Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning

1. Ivan Pavlov

   • Developed the theory of classical conditioning (learning by association)
   • Conducted a series of experiments to investigate whether the sound of a bell induced salivation by associating the sound with food
     • Before Conditioning
       • Dogs automatically salivate when they see food
       • Bell has no significance to the dog as it does not mean anything
     • During Conditioning
       • Dog is conditioned so that when a bell rings, food will follow
       • Neutral stimulus (bell) and unconditioned stimulus (food) paired together repeatedly
       • Still leads to an unconditioned response as cannot be sure bell alone caused salivation
     • After Conditioning
       • Bell becomes conditioned stimulus as it is no longer neutral
       • Salivation now conditioned response as dog has learnt bell means food

2. Vocab

   • Teaches reflexive reactions to a new stimulus
   • Reflex is an automatic response to a specific stimulus
   • Stimulus is any change in the environment that we register
   • Response is changes in our behaviour due to a stimulus
   • Generalisation
     • Classical conditioning response is seen with other stimuli that is similar to the CS
     • The more similar , the stronger the response
   • Extinction
     • The CS will die out if not paired with UCS as animal will have learned that UCS will not be present
   • Spontaneous Recovery
     • Occurs after extinction
     • CS returns when there is no more pairing of NS and UCS

3. Procedure

   • Initially investigating dogs digestive system and function within cerebral cortex
     • Dogs fitted with tube that would collect and enable measurement of saliva
     • Experiment required dogs to be fed and Pavlov noticed dogs began to salivate before food was presented
       • Thought dogs were responding to lab coats of assistants
       • Responding as if food was on its way in presence of lab coats
       • Sequence of experiments conduced to establish how salivation and lab coats were linked
   • Dogs had limited direct contact
   • Introduced a neutral stimulus to see if dogs made a link between that and food presentation
     • Metronome used and presented before food

4. Results

   • Dogs soon associated metronome with food and began to salivate
     • Pairing had to occur around 20 times before association
   • Tested initial findings by carrying out further tests using different neutral stimuli
     • Showed stimulus generalisation to sounds of a similar tone
   • Believed conditioned stimulus must be presented before unconditioned stimulus
     • Forward conditioning
   • Higher order conditioning possible due to pairing of a further neutral stimuli

5. Conclusions

   • Environmental stimuli that previously had no relation to a reflex could trigger the reflex through repeated pairings
   • Conditioned stimulus leads to a conditioned response
   • Signalisation is needed along with natural born instincts to survive
   • External stimuli can disrupt the conditioning process
   • Same conditioning on different dogs did not necessarily produce the same results
   • Conditioning is sensitive to many extraneous variables

6. Strengths

   • Objective results which were scientific as dogs isolated, controlling effects of extraneous variables
   • Reliable results as experiment repeated many times

7. Weaknesses

   • Unable to measure brain activity so had ro assume what was happening
   • Differences between dogs and humans so could not generalise
   • No naturalness in situation so possible lack of validity