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EXPLORING
PSYCHOLOGY
EIGHTH EDITION IN MODULES
David Myers
PowerPoint Slides
Aneeq Ahmad
Henderson State University
Worth Publishers, © 2011
Learning
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Classical Conditioning
Module 17
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How Do We Learn?
Classical Conditioning
Pavlov’s Experiments
 Acquisition
 Extinction and Spontaneous
Recovery
 Generalization
 Discrimination
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Extending Pavlov’s
Understanding
 Cognitive Processes
 Biological Predispositions
Pavlov’s Legacy
 Applications of Classical
Conditioning
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How Do We Learn?
We learn by association. Our minds
naturally connect events that occur in
sequence.
2000 years ago, Aristotle suggested this
law of association. Then 200 years ago
Locke and Hume reiterated this law.
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Classical Conditioning
Learning is a relatively permanent change
in an organism’s behavior due to
experience.
Although associative learning - learning
that certain events occur together – had
long been discussed, it wasn’t until Ivan
Pavlov that it was confirmed.
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Classical Conditioning
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, with the most famous of
psychological experiments, discovered the phenomena we
call classical conditioning - learning to link two or more
stimuli and anticipate events.
His work provided a basis for behaviorism - the view that
psychology (1) should be an objective science that
(2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes.
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
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Pavlov’s Experiments
Before conditioning, food (Unconditioned
Stimulus, US) produces salivation
(Unconditioned Response, UR). However, the
tone (neutral stimulus, NS) does not.
During conditioning, the neutral stimulus (tone)
and the US (food) are paired, resulting in
salivation (UR). After conditioning, the neutral
stimulus (now Conditioned Stimulus, CS) elicits
salivation (now Conditioned Response, CR)
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Pavlov’s Experiments
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Acquisition
Acquisition is the initial learning stage in classical
conditioning in which an association between a neutral
stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus takes place.
1.
2.
In most cases, for conditioning to occur, the neutral
stimulus needs to come before the unconditioned
stimulus.
The time in between the two stimuli should be
about half a second.
In higher-order conditioning a previously conditioned
stimulus is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a
new (often weaker) conditioned stimulus.
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Acquisition
The CS needs to come half a second before the US
for acquisition to occur.
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Extinction and Spontaneous
recovery
Extinction occurs when the US (food) does not follow the CS
(tone) and the CR (salivation) diminishes.
After a rest period, an extinguished CR (salivation)
spontaneously recovers, but if the CS (tone) persists alone, the
CR becomes extinct again.
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Generalization
Tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS
is called generalization.
Pavlov and his students noticed that a dog
conditioned to salivate to one tone, would also
respond to a somewhat to a different tone.
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Discrimination
Pavlov’s dogs also learned to respond to one
tone and not to another.
Discrimination is the learned ability to
distinguish between a conditioned stimulus
and other stimuli that do not signal an
unconditioned stimulus.
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Extending Pavlov’s Understanding
Pavlov and Watson considered consciousness,
or mind, unfit for the scientific study of
psychology. However, they underestimated
the importance of cognitive processes and
biological constraints.
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Cognitive Processes
Early behaviorists believed that learned
behaviors of various animals could be reduced
to mindless mechanisms.
However, later behaviorists suggested that
animals learn the predictability of a stimulus,
meaning they learn expectancy or awareness of a
stimulus (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972).
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Biological Predispositions
Pavlov and Watson believed that laws of
learning were similar for all animals.
Therefore, a pigeon and a person do not differ
in their learning.
However, behaviorists later suggested that
learning is constrained by an animal’s biology.
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Biological Predispositions
Courtesy of John Garcia
Garcia showed that the duration
between the CS and the US may be
long (hours), but yet result in
conditioning. A biologically adaptive
CS (taste) led to conditioning but
other stimuli (sight or sound) did
not.
John Garcia
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Biopsychosocial Influences on
Learning
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Pavlov’s Legacy
Pavlov’s greatest contribution to psychology is
isolating elementary behaviors from more
complex ones through objective scientific
procedures.
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Applications of Classical
Conditioning
1. Former crack cocaine users should avoid
cues (people, places) associated with
previous drug use.
2. Through classical conditioning, a drug (plus
its taste) that affects the immune response
may cause the taste of the drug to invoke the
immune response.
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Applications of Classical
Conditioning
Brown Brothers
Watson believed that human
emotions and behaviors are
mainly a bundle of
conditioned responses. He
showed how specific fears
can be conditioned with the
controversial “Little Albert”
experiment in which an 11month-old boy was
conditioned to fear a rat.
John B. Watson
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