classical conditioning Flashcards
what is classical conditioning?
how many stages are involved?
learning through association.
learning is passive and is based on reflex behaviours that all humans and animals have.
involves learning to associate a stimulus which brings about a response with a new stimulus.
-3 stages.
what is the unconditioned stimulus?
any stimulus that produces a natural unlearnt response
what is a neutral stimulus?
a thing which is not associated with the unconditioned response.
this can be any environmental stimulus that doesn’t naturally produce a behavioural response.
what is an unconditioned response?
any response that occurs naturally without learning.
what is a conditioned stimulus ?
a new stimulus that has been associated with a UCS soo that it now produces the same response on its own.
what is a conditioned response?
behaviour elicited by the conditioned stimulus
what are the 3 stages of conditioning?
1) unconditioned stimulus (UCS) produces an unconditioned response (UCR) in an organism. (stimulus in an environment produced an unlearned response)
2) stimulus which produces no response (NS) is associated with the (UCS) to become the conditioned stimulus (CS).
3) the conditioned stimulus (CS) has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) to create a new conditioned response (CR).
extinction feature of classical conditioning and example from Pavlov.
extinction: if the conditioned stimulus is continually presented without the unconditioned stimulus then the conditional response gradually dies out.
(Pavlov found that when he sounded the tone again and again without presenting food the dogs salivated less and less.)
spontaneous recovery feature of classical conditioning.
if a conditioned response is not reinforced it becomes extinguished but after a period of rest the response may appear.
generalisation feature of classical conditioning and example from Pavlov.
extension of the conditioned response from the original stimulus to similar stimuli. (a dog conditioned to the sound of one tone also responded somewhat to the sound of a different tone never paired with food.)
discrimination feature of classical conditioning and example from Pavlov.
discrimination: the conditioned response is produced only by presentation of the original stimulus and does not extend to similar stimulus.(Pavlov’s dogs also learned to respond to the sound of a particular tone and not other notes)
What is one trial learning: classical conditioning.
one trial learning: when conditioning occurs immediately after one trial only. (learning to avoid poisonous food that has made us sick)
Evaluation of classical conditioning
Pavlov
Watson and rayner -generalisation, reliability.
Pavlov showed how classical conditioning can be used to make dogs salivate to the sound of a bell. Demonstrating that through classical conditioning a dog could learn to Salivate to what was a neutral object using association.
Watson and Rayners was a study of little Albert, it showed how a child cooked be classically conditioned to develop a phobia of a white rat. After several pairings of loud noise with a white rat, little Albert developed a phobia of white fluffy objects demonstrating how learning occurs through association and can be generalisation to similar objects.also shows conditioning works in humans too, increasing reliability also.
Criticisms of supporting studies
Pavlov
Watson and rayner
Pavlov: Some research comes from animal studies.
Means there are issues with generalising as humans are more complex and have different cognitive abilities such as language
Watson and Rayner: As little Albert was a single case experiment which ethically could not be replicated, there are issues with generalising the results as they may not be applicable to the rest of the population. There was also some suggestion that he may have had learning difficulties.
Evalutation of classical conditioning to different theories
(Social)
Social learning theory disagrees with classical conditioning and would say that behaviours are learnt through the imitation of role models.
We go through the process of attention, retention, reproduction and motivation in order to acquire new behaviours.
What does classical conditioning emphasise the importance of? (Evaluation)
Learning from the environment and supports nurture over nature. However out is limiting to describe behaviour solely in terms of either nature or nurture, and attempts to do this underestimate the complexity of human behaviour.
It is more likely that behaviour is due to an interaction between nature (biology) and nurture (environment)
How does classical conditioning have practical application?
It had led to the development of treatments for phobias such as systematic desensitisation which removes phobias through a hierarchy of fears based on classical conditioning principles.
This demonstrated the principles of classical conditioning are valid and can be used to treat phobias.
Classical conditioning application to real life.
How is the theory Deterministic?
It does not allow for any degree of free will in the individual.
according to this, a person has no control over their reaction they have learned from classical conditioning such as phobia
