Pavlov Flashcards
What were the aims of Pavlov’s study?
To investigate whether you could condition a dog To salivate at the noise of a bell or metronome
What was the sample in Pavlov?
It is believed he used 35 dogs in his sample
What surgery was done to the dogs?
Pavlov removed the dog’s oesophagus creating an opening in their
throat so the food would fall out and not make it to the stomach
to maintain the desire for the UCS of food and Pavlov
collected various secretions to quantitatively measure the level of
salivation in response to the stimuli
Briefly describe the procedure of this study.
Kept the dog in an isolated room strapped to a harness
- He used a metronome as the neutral stimulus and the food as the unconditioned stimulus, with salivation as the unconditioned response
- He paired the sound of the bell with the dog’s food by sounding the metronome before sliding the food through a gap
- Saliva was collected through a tube connected to the dog’s mouth
What were the results of Pavlov’s study?
After several pairings of the bell with the food, the dog began to salivate at the sound of the bell in anticipation to the food and so the bell became the conditioned stimulus and the salivation the conditioned response.
Describe the conclusion of his experiment.
He established the existence of associative learning and stated that we can learn desired behavioural responses when present with a certain stimulus through classical conditioning.
Evaluate the generalisability of Pavlov
Low generalisablity as it used dogs. You can’t generalise to humans due to them being more complex with qualitative differences
Evaluate the reliability of Pavlov
High reliability as he could repeat the experiment using standardised procedure such as a light, buzzer and metronome
Are there any applications?
Yes It has lead to treatments of phobias through systematic desensitisation by pairing a phobia with something good as we can see that classical conditioning applies to behaviour
Give a validity weakness for Pavlov
This has low ecological as the dogs was placed in an unnatural environment e.g. being strapped to a harness and so may not represent behaviour in real life
Give a validity strength for Pavlov
Carried out in a lab environment with strict control over EVs as dog was placed in isolated room and was soundproofed etc so we know that other variables had less chance of effecting their salivation
Evaluate an ethical issue.
The treatment of the dogs could be considered unethical, with many dying unnecessarily from the procedure, which would not meet the current Animals Scientific Procedures Act 1986
