Download Classical Conditioning - Lincoln Park High School

Classical Conditioning
How do we learn?



Learning is a relatively
permanent change in an
organism’s behavior due to
experience.
Conditioning - the process of
learning associations.
Observational learning learn from the experiences of
others.
Ivan Pavlov

Initially studied
digestion, until he
realized that dog
salivation was a
simple form of
learning.
CS --> CR

Unconditioned stimulus
(US)- normal or natural
stimulus.
 Unconditioned
Response (UR) normal / natural
response.
 Neutral Stimulus (NS) would not normally
cause a response.
 NS + US = UR
 The neutral stimulus
becomes conditioned,
to produce the
conditioned response.
Conditioning
 Associating
neutral stimulus with
unconditioned stimulus
 Conditioned Stimulus = CS
 Conditioned Response = CR
 A previously Neutral Stimulus (NS)
produces a response in the animal/human
How did Pavlov’s experiment work?
 Food
= US
 Salivation = UR
 Bell = NS → CS
 Associating bell with food = CS
 Salivating to the bell = CR
What about our Squirt Bottle
experiment?
Unconditioned Stimulus (US):
Squirt of water
Unconditioned Response (UR):
Eye Flinching
Neutral Stimulus (NS) → (CS):
Word “psycho”
Conditioned Response (CR):
Flinching to word “psycho”
Acquisition and Extinction
 Acquisition
- The initial learning.
 Present the CS right before (.5 second)
the US.
 Extinction - diminishing of a CR, happens
if a CS is repeatedly presented without the
US.
Generalization and
Discrimination
 Generalization
- tendency to respond to
stimuli similar to the CS.

Example: Baby Albert was conditioned to
associate a white rabbit with a loud, scary
noise. He began to generalize his fear to men
with white beards
 Discrimination
- ability to distinguish
between a conditioned stimulus and
others.
Applications today

Used in animal training,
understanding phobias,
bedwetting
 Basis in evolution paring fear with
dangerous stimuli/taste
aversions.
Bedwetting alarms
Little Albert

Teaching a baby to
fear rats – how
could you unlearn a
fear?