classical conditioning - Pavlov (1927)

Question 1

what were the aims of the study ?

Answer 1

• explaining the role of conditioned reflexes in the eating behaviour of dogs
• exploring how salivation becomes associated with new stimuli apparently unrelated to food and the properties of this association

Question 2

what was the procedure of the study ?

Answer 2

• DV - volume of saliva
• planned on measuring the baseline volume of saliva with the NS (e.g. metronome), then would pair the NS with the UCS of food usually 20 times
• pavlov varied the presentation so that the NS was presented before (forward conditioning) and after the UCS (backward conditioning)

Question 3

what were the findings of the study ?

Answer 3

• NS did not initially elicit a salivation response, whereas the UCS of food elicited immediate salivation
• after forward pairings of the NS and the UCS, the NS typically did elicit salivation after it was presented for a few seconds (one trial recorded that saliva was produce 9 seconds after the metronome sound, with 45 drops of saliva being produced)
• no salivation was recorded to the NS in backwards pairing
• pavlov found that the salivation reflex only became associated with the NS if the dog was alert and not distracted
• extinction of salivation could be seen as the salivary volume declined after repeated presentation of the CS without without the UCS - the salivary response to the CS spontaneously recovered on some occasions

Question 4

(evaluation) what is a strength of this study ?

Answer 4

• design of the study had some clever features that reduced the impact of extraneous variables
• pavlov’s studies took place in soundproof chambers to reduce external sounds
• collection of saliva externally in a cannula helped prevent any loss of saliva
• NS carefully tested to make sure that they did not already produce a salivation response

Question 5

what is a weakness of the study ?

Answer 5

• conducted on dogs - problem generalising to humans
• unclear how well findings of animals studies will generalise to humans because animals have structurally different brains to humans (have a larger cerebral cortex)
• pavlov thought that his finding would generalise to human which may not be entirely true

Question 6

what is a competing argument to the weakness of this study ?

Answer 6

• little Albert (Watson and Rainer 1920) show that classical conditioning does take place in humans - although humans can consciously try to overcome conditioned reflexes, this is very difficult.

Question 7

what is an application to this study ?

Answer 7

• understanding eating disorders
• obesity can be partially understood in terms of conditioned responses very like those displayed by pavlov’s dogs.
• e.g. anita Jansen et al. (2003) suggested that overweight children have acquired very strong associations between cues that predict the arrival of food and the salivation response.
• overeating follows exposure to these cues
• this application demonstrates the significance in developing therapies such as systematic desensitisation.

Question 8

what did Jansen et al. (2003) suggest

Answer 8

that overweight children have acquired strong associations between cues that predict the arrival of food and salivation response - the development of systematic desensitisation can be used to reduce the significant problem of child obesity