classical conditioning

Question 1

what is classical conditioning

Answer 1

explains how someone can be conditioned into a response by a stimulus that is not the one that would normally produce that response

Question 2

what are the rules of classical conditioning

Answer 2

learning by association
applies to reflex responses, not to other forms of behaviour
a natural stimulus is followed by a reflex response

Question 3

what is a stimulus

Answer 3

something that produces a response

Question 4

what is a response

Answer 4

how someone responds to a stimulus

Question 5

what is a reflex

Answer 5

an action that is performed without conscious thought as a response to a stimulus

Question 6

what is conditioned

Answer 6

learned behaviour

Question 7

what is the neutral stimulus

Answer 7

what is going to be paired with the unconditioned stimuli to eventually give the same response

Question 8

what is the unconditioned stimuli

Answer 8

what gives the unconditioned response naturally. a stimulus that gives a reflex response

Question 9

what is the unconditioned response

Answer 9

term for reflex response

Question 10

what is the conditioned stimuli

Answer 10

neutral stimuli paired with the unconditioned stimuli

Question 11

what is the conditioned response

Answer 11

after association has been set up the conditioned stimuli is what gives the response

Question 12

what is extinction

Answer 12

term used when an association using classical conditioning has been extinguished

Question 13

what is spontaneous recovery

Answer 13

when after extinction suddenly and without reconditioning an association reappears

Question 14

what is stimulus generalisation

Answer 14

when a stimulus similar to the specific conditioned one elicits the conditioned response

Question 15

what is discrimination

Answer 15

the CR is only produced in response to the CS and not to similar stimuli focused on a specific stimulation

Question 16

what was the procedure of pavlov’s dogs

Answer 16

• salivation is measurable as drops can be counted or measured in a glass tube
• isolated variables that dog may see as stimuli by creating a chamber that blocked out even the sound of footsteps
• in lecture 2 dog heard a metronome and salivated to that. pavlov paired the metronome with the food and then could get the dog to salivate without food present
• discussed the nature of the salivation reflex and argued that the meat in mouth is an inborn link and an unconditioned response is saliva but the metronome is going through higher order paths in cortex making new paths and therefore is a conditioned response.
• an electric buzzer made louder over time and 5-10 seconds after the food was presented did not achieve salivation but an electric buzzer appearing with meat once did give salvation

Question 17

what were the results of pavlov’s dogs

Answer 17

• in metronome study dogs salivated after 9 seconds and by 45 seconds 11 drops had been collected
• electric buzzer that came after food produced no salivation but when it came before food did produce salivation
• secondary conditioning when the first conditioned stimulus gives the salivation is paired with another neutral stimulus e.g. the buzzer

Question 18

strengths of pavlov’s dogs

Answer 18

carefully controlled environment with the dogs controlled completely other than the tested variable. results were objective and scientifically credible.
- repeated many experiments on dogs and so his results were reliable. continually found that conditioned stimuli would produce a conditioned response

Question 19

weaknesses of pavlov’s dogs

Answer 19

• unable to show brain activity in a direct way and had to assume what was happening in the cerebral cortex from his experiments. he felt he had shown in built pathways and new associatiations but could not study the actual mechanism
• ideas about evolution led to pavlov thinking he could generalise results to human which seems justifiable as humans do have reflexes by there are differences so may not be easy to say
• discussed the possible lack of validity as he recognised that he took the naturalness out of the situation. the dog was in a chamber and no other stimuli were present. said work may lack validity but findings could still be applied