classical conditioning: pavlov Flashcards
what is the aim?
to learn about the salivation reflex, however he noted the it occured not only in response to food but to stimuli that typically occured close in time to the presentation of food.
- he wanted to explain to role of conditioned relflexes in the eating behaviour of dogs
what was the procedure?
he collected saliva from the salivary glands of an immobilised dog.
- done in a lab so it could be easily observed and measured.
- took place in a soundproof chamber in order to minimise the effects of extraneous variables e.g. noise
how did he establish a baseline?
measuring salivation in response to the NS for example a buzzer
- pair the NS with the UCS of food around 20 times
how did he vary the presentation of the NS?
he varied the presentation so that the NS was presented before or after the NCS
- further variations in the procedure were used to investigate extinction and spontaneous recovery of salivation
what were the findings?
as NS e.g. buzzer, did not initially elicit a salivation response whereas the UCS of food elicited immediate salivation
- after pairings of NS and UCS the NS did elicit salivation after it was presented for a few seconds
- no salivation was recorded in response to backwards pairing
what was the conclusion?
a link is likely to be made between a UCS and NS that occurs just before the UCS
- he called it signalisation which has a survival value in preparing an organism for events
what is a strength?
the design of the study had some clever features that reduced the impact of extraneous variables and enhanced the internal validity
- took place in a soundproof lab
- neutral stimuli were carefully chosen and tested to ensure they did not already elicit a salivation response
what is a weakness?
it was conducted on dogs and there is a problem generalising the results of animal studies in humans
- unclear how well the findings can be generalised.
- brains may respond differently as humans have larger cerebral cortex
what is a competing argument to the weakness?
little albert show that classical conditioning does take place in humans
- although humans can consciously try to overcome conditioned responses
how can it be applied?
has clinical applications
- obesity can be partially understood in terms of conditioned responses very like those displayed by pavlov’s dogs
- jansen (2003) suggest that overweight children have acquired very strong associations between cues = overearing ensues
