AP PSYCH 4.2 Classical Conditioning

Procedure

• There must first be an association already present
  • This can be a biological reaction or training from another session beforehand
• This association that already exists involves the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the unconditioned response (UR)
  • They are unconditioned because they are not the final, desired association
  • The stimulus elicits a response
  • Let’s use Pavlov’s dogs as an example: The US is food, and the UR is salivation because of the food
  • You must attribute the response at this stage to the US, not any other reason
• A neutral stimulus (NS) is introduced
  • The neutral stimulus, at this point, does not elicit the desired response
  • Pavlov rings a bell
  • The dogs may have perked up or looked over to the bell, but when the association has not yet been made, they are not reacting as intended
• The NS and US are paired
  • Pavlov rings the bell as he brings the food to his dogs
  • This is what will build the association
  • There are different ways the US and NS can be presented but most commonly they are presented at the same time or directly after one another
• The NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) which elicits and conditioned response (CR)
  • The dogs now salivate because of the bell
  • Now note that the response is attributed to a new source, the CS

Extinction

• Extinction occurs when the CS gains a weakened or no CR at all, and the association is no longer present
• Different methods of conditioning will result in different rates of extinction
• The association can undergo spontaneous recovery, where the CS once again receives the CR, but not at the same intensity

Discrimination and Generalization

• A learner who is able to discriminate stimuli will not give the CR to stimuli similar or very close to the CS
• Learners who generalize will give the CR to similar stimuli
• There can be different degrees of this
• In the Little Albert experiment, the baby Albert was conditioned to fear white rats
• There was a very loud sound played behind him every time he was presented with a rat
  • He began to fear all small, white, fluffy objects
  • He would break down into tears and shaking when he saw stuffed animals and even John B. Watson himself, who conducted the experiment
  • Some think this was because Watson was always present in the room, so Albert also associated the loud noise with him
  • Others think it was because he has whiteish-grey hair that may have looked like the rat

Higher Order Conditioning

• Multi-level learning
• Remember that the US and UR can be from previous learning
• The CS and CR from the first association become the US and UR in the next series of steps

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