Classical Conditioning Module 21

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Classical ConditioningModule 21
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Classical Conditioning

• How Do We Learn?
• Classical Conditioning
• Pavlovs Experiments
• Extending Pavlovs Understanding
• Pavlovs Legacy

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Definition

• Learning is a relatively permanent change in an
  organisms behavior due to experience.

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How Do We Learn?

• We learn by association. Our minds naturally
  connect events that occur in sequence.
• Aristotle, 2000 years ago, suggested this law of
  association and then 200 years ago Locke and Hume

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Stimulus-Stimulus Learning
Learning to associate one stimulus with another.
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Stimulus-Stimulus Learning
Learning to associate one stimulus with another.
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Classical Conditioning (Respondent behavior)

• Ivan Pavlov
• 1849-1936
• Russian physician/ neurophysiologist
• Nobel Prize in 1904
• studied digestive secretions

Sovfoto
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
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• Classical Conditioning - an organism learns to
  connect or associate stimuli.

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Pavlovs Experiments
Before conditioning food (Unconditioned Stimulus,
US) produces salivation (Unconditioned Response,
UR). The tone (neutral stimulus) does not.
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Pavlovs Experiments
During conditioning, neutral stimulus (tone) and
US (food) are paired resulting in salivation
(UR). After conditioning neutral stimulus (now
Conditioned Stimulus, CS) elicits salivation (now
Conditioned Response, CR)
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Acquisition
The CS needs to come half a second before the US
to cause acquisition.
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• The Water Show
• Jeannette was happy when she heard her familys
  plan to go to a water sports show. Then she
  heard the weather report, which predicted
  temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Jeannette
  suspected that the weather would be hard to bear,
  but she went anyway to the show. As she watched
  the water skiers perform their taxing routines to
  the blaring organ music, she became very sweaty
  and uncomfortable. Eventually she fainted from
  the heat. After the family outing, Jeannette
  could never again hear organ music without
  feeling dizzy and eventually fainting.
• What is the unconditioned stimulus (US)?
  _________________________________
• What is the unconditioned response (UR)?
  _________________________________
• What is the conditioned stimulus (CS)?
  ___________________________________
• What is the conditioned response (CR)?
  ___________________________________

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Biological Predispositions
Even humans develop classically conditioned
nausea.
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Extinction

• When a US (food) does not follow a CS (tone) CR
  (salivation) starts to decrease and at some point
  goes extinct.

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Spontaneous Recovery

• After a rest period an extinguished CR
  (salivation) spontaneously recovers and if CS
  (tone) persists alone becomes extinct again.

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Stimulus Generalization

• Tendency to respond to stimuli similar to CS is
  called generalization.

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Stimulus Discrimination

• Discrimination is the learned ability to
  distinguish between a CS and other stimuli that
  do not signal a US.

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Extending Pavlovs Understanding

• Pavlov and Watson considered consciousness or
  mind not fit for scientific study of psychology.
  However, they underestimated the importance of
  cognitive processes and biological constraints.

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Biological Predispositions
Even humans develop classically conditioned
nausea.
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Applications of Classical Conditioning

• Watson developed advertising campaigns including
  Maxwell House, making coffee break an American
  custom.

Brown Brothers
John B. Watson
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Conditioned emotional response
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Applications of Classical Conditioning

1. Alcoholics can be conditioned (aversively) partly
   reversing their positive-associations with
   alcohol.
2. A drug (plus its taste) that affects the immune
   response, can lead the taste to invoke the immune
   response through classical conditioning.