pavlov Flashcards
when was Pavlov’s study?
1927
what was Pavlov initially investigating?
using dogs in a lab to investigate the digestive process and functions within the cerebral cortex of the brain where he thought inbuilt reflex would occur.
what were the dogs fitted with during his experiment?
- a tube that would collect and enable measurement of their saliva.
what made he begin his study into classical conditioning?
- the OG experiment required the dogs to be fed, and it was this that led Pavlov to identity that the dogs would salivate even before the food was presented.
how did Pavlov ensure there were controls put in place?
it took place in a soundproof laboratory and Pavlov limited the amount of direct contact the dogs had with the experimenter.
what neutral stimulus was presented?
- the metronome which ticks at a steady rate and is presented to the dogs before they are given food.
what did Pavlov find after a few pairings of the neutral stimulus and the food ?
that the dogs began to associate the sound of the metronome with the presentation of the food and began to salivate without the food even being there
- the sound of the metronome was enough to make this happen.
what did Pavlov conclude after this response occured?
- that environmental stimuli (metronome) that had no relationship previously with to a a reflex (saliva) could trigger a salivation reflex after repeated pairings.
- through the process of associative learning (conditioning) the conditioned stimulus (ticking) could produce a conditioned response (salivation).
what did Pavlov find to be the number of pairings required for association to be made?
20 times
how did Pavlov explain the difference between the natural reflex to the food compared with the conditioned reflex to the metronome ?
- when a dog has meat in its mouth there is an existing inborn link to the salivation that exists in the cortex of the dog’s brain.
- however the reflex that occurs to the metronome occurs due to new higher- order paths in the cortex
- therefore the salivation the metronome is conditioned and the salivation to the food is unconditioned.
what further tests t Pavlov carry out in order to ensure the reliability of his findings?
- he carried out further tests of association using different neutral stimulus e.g. the smell of vanilla / a certain shape of colour
- he found that the dogs showed stimulus generalisation to sounds of a similar tone
- but were able to discriminate between sounds that were quite different also.
what did Pavlov believe about how the neutral stimulus should be presented in order to gain an accurate response?
- ## the neutral stimulus should be present before the unconditioned stimulus in order for association to be made. this is known as forward conditioning.
how did Pavlov demonstrate that forward conditioning was more effective?
- he sounder an electric buzzer 5-10 seconds after the food was presnted and this did not achieve salivation.
what did Pavlov conclude about this study?
- that external stimuli presented could disrupt the conditioning process and that the same conditioning on different dogs did not necessarily produce the same response - therefore conditioning can be impacted by individual differences.
does Pavlov’s study achieve objectivity and scientific credibility?
yes, as Pavlov isolated the dogs and put them in a sound proof room and therefore controlled the potential effects of any extraneous variables on the conditoning process.
