The loud noise

Unconditioned Response: Fear

Conditioned Stimulus: The white rat

Conditioned Response: Fear.

What happened to little Albert : This has long been one of psychology's mysteries. Watson and Rayner were unable to attempt to eliminate the boy's conditioned fear because he moved with his mother shortly after the experiment ended. Some envisioned the boy growing into a man with a strange phobia of white, furry objects.