4.1.1 Classical Conditioning Flashcards
stimulus
something in our environment that affects us
conditioned response
the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. In Ivan Pavlov’s experiments in classical conditioning, the dog’s salivation was the conditioned response to the sound of a bell.
neutral stimulus
a stimulus that initially does not evoke a response until it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus. For example, in Pavlov’s experiment the bell was the neutral stimulus, and only produced a response when it was paired with food.
unconditioned stimulus
a feature of the environment that causes a natural and automatic unconditioned response. In pavlov’s study the unconditioned stimulus was food.
unconditioned response
an unlearned response that occurs automatically when the unconditioned stimulus is presented. Pavlov showed the existence of the unconditioned response by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and the measuring its salivary secretions
conditioned stimulus
a substitute stimulus that triggers the same response in an organism as an unconditioned stimulus. Simply put, a conditioned stimulus makes an organism react to something because it is associated with something else. For example, Pavlov’s dog learned to salivate at the sound of a bell.
extinction
refers to gradual weakening of a conditioned response by breaking the association between the conditioned and the unconditioned stimuli.
For example, when the bell was repeatedly rang and no food presented Pavlov’s dog gradually stopped salivating at the sound of the bell.
spontaneous recovery
a phenomenon of Pavlovian conditioning that refers to the return of a conditioned response (in a weaker form) after a period of time following extinction. For example, when Pavlov waited a few days after extinguishing the conditioned response, and then rang the bell once more, the dog salivated again.
generalisation
the tendency to respond in the same way to stimuli that are similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus. For example, in Pavlov’s experiment, if a dog is conditioned to salivated to the sound of a bell, it may later salivate to a higher pitched bell.
acquisition
describes when an organism learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus.
response
our reaction to a stimulus
discrimination
a process through which individuals learn to differentiate among similar stimuli and respond appropriately to each one.
For example, eventually Pavlov’s dog learns the difference between the sound of the 2 bells and no longer salivates at the sound of the non-food bell.
