Transcript Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning
Pavlov’s Dog (Animals)
Little Albert (Humans)
Key Terms
 Unconditional
Stimulus
 Unconditioned
Response
 Conditioned Stimulus
 Conditioned
Response
Summary
Pavlov’s Findings
 Pavlov found that for the association
between the two stimuli to be learned,
they had to be presented close together.
The association forms best when the two
stimuli are presented at the same time.
 Pavlov found:
 When there is a long gap between the
two stimuli, the association between the
two is not learned
 If the bell (conditioned stimulus) is
repeatedly sounded without the food,
salivation (conditioned response) slowly
disappears. The behaviour is
extinguished.
 The conditioned stimulus (the bell) could
be changed in tone and volume and still
elicit the conditioned response of
salivation. This is called stimulus
generalisation. A point is reached when
the sound of the bell is so different that
the conditioned response does not
happen. This is called stimulus
discrimination.
 If the conditioned response had been
extinguished, then at a later time the dog
would sometimes salivate at the sound
of the bell. This is called spontaneous
recovery of the conditioned behaviour.
 Classical Conditioning can be used to
understand how emotional responses
may be learned. (see Little Albert
experiment)
Watson and Rayner (1920)
 A little boy of ninth months was used to
condition a fear of white rats which led to
a phobia.
 Little Albert did not show a fear of white
rats. Watson and Rayner had discovered
that Little Albert showed fear when a
hammer struck a metal bar behind his
back.
 Following this, they placed a white rat in
front of Little Albert, and at the same
time made the loud noise with the metal
bar.
 After a short number of pairings, Little
Albert showed fear by crying and moving
away from the rat.
 Little Albert then developed a phobia for
white rats and more generally small furry
white objects.
 Watson and Rayner concluded that
classical conditioning causes strong
emptional behaviour.
Treatment
 Classical Conditioning can be used in the
treatment of phobias by a technique called
systematic desensitisation. To extinguish an
irrational fear, the person has to confront the
stimulus that causes the fear.
 If a person had a fear of spiders, the
psychologist might first relax the person and
then show them a picture of a spider. Then they
would be exposed to a toy spider. This would
build slowly to a real spider in a jar