Classical conditioning

• What is classical conditioning ?

  Associating Two stimuli with each other
• What are the two stimuli that are associated together?

  Unconditioned stimuli

  Neutral stimuli
• What is an unconditioned stimuli ?

  It is a natural stimulus that produces a response without learning
• What is neutral stimulus ?

  Stimulus that does not produce the response we want
• What do these abbreviations stand for ?

  UCS = Unconditioned Stimulus

  NS= Neutral stimulus

  CR = conditioned response

  UCR = Unconditioned response

  CS = conditioned stimulus
• What are these definitions ?

  UCS = a stimulus that produces a response without learning

  NS = stimulus that doesn't give us the right response

  CR = The response produced by a conditioned stimulus

  UCR = An unlearned response to an unconditioned stimulus

  CS = Stimulus that produces the wanted response after pairing with unconditioned stimulus
• How does classical conditioning work ?

  Before - UCS trigger and unlearned response ( smell of food = salivate)

  We do not learn to salivate so its an UCR

  The NS is a bell

  During - Repeatedly exposed to both the UCS and the NS together

  Overtime we associate them together

  NS is no longer neutral

  After - After hearing them together for a few times we produce the same response to the NS that we would to the UCS

  NS is now a CS

  Response is now a conditioned response
• What is an experiment example f classical conditioning ?

  Watson and Rayner 1920
• What was the experiment called ?

  Little Albert
• What was the aim of the experiment ?

  Find out if classical conditioning worked on humans
• Summarise the procedure

  Albert was 9 months old and tested with animals to see if he created a feared response (he didn't so its a neutral stimulus)

  Albert was then tested if he would create a feared response to a loud bang (he did this is the Unconditioned stimulus)

  At 11 months they put an rat in front of him and made the bang noise (he cried).

  They did the same thing a week later and he did the same thing, he cried
• What where the results?

  • When presented with just the rat he cried a little
  • When presented with rat and loud noise he really cried
• What are the strengths on classical conditioning?

  • can be used to treat psychological disorders like gambling through aversion therapy(given a shock when reading gambling cards this makes a discomfort, now the gambling cards are linked to discomfort)
  • helped us understand that learning in humans through classical conditioning
• What are the weaknesses of classical conditioning?

  • only explains a limited amount of simple behaviours (how a phobia is created but not why it continues)
  • Limited generalisability (only tested on albert and he is not a representation of everybody so it limits the reliability of the results)
• How do we learn in classical conditioning?

  through association