Conditioned Sequential Patterning

This is a very quick blog to introduce a term that will be used in future blogs to help clarify and utilise aspects of a noticeable phenomenon. This is whereby actions in a sequence become conditioned to each other, such that a subsequent action becomes a conditional response to the previous action in the sequence.

Cecelia Hayes has used the term Associative Sequence Learning (ASL) which seems to have the right connotations, but her term is about imitation and does not quite capture the shade of meaning I am looking for; a distinct and purpose-specific new term is required.

Conditioned Sequential Patterning is introduced to point out an extra aspect to the conditioning of responses. Classical conditioning is well explored. Here though, a sequence of actions is considered. A sequence of stimuli therefore will elicit a sequence of responses. Where this sequence forms a pattern, then the responses will also exhibit a respective pattern. If there exists an actual contextual pattern, then there is a probability relationship between preceding environmental events and subsequent ones. Given repetitive exposure to a sequential pattern of stimuli, then this probability relationship transfers to the sequence of responses. One response becomes associated, or conditioned, to the next in a sequence, and given a high probability within a familiar pattern of events, then that conditioned action would likely be appropriate; a form of expectation readiness. Hence, actions become based on prior actions in a sequential pattern. This is useful where there is environmental regularity, autopilot can be invoked as it were and the automatic sequence, itself, would be reinforced.

There are numerous implications for behavioural science and psychotherapy here. One of the things that I have noticed, given the hypothesis of conditioning subsequent and prior actions, is that cycles can occur where a latter action becomes associated with an earlier one. What might have been a final action in the sequence might be associated with the initial action. So on reaching that “final” action, the whole sequence is retriggered. The dog endlessly chases its own tail. 

For things like the ohrwurm phenomenon, we can see that a tune is a sequential pattern. Productions do have a beginning and end; an intro and outro. But the song structure has internal repetition, in terms of rhyming scheme and verse-chorus form. The verse leads to chorus leads to verse, and so the association can become cyclic; the retriggering leads to an endless loop (as my own experience would suggest). This might be a contributing factor to the persistence of an ohrwurm. If this is so, then it might be a clue to constructing really sticky earworms.