Bailey Christiansen

104091049
Instructions
You will be using pages 31-40 of the sniffy book and your own knowledge of classical
conditioning in order to carry out this lab. It is an easy lab and is being used more to get you used
to how sniffy works and hopefully you have fun while doing it. You should read each of the
questions I created fully before attempting to answer them so that you do not miss any details on
what to do. Also put any graphs I ask you to copy and paste at the end of the lab report. This lab
is due next Friday September 30th by the end of class.

#1. My example that a human might experience classical conditioning involves, shoes, smelly
feet, and the gag reflex. If an individual sees a person remove their shoes (US), and subsequently
smells stinky feet they will gag (UR). After time, and repeated pairings of seeing someone
remove their shoes (CS), smelling stinky feet, then gagging, if the person sees shoes they will
start to gag even if the feet arent stinky (CR).

#2. Exercise 1 (Basic Acquisition of a CR)

a) Looking at the data displayed on the two graphs (suppression ratio and the CS response
strength graphs) tell me what is happening to sniffy over the course of the 10 trials. Be
sure to mention what suppression ratio is referring to it in terms of Sniffys behaviour and
how it is affected over the trials. Also be sure to mention what the CS response strength is
referring to and how it changes over time. (4marks)
In the first trial, the movement ratio starts off at about 0 and
Over the course of ten trials sniffys behaviour is semi erratic.

#3. Carry out exercise 2 (Extinction) in chapter 3 of Sniffy. This time we want to use movement
ratio as our measurement so be sure to follow exactly what the book says.
a) Once you have made it through the experiment copy and paste the graphs (movement
ratio and CS response graphs) into your lab report. Put a nice caption under each saying
exercise 2 just so it is clear what exercise these graphs are from. (1 mark)

b) Describe the data displayed in the graph similar to question 2b but this time instead of
suppression ratio describe movement ratio and how it was affected over the course of the
trials in exercise 2. You dont have to describe what CS strength is but tell me how it was
affected over the course of the trials in exercise 2. Also define extinction in your own
words. (4 marks)
Movement ratio graphs depict the amount of time sniffy spends staying in one spot, the
higher the graph the more sniffy freezes. Extinction is a learned effect of presenting a
conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus, so that subsequent responding
decreases, and in some instances eventually disappears.

#4. Carry out exercise 3 (spontaneous recovery) in the book.

a) Again copy and paste the graphs of movement ratio and CS response strength into your
lab report and put a nice caption under it labeled exercise 3 (1mark)

b) Just like before describe what the data is telling you about Sniffys behaviour. Dont
worry about defining what movement ratio or CS strength mean just describe what the
graph is telling you about Sniffys behaviour. Also define spontaneous recovery in your
own words. (3 marks)
Spontaneous recovery involves the subsequent appearance of a response that has already
undergone extinction after time not involving conditioning trials.
#5. Time for you to have some fun creating your own experiment. Go back to exercise 1 but this
time instead of doing what it tells you, design a classical conditioning experiment that uses
different levels of CS or use a different CS and also choose a different level of US (shock) to
administer to sniffy (not having a US is not an option though). You can also change the
number of trials (no less than 10 though). Also keep the interval between trials the same.

a) Copy and paste your graphs and label them. (1mark)

b) Tell me what levels of stimulus you used in your experiment (low, medium, high) and
then describe your data and tell me how sniffys behaviour changed. (2 marks)
c) This is what I consider to be a hard question and I think it is fair that I get to ask you at
least 1 difficult question so here it is. When looking at movement and suppression ratio
graphs you can notice that Sniffys behaviour may not reflect what you would expect

Sniffy to do over the course of the exercise. For example, while on average Sniffys
movement ratio may move down it sometimes spikes back up for a trial. Can you please
explain to me in your own words why this is? (3marks)
I think that sniffys movement and suppression ratio graphs change because like live animals, not
all behaviours are perfect, it is randomized, sometimes creatures act in ways that down always
follow the rules, and theres no way that any creature elicits the exact same response after every
experience they feel.