Classical Conditioning
Look at the picture.
Does it make you feel hungry or make your mouth water?
If you answered yes, you are experiencing a type of learning called classical conditioning.
The picture is the stimulus and the hunger and/or the watering mouth is the response that you have associated with the memory of something good to eat.
Pavlov's Dogs
In the 1920's a Russian physiologist (not a psychologist) named
Ivan Pavlov was conducting tests on animal digestion.
While Pavlov was doing experiments with dogs and digestive juices he noticed that just seeing the food dish would cause the dogs to salivate (produce saliva, drool). He wondered why the dogs responded to the dish before they had seen the food.
Pavlov hypothesized that the dogs associated the dish with the food. You may have observed something similar if you have a dog or cat.
Around dinner time all you have to do is go to the kitchen or open a cabinet or refrigerator and your pet runs in and is ready to get fed.
Pavlov's scientific mind wondered if he could take something neutral and pair it with the food to get a response.
Pavlov set up an experiment and gave the dog meat powder and then would immediately ring a bell.
He repeated this several times and then just rang the bell...what do you think happened?
The dog SALIVATED!
Hanging from the dog's mouth is a saliva catch container.
Stimulus
Pavlov then explained his work in more scientific terms. The unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is a stimulus that causes a response automatically. In Pavlov's experiment, the UCS was the meat powder.
The unconditioned response (UCR) is the automatic response to the unconditioned stimulus. In Pavlov's experiment the UCR was the dog salivating.
He then paired (associated) a neutral stimulus (a stimulus that would not produce the unconditioned response) with the unconditioned stimulus. Pavlov chose to use a bell as the neutral stimulus which he rang every time he gave the dog the food.
After time, the dog responded to the bell alone, which then became the conditioned stimulus.
The neutral stimulus was associated with the unconditioned stimulus (the bell was associated with the food) and the animal LEARNED to respond to the bell.
The bell became a conditioned (learned) stimulus (CS) and it produced the response of salivating or the conditioned response (CR) - the unconditioned and conditioned response in the same.
The number of trials that it would take for the association to be made is called the acquisition time.
Classical Conditioning
This is Classical Conditioning
The image is a flowchart reflecting Classical Conditioning. NS(bell) and UCS(food) have arrows pointing to UCR(salivating). NS becomes CS. CS(bell) has an arrow pointing to CR(salivating).
Remember:
Unconditioned means happens naturally.
Conditioned means learned.
Watch Classical Conditioning: Part Two Classical Conditioning: Part Two (4:29) and learn about John Watson's experiment with little Albert--which would be considered unethical today.
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Little Albert
John Watson (the founder of behaviorism) worked with Pavlov and then brought classical conditioning to the United States.
He wanted to see if he could classically condition emotions in people.
He and a graduate student, Rosalie Rayner worked with an infant child known as baby Albert. He showed Albert a white rat which is a neutral stimulus and Albert showed interest in it and wanted to play with it. Then he sounded a loud noise and realized that it naturally frightened the child and made him cry.
He then would make loud noises behind the child every time, the child made any attempt to reach for the rat. After time the child would cry just at the sight of a rat and even at the sight of a man with a white beard!
