What is it about?
An individual’s own name, which has been suggested to possess particular significance for the individual, was used as a appetitive (non-aversive) unconditional stimulus. In a series of experiments we paired this significant stimuli with neutral harmonic tones. We expected to observe increased activation of the brain in response to the tones paired with subject's own name but not in response to the tones paired with any other names. The expected effects were observed but strength of them was rather low.
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Why is it important?
Because auditory classical conditioning, due to its technical simplicity, can be applied in children and severely disabled individuals, and because using highly aversive unconditional stimuli in these groups is ethically problematic, looking for other kinds of unconditional stimuli is important.
Perspectives
When you don't have monetary motivation, not hungry or thirsty, it is crucial to have something else which can stimulate your brain to learn. Using positive reinforcement in learning is a key to success. This article is our two cents into this long-term search of positive reinforcement in human classical conditioning.
Yuri G. Pavlov
Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Name Conditioning in Event-Related Brain Potentials, September 2017, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press,
DOI: 10.1101/194134.
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