classic conditioning Flashcards
what is classical conditioning?
learned by association and occurs when a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus. the neutral stimulus eventually produces the same response as the unconditioned stimulus
what is an unconditioned stimulus?
a stimulus that produces a response without any learning taking place
what is an unconditioned response?
an unlearned response t oan unconditioned stimulus
what is the neutral stimulus?
a stimulus that does not produce the target response. it becomes a conditioned stimulus after being paired with the unconditioned stimulus
what is the conditioned stimulus?
a stimulus that only producesthe target response after it has been paired with UCS
what is the conditioned response?
the response elicited by the CS
- a new association has been learned so that the NS/CS produces the UCR which is now called the CR
what is extinction?
when the CS and UCS have not been paired for w ahile and the CS ceases to elicit the CR
what is spontaneous recovery?
an extinct response activiates again so that the CS once again elicits the CR
what is stimulus generalisation?
when an individual who has acquired a conditioned response to one stimulus begins to respond to similar stimuli in the same way
when does classical conditioning take place?
when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together - an unconditioned stimulus and a new neutral stimulus. the NS eventually produces the same response as that produced by the UCS. this takes place in three stages:
- before
- during
- after
what happens before conditioning?
UCS triggers a reflex response such as salivation, anxiety or sexual arousal
- this is called the unconditioned response. an unrelated NS does not produce this response
what happens during conditioning?
the UCS and NS are experienced simultaeously or close together in time - called pairing.
- the effect of pairing is the greatest when the NS occurs just before the UCS
- usually pairing has to take place many times for conditioning to occur
what happens after conditioning?
following pairing, the NS produces the same responseas the UCS
- the NS is now a conditioned stimulus and the resonse to it is called a conditioned response
why does extinction happen?
the extinction of responses has survival value because it means that our learning is flexible
- we can for example learn to stop fearing something taht has been conditioned as a fear stimulus but which poses little danger
what is an example of spontaneous recovery?
imagine you were conditioned to salivate at the sight of chocolate wrappers and then went through a period of ahving chocolate unwrapped for you and not seeing wrappers.
- you may see wrappers and not respond to them but you would not have completely unlearned the salivation response and you may dribble seeing a wrapper one day
what is an example of stimulus generalisation?
once conditioned to salivate at one wrapper we might also find ourselves drooling at the sight of other wrappers especially similar in appearance.
what is a strength?
it is supported by many studies conducted on both animals and humans
- pavlov demonstrated salivation responses in his studies of dogs
- watson and raynor demonstrated a fear response in a baby
there is firm evidence supporting
what is the competing argument against the strength?
Pavlov’s details of classical conditioning are open to question
- pavlov believed that the essential factor linking NS to UCS was continguity (occuring close in time)
- but rescorla found evidence that contiguity is less important than contingency (the extent to which the NS reliably predicts the UCS
what is a weakness?
it can only explain how a limited range of behaviours are aquired
- it only explains the acquisition of simple reflex responses e.g. salivation
- it cannot account for more complex chains of learned behaviour
it cannot explain the maintainance of the fear of dogs or the behaviours we learn to avoid encountering dogs
how can it be applied?
has theraputic applications such as systematic desensitisation and flooding
- it could aso explain adversion therapy which is used to treat people who have an unwanted behaviour such as experiencing sexual arousal to a photo of a child
an electric shock is paired with the photo
