4.1.2 pavlov

Question 1

pavlov’s aims

Answer 1

• explaining the role of conditioned reflexes in the eating behaviours of dogs
• exploring how salivation becomes associated with new stimuli apparently unrelated to food and the properties of this association

Question 2

what type of experiment did pavlov use?

Answer 2

lab experiment

Question 3

pavlov’s procedure

Answer 3

• DV - salivation, collected from the salivary glands of immobilised dogs
• procedure took place in a soundproof chamber to minimise the effects of extraneous variables such as noise
• established a baseline by measuring salivation in response to a neutral stimulus, e.g. metronome or bell
• then he paired the NS with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) of food around 20 times
• he varied presentation so the NS was presented before (forward conditioning) or after the UCS (backward conditioning)
• further variations were used to investigate extinction and sponstaneous recover of salivation e.g. NS, now a conditioned stimulus, was presented several times without the UCS, which produced extinction

Question 4

pavlov’s findings

Answer 4

• the NS (sound of metronome or bell) did not initially elicit a response, but the UCS (food) elicited immediate salivation
• after forward pairings of NS and UCS, the NS typically did elicit salivation (CR) after the NS was presened for a few seconds
• in one trial pavlov recorded that salivation started nine seconds after the metronome sound (45 drops of saliva collected)
• no salivation found in response to the NS in backwards pairing
• extinction was seen and this response to the CS spontaneously recovered on occassion

Question 5

pavlov’s conclusions

Answer 5

environemntal stimulus that had no previous relations triggered a salivation reflex to the ticking of the mentronome, through association

Question 6

pavlov - generlisability

Answer 6

P - low, research was conducted on dogs which reduces generlisability

E - humans have structurally different brains from other species, and may response differently to stimuli

T - Therefore findings cannot be generalised from dogs to animals

Question 7

pavlov - reliability

Answer 7

P - high reliability

E -

T -

Question 8

pavlov - application

Question 9

pavlov - internal validity

Answer 9

P - high internal validity

E - A soundproof chamber was used to reduce the possibility of external sounds distracting the dogs or providing additional stimuli. Also collected saliva externally in a cannula to prevent loss of saliva and avoided invalid measurement

T - this reduced the impact of extraneous variables, making it likely that salivation in response to the CS was due to condiitoning, enhancing IV