AP PSYCH 4.2 Classical Conditioning

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 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

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

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