Pavlov's Theory

Pavlov's Theory

1. Pavlov developed a theory of classical conditioning from his research on the salivation responses of dogs. Dogs naturally salivate at the sight and smell of food, but Pavlov noticed the dogs started to salivate before then - at the sight of the technicians that gave them the food. They had learnt to associate the technicians with food

   • Before conditioning: Bell (NS) -> no response Food (UCS) -> UCR salivation
     • During conditioning: Bell (NS) + Food (UCS) -> UCR salivation
       • After conditioning: Bell (CS) -> CR salivation

2. Before conditioning the dogs only reacted by salivating to their food (UCR). The bell (NS) caused no reaction

   • During conditioning the bell was consistently heard before they got their food and they started to react to the sound of it by salivating, meaning the bell was becoming a conditioned stimulus
     • After conditioning the bell was a conditioned stimulus and caused the dogs to salivate, which was a conditioned response

3. Stimulus generalisation: The dogs would salivate at any stimulus that closely resembled a CS. When conditioned to salivate to the shape of a circle they would salivate to an oval too

   • Discrimination: If a dog is conditioned to salivate at a circle but was never given food when an oval was presented they would learn to discriminate and stop salivating at the oval

4. Extinction: Behaviour can also be unlearnt by weakening the link between the bell and the food until the association no longer exists. Dogs trained to salivate at the sound of the bell had the noise repeatedly presented alone, and eventually they stopped salivating to the sound of the bell

5. Spontaneous recovery: Behaviour may be dormant rather than permanently unlearnt, so if a dog is taken out of the experiment and brought back later it may salivate spontaneously at the ringing of the bell. After extinction the association sometimes recurs for no apparent reason