classical conditioning and Pavlov

Question 1

what is classical conditioning?
how many stages are involved?

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

what is the unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 2

any stimulus that produces a natural unlearnt response

Question 3

what is a neutral stimulus?

Answer 3

a thing which is not associated with the unconditioned response.
this can be any environmental stimulus that doesn’t naturally produce a behavioural response.

Question 4

what is an unconditioned response?

Answer 4

any response that occurs naturally without learning.

Question 5

what is an unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 5

a new stimulus that has been associated with a UCS soo that it now produces the same response on its own.

Question 6

what is a conditioned response?

Answer 6

behaviour elicited by the conditioned stimulus

Question 7

what are the 3 stages of conditioning?

Answer 7

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).

Question 8

flow chart of pavlovs study.

Answer 8

during conditioning: bell (NS) + food (UCS)=salivation (UCR)
after conditioning: bell (CS)=salivation (CR)

Question 9

extinction feature of classical conditioning and example from Pavlov.

Answer 9

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.)

Question 10

spontaneous recovery feature of classical conditioning.

Answer 10

if a conditioned response is not reinforced it becomes extinguished but after a period of rest the response may appear.

Question 11

generalisation feature of classical conditioning and example from Pavlov.

Answer 11

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.)

Question 12

discrimination feature of classical conditioning and example from Pavlov.

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

one trial learning feature of classical conditioning.

Answer 13

one trial learning: when conditioning occurs immediately after one trial only. (learning to avoid poisonous food that has made us sick)

Question 14

Who was Pavlov?

Answer 14

A Russian physiologist who developed the classical conditioning after studying secretion in dogs.

Question 15

What was Pavlovs aim?

Answer 15

Study how the cerebral cortex works in making associations and to look for a mechanism linking reflexes to cerebral cortex

Question 16

What did Pavlov already know about the dogs salvation?

Answer 16

When he put food in a dogs mouth they would salivate and when he worked with the same dog repeatedly the dogs began to salivate to stimuli associated with food.
(Food, food dish, person bringing food etc)
He noticed some things dogs dont need to learn, its a reflex (unconditional response)

Question 17

What was the procedure of pavlovs study?

Answer 17

He used a variety of neutral stimuli including metronome, bell and buzzers as it does not produce a specific behavioural response in dogs.
He then paired a neutral stimulus with food (UCS) to condition this new stimulus to produce the same response.

The dogs were in a small room secured in a harness and were represented food from a room adjacent to their room with a device attached to their cheek to collect saliva into a measuring instrument.

Just before placing food in the dogs mouth to produce salivation, Pavlov sounded a metronome.
After several pairings of the metronome and food, the dog started to salivate to the metronome alone.

Question 18

How did Pavlov eliminate possible influence of extraneous variables?

Answer 18

Isolated dogs in a small room so footsteps outside could not be heard.
Secured in a harness and attached to a device that diverts its saliva to a measuring instrument.
Represented food from a room adjacent- they slid in a mood bowl, later blowing meat powder into the dog’s mount at a precise moment.

Question 19

Flow chart on how pavlovs study worked

Answer 19

Before conditioning.
Metronome(NS) —>no response
Food (UCS) —>salivation (UCR)

During conditioning
Metronome (NS) + food (UCS) —> salivation (UCR)

After conditioning
Metronome (CS) —> salivation (CR)
Using this procedure Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate to other stimuli such as bells and buzzers.

Question 20

What were the results of pavlovs study?

Answer 20

Salivation started after 9 seconds and by 45 seconds, 11 drops had been collected.

The dog would only salivate when the NS/CS was presented before the UCS, NOT if it came AFTER
(Metronome before food not food before metronome)
The dog had to be alert and no other stimuli present to distract or affect the acquired learning.

The findings were reliable across various stimuli like odours and visual cues.

Question 21

What was the conclusion of pavlovs study?

Answer 21

He concluded that there is a signalisation in the brain that links the metronome to food and this gives the reflex response of salivation.
Conditioning was found to be sensitive to many extraneous variables and to individual differences.

Question 22

Evaluation of classical conditioning
Pavlov
Watson and rayner -generalisation, reliability.

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Criticisms of supporting studies
Pavlov
Watson and rayner

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Evalutation of classical conditioning to different theories
(Social)

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

What does classical conditioning emphasise the importance of? (Evaluation)

Answer 25

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)

Question 26

How does classical conditioning have practical application?

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Classical conditioning application to real life.
How is the theory Deterministic?

Answer 27

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

Question 28

How is pavlovs study low in generalisability?

Answer 28

The research was conducted using dogs rather than humans.
When the findings demonstrate basic principles of learning, human behaviour is more complex due to cognitive and emotional factors, meaning results nay not fully apply to human learning and conditioning.

Question 29

How is pavlovs study high in reliability?

Answer 29

Procedures were tightly controlled and replicated such as isolating the dogs and using precise timings for presenting the stimuli.
These standardised methods ensure the associations can be consistently reproduced making the findings about the CS and CR more reliable and credible.

Question 30

Where can pavlovs study be applied?

Answer 30

Real life application.
As this prompted further research which lead to an explanation of phobias this led to development of an appropriate treatment eg: systematic desensitisation.

Question 31

Why is pavlovs study high in validity?

Answer 31

It was highly scientific.
Pavlov used objective methods,such as measuring salivation with instruments and controlled extraneous variables like social interaction and distraction.
These controls reduce the risk of confounding variables, ensuring the results accurately reflect the process of classical conditioning.

Question 32

Why do ethics raise concern in pavlovs study?

Answer 32

Dogs were isolated, restrained and exposed to repeated procedures which could have caused distress.
Whilst ethical guidelines were less developed at the time, modern standards would question the treatment of animals, which may limit the ethical acceptability of the study.