Classical Conditioning�Basic Concepts�Module 3.7a

LEARNING TARGETS:

• Define Learning, & explain some basic forms of learning.
• Explain Behaviorism’s view of Learning.
• Identify Pavlov, and explain the basic components of classical conditioning.
• Explain the process of acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, & discrimination.
• Explain why Pavlov’s work remains so important.

Learning through Experience

• Adaptability – Learning new behaviors that help us cope with a changing world.
• Learning - A relatively permanent change in behavior and/or knowledge due to experience.

​

Learning by Association

• Over time the repeated behavior becomes a habit when you are in that situation/context.
• The situation/context triggers the habitual behavior associated with it. (Takes about 66 days to form a habit)
• Associative Learning = predicting the immediate future (process of Conditioning)
• We accurately guess what’s coming next by linking two events together.

• Most learning comes from association – we connect events that occur in sequence.
• Hearing one song on a playlist cues you to what song is coming next.
• When behaviors are repeated in a certain context/environment/situation, the behavior becomes associated with that context/environment/situation

​

Habituation vs. Adaptation

• Habituation – reduced sensitivity to a stimulus, even if the stimulus changes ( a type of learning).
• Our reaction is strong at first but not when the stimulus or something like it happens again.
• A turtle draws its head back into its shell when its shell is touched. After being touched repeatedly, the turtle realizes it’s not in danger and no longer hides. – It has habituated. (see more examples)

​

• Sensory Adaptation – Your reduced sensitivity to an unchanging and constant stimulus.
• You don’t notice the cool water after you’ve been in the lake.
• Don’t notice a watch on your wrist but when you move it, you suddenly notice it again.
• If the stimulus changes, your sensitivity to it goes back to its original level

​

Adaptation is recoverable. Habituation is not.

• Stimulus - anything in the environment that one can respond to
• Response – any behavior or action

​

Stimulus-Response Relationship

You quickly realize that the “flush” predicts hot water.

Stimulus-Response Relationship

After linking the two stimuli together, the originally neutral “flush” elicits/causes a response. You’ve learned by association!

Types of Learning

• Classical Conditioning – Learn to associate 2 stimuli we don’t have control over which cause a respondent “reflexive” behavior.

​

​

​

• Operant Conditioning – Learn to repeat “operant” behaviors with good consequences and stop doing behaviors with bad or no consequences.

​

​

• Cognitive Learning – Acquiring mental info that guides our behavior.
• Observational Learning – Learn things by observing events and people.

​

Behaviorism

• The view that psychology should restrict its efforts to studying observable behaviors, not mental processes.
• Founded by John B. Watson
• Thought that all human behavior is a result of conditioning or due to past experience and environmental influences.
• Claimed he could take any child and train him to become any type of specialist.

Classical Conditioning

• Form of learning by association
• A type of learning where a formerly neutral stimulus gains the power to cause a response because it predicts another stimulus that already produces that response

OR to put it simply:

• When an animal learns to do a natural reflexive response to something that it would normally not do the response to.

Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936)

Pavlov’s Dogs

• Studied digestive reflexes and salivation
• “Psychic secretions” were made by dogs to things like seeing the researcher or hearing their approaching footsteps.

Pavlov’s Research Apparatus

Ivan Pavlov

• Watch “Pavlov’s Discovery of Classical Conditioning” (3 min) - online
• Video #6 from Worth’s Digital Media Archive for Psychology.
• Click on link below to view.

​

Neutral Stimulus — Bell

• Exists BEFORE conditioning/learning has occurred
• Does not normally elicit (cause) a response or reflex action by itself
• a bell ringing
• a color
• a clicking metronome
• None of these would naturally cause a dog to salivate.

Neutral Stimulus

=

No Response

=

Unconditioned Stimulus — Food

​

• Always elicits/causes a reflexive action: an unconditioned (unlearned) response
• Food causes salivating
• blast of air causes blinking
• Loud noise causes one to startled or scared

=

Unconditioned Stimulus

=

Unconditioned Response — Salivating

• The automatic/natural response to the unconditioned stimulus
• A response to an unconditioned stimulus—naturally occurring & not learned
• Salivation at smell of food
• Eye blinks at blast of air
• Startle reaction in babies

=

Unconditioned Response

Unconditioned Stimulus

=

Conditioned (Learned) Stimulus — Bell

• The stimulus that was originally neutral becomes conditioned or learned after it has been paired repeatedly with the unconditioned stimulus
• Will eventually cause the unconditioned response by itself
• The Bell predicts food is coming so the dog salivates
• What was once neutral is now learned/conditioned because it now causes something to happen. Before it did not.

Conditioned Stimulus

=

Conditioned (Learned) Response - Salivating

​

• The original unconditioned response becomes conditioned/learned after it has been caused by the conditioned (previously neutral) stimulus
• Usually the same behavior as the UR

=

Conditioned Stimulus

Conditioned Response

Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned Response

Unconditioned Response

(NS)

(UCS)

(UCS)

(NS)

(CS)

(UCR)

(UCR)

(CR)

Pavlov’s Experiment

Pavlov’s Experiment

Pavlov’s Experiment

Try training Pavlov’s dogs yourself at the Nobel Prize Website.

Classical Conditioning Terms

• Acquisition
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
• Generalization
• Discrimination training

Acquisition

• The process of developing a learned response
• The initial learning that takes place in the during/learning stage of conditioning when the animal starts to associate the NS with the US.

½ Second Pause

Acquisition

REMEMBER…

• Conditioning helps an animal survive & reproduce.
• Animals acquire/respond to cues that help them gain food, avoid dangers, locate mates, and produce offspring.

• A new NS gets associated with a previously learned CS and starts to trigger the CR.

Higher-Order/Second-Order Stimulus

Extinction

• The diminishing of a learned response
• When the CS is continually presented without the UCS then the CR will eventually begin to disappear.

​

Spontaneous Recovery

• The reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response
• After a period of time if the CS is presented, the CR returns.
• Learning may disappear but is not eliminated.

​

Spontaneous Recovery�Notice that the CR gets weaker after each pause.

Generalization

• Process in which an organism produces the same CR to two similar stimuli (CS)
• The more similar the substitute stimulus is to the original used in conditioning, the stronger the generalized response

Different alarms still have the same effect = wake you up

Discrimination

• Ability of an animal to not respond to a new NS/CS that is too different from the original CS.
• The subject learns that one stimuli predicts the UCS and the other does not.

After learning to salivate to a bell, Pavlov’s dogs didn’t drool to other dissimilar sounds.

=

Where’s the bell?