Classical Conditioning

AKA: Pavlovian conditioning

What is it?

A type of learning where a stimulus gains the power to cause a response because it predicts another stimulus that already

produces that response.

Translation??

In classical conditioning we learn to

associate two stimuli and thus, to

anticipate events.

For Example…

Lightning and ThunderExample One

• Stimulus - anything in

the environment that

one can respond to

• Response – any

behavior or action

The Japanese RancherExample 2

How???

A clever Japanese Rancher herds his cattle to

the barn at dinner time by outfitting them

with pagers. When he calls the pagers from

his cell phone, the cows know that dinner

awaits and head in.

After one week of training, the cows learn to

associate two stimuli– 1) The beep on their

pager 2) the arrival of food.

Ivan Pavlov: The King of Classical

Conditioning

1849-1936 • Russian physician/ neurophysiologist

• Nobel Prize in 1904

• Studied digestive secretions

Most people think of Ivan

Pavlov when it comes to

classical conditioning. He

discovered it while doing

experiments on the digestive

system of dogs.

Pavlov and Dogs

After studying saliva

secretion in dogs

Pavlov knew that

when he put food in

a dog’s mouth it

would salivate. He

also noticed that, if

he worked with the

same dog

repeatedly, the dog

would salivate at

the mere sight of

food.

Pavlov and DogsAt first, Pavlov found this annoying

because it interfered with his digestion

experiments.

Then he realized that they pointed to a

simple form of learning– which he studied

from that time on.

Pavlov’s ApparatusAfter placing the

dog in a secluded room, secured in a harness (to avoid

extraneous stimuli) and attaching an

instrument that led the saliva down a glass tube to be measured, they paired various

neutral stimuli, with food in the mouth to see if the dog would begin salivating the neutral stimuli by

itself, in this case it was a tone.

Pavlov’s ExperimentHow it Worked

From the next room they would either slide in the

food or blow it into the dogs mouth from a meat blower;

making feeding unpredictable and

spontaneous.

However, just before placing the food in the dog’s mouth

Pavlov sounded a tone.

After being introduced to the food after the tone a few

times, they paired the sounding of the tone with

the food and began salivating to the sound of

the tone alone.

• 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).

Pavlov’s Experiment

AcquisitionThe process of developing a learned response.

• The initial stage in classical conditioning.

• The phase associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned

stimulus so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a

conditioned response.

• In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced

response.

(The subject learns a new response (CR) to a previously neutral

stimulus (CS))

Extinction

The diminished responding that occurs when the CS (tone) no

longer signals an impending UCS (food).

� Pavlov found that after sounding the tone again and again without presenting food, the dogs salivated less and less.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance of a (weakened) CR after a

rest pause.

� If Pavlov allowed several hours to go by before sounding the

tone again, the salivation to the tone

would reappear spontaneously.

Generalization

Tendency (once a response has been conditioned) for

stimuli similar to CS to elicit similar responses.

� Pavlov noticed that a dog conditioned to the sound of one tone also responded to

the sound of a different tone although it was never paired

with food.

� Likewise, a dog conditioned to salivate when rubbed would also salivate when scratched.

Discrimination

• A process in which an organism produces

different responses to two similar stimuli

• The subject learns that one stimuli predicts

the UCS and the other does not.

� Pavlov’s dogs learned to respond to the

sound of a particular tone and not to other

tones.

Watson and Behaviorism

• John B. Watson

• viewed psychology as objective science

• generally agreed-upon consensus today

• recommended study of behavior without reference to unobservable mental processes

• not universally accepted by all schools of thought today

1878-1958

Little Albert

Little Albert was an11-

month-old infant.

Watson and his assistant,

Rosalie Rayner,

conditioned Albert to

be frightened of white

rats

Their experiment led to

questions about

experimental ethics.

Little Albert Experimenthttp://asooke.com/videos-baby-albert-experiments-%5B0FKZAYt77ZM%5D.cfm

Little Albert

Before Conditioning During Conditioning

Little AlbertAfter Conditioning Generalization

Examples of Classical ConditioningIn Everyday Life

Taste AversionAlmost everyone becomes

classically conditioned to avoid specific tastes, because the tastes

are associated with nausea. John Garcia (1917- )

For example: we avoid tastes that, at one time, may have been our favorite foods. This might be

caused by bad experiences of eating this particular food while having the flu and vomiting. We

come to relate that food to throw up and it might even make our stomach churn just to look at it.

Nausea Conditioning in

Cancer Patients

Cognition and Biological

Predispositions

Robert Rescorla (1940- )

Developed a theory

emphasizing the

importance of cognitive

processes in classical

conditioning

Pointed out that subjects had

to determine (think)

whether the CS was a

reliable predictor of the UCS

Biological Perspective

We are predisposed to learn

things that affect our

survival.

We are predisposed to

avoid threats our ancestors

faced--food that made us

sick, storms, heights,

snakes, etc.--but not

modern-day threats--cars,

water pollution, etc.