Lesson 1 Review Vocabulary 1 What Is a Stimulus? Psychology
Chapter 8. Learning
8.ane Learning by Association: Classical Workout
Learning Objectives
- Describe how Pavlov's early work in classical workout influenced the understanding of learning.
- Review the concepts of classical conditioning, including unconditioned stimulus (US), conditioned stimulus (CS), unconditioned response (UR), and conditioned response (CR).
- Explain the roles that extinction, generalization, and bigotry play in conditioned learning.
Pavlov Demonstrates Conditioning in Dogs
In the early office of the 20th century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), shown in Figure eight.2, was studying the digestive system of dogs when he noticed an interesting behavioural miracle: the dogs began to salivate when the lab technicians who normally fed them entered the room, even though the dogs had not yet received whatsoever food. Pavlov realized that the dogs were salivating because they knew that they were near to be fed; the dogs had begun to associate the arrival of the technicians with the nutrient that soon followed their advent in the room.
With his team of researchers, Pavlov began studying this process in more detail. He conducted a series of experiments in which, over a number of trials, dogs were exposed to a audio immediately before receiving food. He systematically controlled the onset of the sound and the timing of the delivery of the food, and recorded the amount of the dogs' salivation. Initially the dogs salivated only when they saw or smelled the food, merely after several pairings of the sound and the nutrient, the dogs began to salivate as presently as they heard the sound. The animals had learned to associate the audio with the food that followed.
Pavlov had identified a fundamental associative learning process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning refers to learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone) becomes associated with a stimulus (eastward.g., nutrient) that naturally produces a behaviour. Later the association is learned, the previously neutral stimulus is sufficient to produce the behaviour.
Every bit you tin see in Figure viii.three, "four-Console Prototype of Whistle and Dog," psychologists use specific terms to identify the stimuli and the responses in classical conditioning. The unconditioned stimulus (US) is something (such as nutrient) that triggers a naturally occurring response, and the unconditioned response (UR) is the naturally occurring response (such as salivation) that follows the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus (CS) is a neutral stimulus that, after being repeatedly presented prior to the unconditioned stimulus, evokes a like response as the unconditioned stimulus. In Pavlov's experiment, the sound of the tone served as the conditioned stimulus that, afterwards learning, produced the conditioned response (CR), which is the caused response to the formerly neutral stimulus. Note that the UR and the CR are the same behaviour — in this case salivation — but they are given different names considering they are produced past unlike stimuli (the United states of america and the CS, respectively).
Conditioning is evolutionarily beneficial because it allows organisms to develop expectations that assist them prepare for both good and bad events. Imagine, for instance, that an fauna commencement smells a new food, eats it, and so gets sick. If the animal can learn to associate the smell (CS) with the nutrient (United states), it will quickly learn that the nutrient creates the negative issue and will not eat it the adjacent time.
The Persistence and Extinction of Conditioning
After he had demonstrated that learning could occur through association, Pavlov moved on to written report the variables that influenced the strength and the persistence of conditioning. In some studies, after the conditioning had taken identify, Pavlov presented the sound repeatedly merely without presenting the nutrient afterward. Figure eight.four, "Conquering, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery," shows what happened. As you can see, later on the initial conquering (learning) phase in which the conditioning occurred, when the CS was then presented lonely, the behaviour speedily decreased — the dogs salivated less and less to the sound, and somewhen the sound did not elicit salivation at all. Extinction refers to the reduction in responding that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus.
Although at the end of the beginning extinction flow the CS was no longer producing salivation, the effects of conditioning had not entirely disappeared. Pavlov found that, later a pause, sounding the tone again elicited salivation, although to a lesser extent than earlier extinction took place. The increment in responding to the CS post-obit a break after extinction is known every bit spontaneous recovery. When Pavlov again presented the CS alone, the behaviour again showed extinction until it disappeared again.
Although the behaviour has disappeared, extinction is never complete. If conditioning is over again attempted, the animal will learn the new associations much faster than information technology did the start time.
Pavlov also experimented with presenting new stimuli that were like, only not identical, to the original conditioned stimulus. For instance, if the dog had been conditioned to being scratched earlier the food arrived, the stimulus would be inverse to being rubbed rather than scratched. He establish that the dogs too salivated upon experiencing the like stimulus, a process known equally generalization. Generalization refers to the tendency to respond to stimuli that resemble the original conditioned stimulus. The ability to generalize has important evolutionary significance. If nosotros swallow some red berries and they brand u.s. ill, information technology would exist a skillful idea to think twice before we eat some majestic berries. Although the berries are not exactly the same, they however are like and may have the same negative backdrop.
Lewicki (1985) conducted inquiry that demonstrated the influence of stimulus generalization and how quickly and easily it can happen. In his experiment, high school students first had a brief interaction with a female experimenter who had short hair and glasses. The study was set up and so that the students had to ask the experimenter a question, and (co-ordinate to random consignment) the experimenter responded either in a negative way or a neutral way toward the students. Then the students were told to go into a second room in which two experimenters were present and to arroyo either one of them. However, the researchers arranged information technology and then that i of the two experimenters looked a lot like the original experimenter, while the other i did not (she had longer pilus and no spectacles). The students were significantly more likely to avoid the experimenter who looked like the earlier experimenter when that experimenter had been negative to them than when she had treated them more neutrally. The participants showed stimulus generalization such that the new, similar-looking experimenter created the same negative response in the participants as had the experimenter in the prior session.
The flip side of generalization is discrimination — the trend to respond differently to stimuli that are like but not identical. Pavlov's dogs quickly learned, for example, to salivate when they heard the specific tone that had preceded food, only not upon hearing similar tones that had never been associated with nutrient. Discrimination is also useful — if we practise endeavor the purple berries, and if they do not make us sick, we will exist able to make the distinction in the future. And we can larn that although two people in our grade, Courtney and Sarah, may wait a lot alike, they are nevertheless different people with unlike personalities.
In some cases, an existing conditioned stimulus tin can serve equally an unconditioned stimulus for a pairing with a new conditioned stimulus — a procedure known as second-order conditioning. In one of Pavlov's studies, for example, he first conditioned the dogs to salivate to a sound then repeatedly paired a new CS, a black square, with the audio. Somewhen he plant that the dogs would salivate at the sight of the black square lone, even though it had never been directly associated with the nutrient. Secondary conditioners in everyday life include our attractions to things that correspond or remind the states of something else, such as when we feel practiced on a Fri because it has become associated with the paycheque that nosotros receive on that solar day, which itself is a conditioned stimulus for the pleasures that the paycheque buys us.
The Role of Nature in Classical Conditioning
As we accept seen in Chapter ane, "Introducing Psychology," scientists associated with the behaviourist school argued that all learning is driven by feel, and that nature plays no function. Classical conditioning, which is based on learning through experience, represents an example of the importance of the environment. But classical workout cannot be understood entirely in terms of experience. Nature also plays a part, as our evolutionary history has made u.s.a. meliorate able to larn some associations than others.
Clinical psychologists make use of classical conditioning to explicate the learning of a phobia — a stiff and irrational fearfulness of a specific object, activity, or situation. For case, driving a car is a neutral effect that would not usually elicit a fear response in most people. Just if a person were to experience a panic attack in which he or she suddenly experienced potent negative emotions while driving, that person may acquire to associate driving with the panic response. The driving has go the CS that now creates the fear response.
Psychologists have besides discovered that people do non develop phobias to just annihilation. Although people may in some cases develop a driving phobia, they are more likely to develop phobias toward objects (such as snakes and spiders) or places (such as high locations and open up spaces) that have been dangerous to people in the by. In modernistic life, it is rare for humans to be bitten by spiders or snakes, to fall from trees or buildings, or to be attacked by a predator in an open area. Beingness injured while riding in a machine or beingness cut by a knife are much more than likely. But in our evolutionary past, the potential for beingness bitten by snakes or spiders, falling out of a tree, or being trapped in an open space were important evolutionary concerns, and therefore humans are still evolutionarily prepared to learn these associations over others (Öhman & Mineka, 2001; LoBue & DeLoache, 2010).
Another evolutionarily of import blazon of conditioning is conditioning related to food. In his important research on food workout, John Garcia and his colleagues (Garcia, Kimeldorf, & Koelling, 1955; Garcia, Ervin, & Koelling, 1966) attempted to condition rats past presenting either a taste, a sight, or a sound as a neutral stimulus before the rats were given drugs (the US) that made them nauseous. Garcia discovered that taste conditioning was extremely powerful — the rat learned to avoid the taste associated with affliction, even if the illness occurred several hours later. But workout the behavioural response of nausea to a sight or a audio was much more than difficult. These results contradicted the idea that conditioning occurs entirely every bit a result of ecology events, such that it would occur equally for any kind of unconditioned stimulus that followed any kind of conditioned stimulus. Rather, Garcia'due south research showed that genetics matters — organisms are evolutionarily prepared to learn some associations more easily than others. Y'all can meet that the ability to associate smells with affliction is an important survival mechanism, assuasive the organism to quickly learn to avoid foods that are poisonous.
Classical workout has also been used to help explain the feel of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), equally in the case of P. M. Philips described in the chapter opener. PTSD is a astringent anxiety disorder that tin develop later on exposure to a fearful event, such as the threat of decease (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). PTSD occurs when the individual develops a potent association between the situational factors that surrounded the traumatic event (east.g., military uniforms or the sounds or smells of state of war) and the U.s.a. (the fearful trauma itself). Every bit a result of the workout, being exposed to or fifty-fifty thinking nigh the situation in which the trauma occurred (the CS) becomes sufficient to produce the CR of severe anxiety (Keane, Zimering, & Caddell, 1985).
PTSD develops because the emotions experienced during the event have produced neural action in the amygdala and created strong conditioned learning. In addition to the strong workout that people with PTSD experience, they also prove slower extinction in classical conditioning tasks (Milad et al., 2009). In short, people with PTSD accept developed very potent associations with the events surrounding the trauma and are also slow to evidence extinction to the conditioned stimulus.
Key Takeaways
- In classical workout, a person or animal learns to associate a neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) with a stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus, or US) that naturally produces a behaviour (the unconditioned response, or UR). As a result of this association, the previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit the same response (the conditioned response, or CR).
- Extinction occurs when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US, and the CR eventually disappears, although it may reappear afterwards in a process known as spontaneous recovery.
- Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus that is similar to an already-conditioned stimulus begins to produce the same response every bit the original stimulus does.
- Stimulus discrimination occurs when the organism learns to differentiate betwixt the CS and other like stimuli.
- In second-order workout, a neutral stimulus becomes a CS after beingness paired with a previously established CS.
- Some stimuli — response pairs, such as those betwixt smell and food — are more easily conditioned than others considering they have been especially important in our evolutionary past.
Exercises and Critical Thinking
- A instructor places gold stars on the chalkboard when the students are quiet and circumspect. Eventually, the students start becoming quiet and attentive whenever the instructor approaches the chalkboard. Tin you explain the students' behaviour in terms of classical conditioning?
- Recall a time in your life, perhaps when you were a kid, when your behaviours were influenced by classical workout. Describe in detail the nature of the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli and the response, using the appropriate psychological terms.
- If mail-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a type of classical workout, how might psychologists employ the principles of classical conditioning to treat the disorder?
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2000).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev.). Washington, DC: Author.
Garcia, J., Ervin, F. R., & Koelling, R. A. (1966). Learning with prolonged delay of reinforcement.Psychonomic Science, v(three), 121–122.
Garcia, J., Kimeldorf, D. J., & Koelling, R. A. (1955). Conditioned aversion to saccharin resulting from exposure to gamma radiation.Science, 122, 157–158.
Keane, T. M., Zimering, R. T., & Caddell, J. 1000. (1985). A behavioral formulation of posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans.The Beliefs Therapist, viii(i), nine–12.
Lewicki, P. (1985). Nonconscious biasing effects of unmarried instances on subsequent judgments.Periodical of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 563–574.
LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J. S. (2010). Superior detection of threat-relevant stimuli in infancy.Developmental Scientific discipline, xiii(i), 221–228.
Milad, M. R., Pitman, R. K., Ellis, C. B., Gold, A. 50., Shin, L. Chiliad., Lasko, Due north. B.,…Rauch, S. 50. (2009). Neurobiological footing of failure to recall extinction retentiveness in posttraumatic stress disorder.Biological Psychiatry, 66(12), 1075–82.
Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fright and fear learning.Psychological Review, 108(3), 483–522.
Paradigm Attributions
Figure eight.2: Ivan Pavlov (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ivan_Pavlov_LIFE.jpg) is in the public domain.
Source: https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/7-1-learning-by-association-classical-conditioning/
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