Transcript Concepts of Classical Conditioning

Concepts of Classical
Conditioning
Adaptive Value
• The usefulness of
certain abilities or
traits that have
evolved in animals and
humans that tend to
increase their chances
of survival.
• Ex: Finding food,
acquiring mates,
avoiding pain and/or
injury.
Taste Aversion
• Associating a
particular sensory
cue (smell, taste,
sound, sight) with
getting sick and
thereafter
avoiding that
particular sensory
cue in the future.
Examples of Taste
Aversion
• Rats not eating
poison after they
get sick by eating
it one time.
• Humans not eating
a certain food
because they got
sick once.
Conditioned Emotional
Response
• A feeling some
positive or negative
emotion such as
happiness, fear, or
anxiety, when
experiencing a
stimulus that initially
accompanied a
pleasant or painful
event.
Examples of Conditioned
Emotional Response
• Fear of needles due to
bad experience as a
child.
• Fear of all dogs
because of a previous
dog attack.
• Experiencing
happiness (or sadness)
when a couple’s “song”
is heard.
Examples of Classical
Conditioning
• Blue Jays and
Monarch Butterflies
• Humans at a
restaurant holding the
menu… with pictures.
• Children and the ice
cream truck.
Conditioning Little Albert
• In 1920,
psychologist John
Watson decided to
perform an
experiment to
prove classical
conditioning.
The Experiment
• Subject: 9 month old infant
nicknamed “Albert”
• Neutral Stimuli: white rat; white
rabbit; fur coat
• Unconditioned Stimulus: Noise
(hammer banged on metal)
• Unconditioned Response: Startle/Cry
An Overview
• Watson and his assistant (Rosalie
Rayner) wrote that Albert was a
healthy, good, and unemotional baby
that hardly ever cried.
• Watson and Rayner introduced the
rat, rabbit, and coat to Albert
separately and Albert’s curiosity
made him joyfully play with the
animals.
Overview Continued
• Shortly after recording responses,
Watson and his team began to bang a
hammer loudly onto a piece of metal
behind Albert to elicit a startle and
fear.
• They began to do this often at the
same time as introducing the rat.
Continued
• After getting cries and fear each
time, they began introducing the rat
with no noise… Albert still presented
fear and cried/crawled away.
• They introduced the rabbit and fur
coat (never introduced with noise)
and Albert responded the same way.
Results
• In just two months, Albert was
classically conditioned to fear
anything with white fur.
• Shortly after the experiment,
Watson was fired from John Hopkins
University for having an affair with
Rayner.
Long Term Results
• Watson was widely criticized for not
unconditioning Albert.
• Watson and his team never revealed
Albert’s true identity or no one ever
found out if Albert’s conditioning was
permanent.
Albert
• In 2010, a team of psychologists and
students did massive amounts of research
in an effort to find Albert.
• They were successful… Albert was born to
a nurse at the hospital that lived and
worked on campus. She remained close to
Albert throughout the experiment and was
paid $1 for her involvement.
Albert’s Fate
• Unfortunately, Albert died at the
age of 6 due to a disease unrelated
to anything involving the experiment.
• The grandson to Albert’s mother
(Albert’s nephew) was one of the
researchers that worked to find
Albert’s identity.