classical conditioning

classical conditioning

1. habituation

   • if a stimulus is repeated often enough, we lose our sensitivity to it, even if it changes slightly or stops and starts
     • example: people who live by a hospital stop paying attention to sirens

2. Pavlov

   • behaviorist who studied digestion
     • taught dogs to salivate at the sound of a buzzer by blowing meat powder into the dogs mouth

3. classical conditioning (Pavlov's dogs)

   • present unconditioned/unlearned stimulus (give dog food)
     • dog will salivate which is the unconditioned/unlearned response
       • pair neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus
         • sound a tone and then give the dog food
           • the dog will salivate because of the food
             • after conditioning, present the conditioned stimulus
               • the dog will salivate because of the tone alone

4. Acquisition

   • learning a new stimulus
     • timing is important- ideally the conditioned stimulus is presented first with a very slight delay or overlap of the unconditioned stimulus
       • the conditioned stimulus is used to predict the unconditioned stimulus
         • in higher order conditioning, a second conditioned stimulus is paired with the first conditioned stimulus so that we learn to respond to the second conditioned stimulus as well

5. Extinction

   • if the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus the conditioned response will stop happening

6. spontaneous recovery

   • after not being exposed to the conditioned stimulus for a while, conditioned response may occur the next time the conditioned stimulus does even after extinction

7. generalization

   • animals may respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
     • example: tone of a different pitch
   • can be adaptive
     • example: dog abused by a man fears all men

8. discrimination

   • animals can also learn to distinguish between two similar stimuli if the unconditioned stimulus is only presented after one of them
   • also adaptive- small differences in stimuli can mean differences in safety

9. John B. Watson

   • used classical conditioning on "Little Albert"
     • used a frightening noise as the unconditioned stimulus and a rat as the conditioned stimulus
       • Albert's unconditioned and conditioned response was fear
         • Albert generalized the conditioned response to furry things like rabbits, dogs, and fur coats