Key concepts

Question 1

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 1

• learning through association

Question 2

Who is ivan pavlov and what did he do?

Answer 2

• studied digestion in dogs, created theory of conditioning
  -tried to see if a dog could be conditioned to salivate to a completely unrelated stimulus
  -pavlov used a bell (NS) as it does not provide a behavioural response in dogs, paired this with food (UCS) to condition this new stimulus to produce the same response.

Question 3

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 3

• any stimulus that produces a natural, unlearnt response (e.g food) (UCS)

Question 4

What is a neutral stimulus?

Answer 4

-a thing which is not associated with the unconditioned response (e.g a bell) this can be any environmental stimulus that does not naturally produce a behavioural response. (NS)

Question 5

What is an unconditioned response?

Answer 5

• any response that occurs naturally without learning (e.g. salivating to food) (UCR)

Question 6

What is a conditioned stimulus?

Answer 6

• a new stimulus that has been associated with the UCS so that it now produces the same response on its own (CS)

Question 7

What is a conditioned response?

Answer 7

• behaviour elicited by the conditioned stimulus (CR)

Question 8

What happens before conditioning, stage 1?

Answer 8

• the unconditioned stimulus produces an unconditioned response (e.g. food (UCS) —–> salivation (UCR))
  -the neutral stimulus is also used but it creates no response
  (e.g. bell (NS) ——-> No response)

Question 9

What happens during conditioning, stage 2?

Answer 9

-the neutral stimulus is associated with the unconditioned stimulus at which point it now becomes known as the conditioned stimulus to produce an unconditioned response
- (e.g. bell (NS) + food (UCS) ——–> Salivation(UCR)

Question 10

What happens after conditioning, stage 3?

Answer 10

-conditioned stimulus has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus to create a conditioned response
- bell (CS) —–> salivation (CR))