What is HOC ??

Higher Order Conditioning






Definition :
Higher-order conditioning is a form of learning in which a stimulus is first made meaningful or consequential for an organism through an initial step of learning, and then that stimulus is used as a basis for learning about some new stimulus.

Higher Order Conditioning is a term that refers to a situation in which a stimulus that was previously neutral (e.g., a light) is paired with a conditioned stimulus (e.g., a tone that has been conditioning with food to produce salivating) to produce the same conditioned response as the conditioned stimulus.
For example, an animal might first learn to associate a bell with food (first-order conditioning), but then learn to associate a light with the bell (second-order conditioning).

Third order conditioning can then follow with a further stimulus being added and the response elicited can be weak. Also known as shaping behavior. Often related to B. F. Skinner's studies with pigeons.
Another example would be Skinner first conditioned a pigeon to walk up to a ball, then conditioning it to touch the ball with its beak. He would thus use a second-order to shape the animal's behavior often used with biological predispositions.

Higher Order Conditioning By Researcher Ivan Pavlov :
Higher Order (Pavlovian) conditioning, first studied by Ivan Pavlov, is a four-step learning procedure involving reflexes. Pavlov became curious about the fact that some of his laboratory dogs began salivating before food actually was in their mouths.

He then found that if he used the appropriate sequence of events, a dog would salivate at the sound of a buzzer or the appearance of a light. Further experimentation established the conditions essential in producing such a phenomenon.

Higher Order Conditioning requires the existence of an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that elicits an unconditioned response (UCR), that is, that reliably elicits an unlearned response, in the experimental subject. UCRs (unlearned responses) are also known as reflexes.

The UCR is usually a physiological response that can reliably be elicited by a UCS, for example, salivation (the UCR) in response to the smell or sight of food (the UCS), particularly if one is hungry, or an eye blink (the UCR) in response to a puff of air (the UCS) blown into the eye.

The Higher Order Conditioning procedure also requires a conditioned stimulus (CS), a stimulus of which the subject can be made aware but which initially does not cause the UCR, followed by a conditioned response, the same response as the UCR, but eventually in reaction to a different stimulus.
For example, the CS in the puff of air example might be simply the sound of a buzzer, resulting, after conditioning is complete, in a blink (CR) caused by the CS alone.






Higher Order Conditioning, using the four components and four steps, would proceed as follows :

1. CS: The CS (conditioned stimulus)—for example, the sound of a buzzer—is presented in several trials.
2. UCS: Each presentation of the CS is followed closely by presentation of the UCS (unconditioned stimulus)—for example, the puff of air.
3. UCR: Presentation of the UCS causes a UCR (an eye blink).
4. CR: After a sufficient number of presentations of the CS followed by the UCS, the experimenter presents the CS without the UCS. If a response, an eye blink, occurs, the UCR is now called a conditioned response (CR). The eye blink response to the buzzer has been conditioned (learned).


A case study : McDonald's
Take the instance of McDonald’s being sued (2010) to stop giving out toys with happy meals (used to entice kids and adults when paired with bad food) at least, one would claim in such a court fight.
Toys which are also reinforcers that keep the people coming back, (operant conditioning) not necessarily for the food but for the ‘free’ giveaways.

The food, an Unconditioned Stimulus (US), is paired with a toy, a Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and a potential reinforcer for the children (yea, a new toy to have and hold) and the parents (yea, a new toy for them to have and hold and keep them satisfied or quiet, whichever is the case).

The parents buy the food (US) and get the toy (CS) at the same time and they become linked. The conditioning that takes place is rarely some part of the awareness of anyone other than the people in the delivery business, thus, proving again, that you do not have to have awareness to be conditioned or to avoid conditioning.  The awareness is a irrelevant.

Soon the family or the child attends McDonald’s and is not hungry for the nuggets, burger or shake, etc. and wants just the toy!   So the spending entity — grandma, parent, older person buys the kid’s meal to appease the kid and someone ends up eating the extra food or the food that the kid didn’t want but was purchased to get the new toy.






The kid isn’t going to get more rotund but the adults are because they are now stuck eating the kids meal and their meal. Anyhow, some parents and food focused groups are saying that they want McDonald’s to stop the practice which “hooks” the parents and the kids on going to McDonalds.  McDonalds’ is protesting the suit.

Basically, we are all conditioned and that example is no different than other types of conditioning.  Making it less or more obvious is not the substantive question other than for the media.  The real issue is better food with less fat for children from a distribution place that many are conditioned to eat at.

But that is not the prima fascia case being made. Any changes in delivery mechanisms will require changes in fast food services content [food] which, in some cases, neither the children or the parents (and certainly not the fast food distributors) want to consider.
The result is conditioned helplessness of the parents.

In Fear Conditioning :
Karim Nader and Joseph LeDoux showed that in building an associative fear conditioning chain, such as CS2 --> CS1 --> US, extinction of freezing responses to the first-order stimulus (CS1) leads to responding impairments in CS2, but extinction of the second-order stimulus (CS2), does not have any effect on CS1.

They also examined the effect of activation (memory retrieval) on such an associative chain. Results demonstrated that protein synthesis inhibition after exposure to a single CS1 impairs responses to both CS1 and CS2, but protein synthesis inhibition after exposure to a single CS2, only disrupts CS2 and leaves CS1 freezing intact.

Therefore, it is believed that when the first-order association is directly activated, it is placed into a labile state which may have an impact on dependent associations. However, when the first-order association is only indirectly activated (through the associative chain), it appears that there is not sufficient stimulation to kick off cellular processes which would place it in a labile state, so it remains fixed.

Higher Order Conditioning terminology :
Specific terminology is used to describe the Higher Order Conditioning procedure.

- The process of learning a conditioned response is called acquisition. Usually, conditioning is faster if only a short time elapses between the presentation of the CS and the UCS.
- The reverse process—that is, unlearning—can occur also and is called extinction. If the CS is presented for a time without the UCS, the CR will eventually cease (be extinguished).
- If the CS is again presented later, however, the CR will sometimes return temporarily (this temporary return is called spontaneous recovery). But the CR will disappear unless the UCS is at times reinstated.






Understanding Theories :
Psychologists refer to learning as a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of experience'. Learning is a fundamental process in all animals and the higher up the evolutionary scale the animal, the more important is the ability to learn.
All animals need to adapt their behaviour in order to fit in with the environment and to adapt to changing circumstances in order to survive.

Some psychologists believe that behaviour is the sum of many simple stimulus-response connections. However there are other psychologists who think that stimulus-response is too simplistic and that even simple responses to stimuli require the processing of a vast amount of information.

The Behaviourists are a group of psychologists who focus on these stimulus-response connections, the two most famous being Watson and Skinner.

Behaviourism arose because there was dissatisfaction with approaches in psychology that involved 'unscientific, techniques such as introspection and dealt with unmeasurable aspects of behaviour such as the role of the unconscious mind.
Behaviourists try to explain the causes of behaviour by studying only those behaviours that can be observed and measured.

Important to Note :
Higher Order Conditioning involves learning by association, that is associating two events which happen at the same time. Nearly all automatic, involuntary responses can become a conditioned response. A heartbeat, stomach secretion, blood pressure, brain waves etc.
For the conditioning to be effective, the conditioned stimulus should occur before the unconditioned stimulus, not after. This is because, in classical conditioning, the conditioned stimulus becomes a kind of signal for the unconditioned stimulus.






Principles of Higher Order Conditioning :
- Extinction
If a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus, then the conditioned response will disappear. This is known as extinction.

If a dog learns to associate the sound of a bell with food and then the bell is rung repeatedly, but no food is presented, the dog will soon stop salivating a the sound of the bell.

- Stimulus Generalisation
A dog who has been conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell of one tone, may well salivate to a similar sounding bell or a buzzer. Stimulus generalisation is the extension of the conditioned response from the original stimulus to similar stimuli.

- Discrimination
An animal or person can be taught to discriminate between different stimuli. For example, if a dog is shown a red circle every time he is fed, then he will salivate at the sight of the red circle alone.

But initially, the dog may generalise and salivate at circles of any colour. If the dog is only fed when the red circle is presented and not when other colours are shown, he will learn to discriminate between red and the other colours.

- Higher Order Conditioning
This is where more than one stimulus is paired and presented; there can be a chain of events that are linked to the same stimulus. It is thought that words may acquire their emotional meaning through higher order conditioning, for example by pairing the words with something that causes emotion, eventually the word alone will have the emotional meaning.