Download Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning
Slide One:
Why do we learn?
We learn to adapt to our environment. Ivan Pavlov demonstrated how through classical
conditionings we learn to anticipate events like being fed or experiencing pain.
Learning is a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience.
Nature provided us the most important gift of adaptability—our capacity to learn new
behaviors that enable us to cope with ever-changing experiences. We learn by
association. Our minds naturally connect events that occur in sequence.
Slide Two:
Stimulus-stimulus learning is learning to associate one stimulus with another. In
stimulus-stimulus learning, the learner learns to associate one stimulus with another
stimulus. See how the boy observes the lightening, hears the clap of thunder, and THEN
winces. After the lightening and thunder have been repeated, the boy sees the
lightening strike, winces, THEN hears the clap of thunder. This boy demonstrates
stimulus-stimulus learning when he responds to a lightening strike by wincing.
Slide Three:
Ivan Pavlov’s name should ring a bell for you. Pavlov’s research on classical conditioning
verified associative learning principles in which organisms associate stimuli and thus
associate events. Pavlov’s research on the digestive system led to a Nobel prize in 1904
and spawned other learning theorists such as the behaviorist John B. Watson with his
Little Albert study, B.F. Skinner’s “Skinner Box”, and taste aversion research by John
Garcia in the 1960s.
As you can see, an uncontrolled stimulus (US) - food - produces an unconditioned
response (UCR) - salivation. A neutral stimulus (NS) in the form of a bell tone produces
no salivation. After repeated presentations of a neutral stimulus in the form of a bell
tone just prior to the showing the unconditioned stimuli - food, the neutral stimulus
triggers the unconditioned response, salivation.
After several repetitions, the neutral stimulus tone becomes the conditioned stimulus
(CS) because the conditioned stimulus triggered a conditioned response (CR) - salivation.
That is to say, the sound of the bell tone elicits the dog’s salivation.
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Responses are acquired—that is, initially learned—best when the conditioned stimulus
(CS) is presented half a second before the unconditioned stimulus (US). This finding
demonstrates how classical conditioning is biologically adaptive.
Extinction happens when the Unconditioned Stimulus (food) does not follow the
Conditioned Stimulus (tone) for a period of time. Conditioned Response (salivation)
starts to decrease and at some point goes extinct.
Spontaneous recovery occurs if after a rest period, an extinguished Conditioned
Response (salivation) spontaneously recovers and if Conditioned Stimulus (tone) persists
alone becomes extinct again.
Generalization is the tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the Conditioned Stimuli.
Pavlov conditioned the dog’s salivation (CR) by attaching miniature vibrators (CS) to the
thigh. When he subsequently stimulated other parts of the dog’s body, salivation
dropped. Generalization has survival value because it extends a learned response to
other stimuli in a given category; for example, fleeing from all snakes, not just poisonous
ones, since it’s difficult to distinguish poisonous from nonpoisonous ones from a safe
distance.
Discrimination is the learned ability to distinguish between a Conditioned Stimulus and
other irrelevant stimuli. Discrimination has survival value because it limits our learned
responses to appropriate stimuli; for example, fleeing from a rampaging lion but not
from a playful kitten.
Slide Four:
Early behaviorists believed that learned behaviors of various animals could be reduced
to mindless mechanisms. Research indicates that, for many animals, cognitive
appraisals are important for learning. That is, thoughts and perceptions are important to
the conditioning process. However, later behaviorists suggested that animals learn
predictability of a stimulus, thus learning expectancy or awareness of a stimulus
(Rescorla, 1988). For example, animals, including humans, appear capable of learning
when to expect an unconditioned stimulus, and their awareness of the link between
stimuli and responses can weaken associations.
Pavlov and Watson believed that laws of learning were similar across all animals.
Learning in a pigeon and a person was not different. The early behaviorists’ view that
any natural response could be conditioned to any neutral stimulus has given way to the
understanding that each species is biologically prepared to learned associations that
enhance its’ survival. However, later behaviorists suggested that learning was
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constrained by an animal’s biology. Thus, humans more easily learn to fear bears and
hornets than to fear eagles. Rats develop aversions to tastes but not to sights or sounds.
Conditioning occurs best when the CS and the US have just the sort of relationship that
would lead a scientist to conclude that the CS causes the US.
Garcia showed that duration between CS and US can be long (hours) and yet result in
conditioning. Biologically adaptive CS (taste) led to conditioning and not others (light or
sound).
Even humans develop classically conditioned nausea.
Slide Five:
Watson used classical conditioning procedures to develop advertising campaigns for a
number of organizations including Maxwell House, making “coffee break” an American
custom. Classical conditioning principles provide important insights into drug abuse and
how it may be overcome. Classical conditioning works on the body’s disease-fighting
immune system. For example, when a particular taste accompanies a drug that
influences immune responses, the taste by itself may come to produce those immune
responses. Watson’s “Little Albert” study demonstrated how classical conditioning may
underlie specific fears. Today, psychologists use extinction procedures to control our
less adaptive emotions and condition new responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.
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