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LEARNING
Unit 6
AP Psychology12
Ms Carey
Three Main Types of Learning:
1. Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
2. Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
3. Learning by Observation (Bandura)
In this Chapter…
– Learning by Observation- learning by conditioning
AND by observations of others
• Research credited to ALBERT BANDURA
– Operant Conditioning- a type of learning that
associates its behaviours with consequences
• Research credited to B.F. SKINNER
– Classical Conditioning- a type of learning that is
associated by different Stimuli
• Research credited to Russian physiologist IVAN PAVLOV
What is Classical
Conditioning?
Classical Conditioning is a type of learning in which an
organism comes to associate stimuli. A neutral stimulus
that signals an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) begins to
produce a response that anticipates and prepares for the
unconditioned stimulus.
SO…what does that really mean?
the learning of conditioned behavior as being
formed by pairing stimuli to condition an animal
or human into giving a certain response.
Example of Classical Conditioning:
Classical Conditioning:
- When you see the tennis star, you think of ‘nice shots’ on the tennis court. They
have added a ‘camera’ to the picture so you begin to associate the camera and
the shot to the tennis star.
CS, UCS, CR, UCR
IVAN PAVLOV
FIRST CLASSICAL CONDITIONING RESEARCHER:
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov explored one important form of
learning in his classic experiments on conditioning dogs. He
noticed that they learned by association.
It was his experiments that are called CLASSICAL CONDITIONING.
Pavlov received a medical degree in Russia at the age of 33 and
spent the next three decades focusing on learning and
experimentations.
Early Experiments
After studying salivary secretion in dogs, Pavlov knew that when he
put food in a dog’s mouth the animal would invariably salivate. He
also noticed that when he worked with the same dog repeatedly,
the dog began to salivating to stimuli associated with food- to the
mere sight of food, to the food dish, to the presence of the person
who regularly brought the food.
At first, Pavlov and his assistants tried to imagine what the dog was
thinking and feeling as it drooled in anticipation of the food.
OBVIOUSLY this led into serious debates and led nowhere.
So in order to explore the phenomenon more objectively, they decided
to experiment.
Classical Conditioning….
They decided to pair various neutral stimuli with food in the mouth to see if the
dog would begin salivating to the neutral stimuli alone. To eliminate the
possible influence of extraneous stimuli, they isolated the dog in a small
room, secured it with a harness, and attached a device that diverted it’s
saliva to a measuring instrument.
From an adjacent room, they could present food- at first by sliding in a food
bowl, later by blowing meat powder into the dog’s mouth at a precise
moment.
If a neutral stimulus- something the dog could hear or see- now regularly
signaled the arrival of food, would the dog associate the two stimuli?
If so, would it begin salivating to the neutral stimulus in anticipation of the
food? The answers proved to be YES.
What’s with the Bells??
Just before placing food in the dog’s mouth to produce saliva, Pavlov
sounded a bell. After several pairings of tone and food, the dog
began salivating to the tone alone, in anticipation of the meat
powder.
Using this procedure, Pavlov conditioned the dogs to salivate to
other stimuli- a buzzer, a light, a touch on the leg, even the sight
of a circle.
The dogs were then learning by association- they were associating the sounds
of the bells (and other stimuli) with the anticipation of food. So…they
would then begin to drool.
PAVLOV TERMS
Because salivation in response to food in the mouth was unlearned, Pavlov called
it an UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE (UCR). Food in the mouth
automatically, unconditionally, triggers a dog’s salivary reflex.
Thus, Pavlov called the food stimulus an UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (UCS)
Salivation in response to the bell was conditional upon the dog’s learning
the association between tone and the food.
This is called: CONDITIONED RESPONSE (CR)
It’s that Simple?
If this demonstration of associative learning was so simple, what
did Pavlov do for the next three decades??
Pavlov and his associates explored the causes and effects of
classical conditioning. Their experiments identified FIVE major
conditioning processes:
Acquisition
Extinction
Spontaneous Recovery
Generalization
Discrimination
Dennis the Menace…
Example of Classical
Conditioning from THE OFFICE