A learning theory whereby individuals learn by association, through the pairing of automatic responces to new stimuli
How it all started...
Pavlov stumbled upon this theory while studying about the digestive systems using dogs as his experimental subjects.
Pavlov directed his dog’s saliva gland outside of the cheeks and collected the saliva of the dog.
In fact, the dog started salivating just by the experimenter walking in to the experimental chamber. This non-conditioned action was enough to activate the saliva glands.
Fascinated by this finding, Pavlov paired the meat powder with various stimuli such as the ringing of a bell. After the meat powder and bell were presented together several times, the bell was used alone. Pavlov’s dog, responded by salivating to the sound of the bell alone.
The bell began as a neutral stimulus (i.e. the bell itself did not produce the dogs’ salivation).
However, by pairing the bell with the stimulus that did produce the salivation response, the bell was able to acquire the ability to trigger the salivation response.
Pavlov therefore demonstrated how stimulus-response bonds (which some consider as the basic building blocks of learning) are formed.
He dedicated much of the rest of his career further exploring this finding.
The following is an example of how the experiment was run
A stimulus that doesn’t elicit any respond within normal circumstances . It will become a conditional stimulus once a person/animal has learnt to respond to it.
Is when the conditioned response is weakened and gradually disappears. Extinction cccurs when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.
To illustrate:
If a dog learns to associate the sound of a bell with food and then the bell is rung repeatedly, but no food is presented, the dog will soon stop salivating a the sound of the bell.
Stimulus Generalization
An extension of the conditioned response from the original stimulus to similar other stimuli.
For example:
A dog who has been conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell of one tone, may well salivate to a similar sounding bell or a buzzer
Discrimination
An animal or person can be taught to discriminate between different stimuli
For example:
If a dog is shown a red circle every time he is fed, he wil start tol salivate at the sight of the red circle alone. Initially, the dog may generalize and salivate at circles of any colour. If the dog is only fed when the red circle is presented and not when other colours are shown, he will learn to discriminate between red and the other colours.
Classical conditioning in everyday life is extremely common
Example 1:
When you feed your pets with food. Everytime you open a can of pet food or take a food packet out, your pet can identify the sounds assosiated to "food" and approach you when you feed them. However, you may also find this true whenever you open other cans of food, or shake perhaps.. your sack of potato chips. Your pet may approach you thinking that you wanted to feed them.
Example 2:
During the first few weeks of starting classes in school, a classroom learns that Mr. Burns always shouts and provides students with extra homework whenever they are noisy in class. Thus, whenever Mr. Burns walks into their class, the students immediately turn silent and scramble toward their desks without Mr. Burns even saying a word.
Example 3:
Classical conditioning is even used in advertising. Often times, beer advertisements have pictures of very attractive women who are holding the beer cans. This creates an assosiation between the beer can and the attractive woman. This seemingly creates good feelings whenever a consumer buys or consumes beer as they assosiate the beer and the good feeling of having the company of attractive women. The good feelings of having an attractive women also creats a strong impetus to buy the beer following this assosiation.
Try it out!
Try this out to a bunch of friends who are willing to participate! They will each need a pencil and a piece of paper. First, instruct them to place as many dots as they can on that piece of paper with the pencil when you say start. When you say start however, hit the surface of an area noticeably at the same time (such as a table), this will serve as your neutral stimulus. Repeat this step 2-3 times. And then on the final step, do not say start, simply hit the table and watch them dot away!
When you are finished, identify all the classical conditioning terms invovled in this mini experiment
