Chapter 6: Classical Conditioning

Aristotle

A Greek Philosopher, taught Alexander the Great, started a famous school, studied with Plato believed that experience and nurture were the keys to learning

Physiology

the study of how the body and its parts work or function

Generalization

the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses

elicit

to draw forth / produce

Mary Cover Jones

"mother of behavior therapy"; used classical conditioning to help "Peter" overcome fear of rabbits

Plato

(430-347 BCE) Was a disciple of Socrates whose thought was that nature directs and determines our thinking, emotions and behavior

neutral stimulus (NS)

in classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning

Phobias

A group of anxiety disorders involving a pathological fear of a specific object or situation

conditioned stimulus (CS)

A previously neutral stimulus that has, through conditioning, acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response.

reflex

A simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response.

Tabula Rasa

John Locke's concept of the mind as a blank sheet ultimately bombarded by sense impressions that, aided by human reasoning, formulate ideas. The idea that nurture ultimately determines our fate

spontaneous recovery (classical conditioning)

Sometimes, after a classically conditioned response has been extinguished and no further training of the animals has taken place, the response briefly reappears upon presentation of the conditioned stimulus.

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

Maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

Little Peter experiment

boy was afraid of rabbits; Mary Cover Jones gave the boy milk and cookies during lunch; Surprise! Boy gets there and there's a rabbit in the room; the rabbit got closer and closer and eventually boy held rabbit; no more fear; opposite of Little Albert - they were creating a fear with Albert, here they destroyed fear

vicarious conditioning

classical conditioning of a reflex response or emotion by watching the reaction of another person

rewards and punishments

consequences of the goal-directed behavior

involuntary

done without will or conscious control

Conditioned Emotional Response (CER)

emotional response that has become classically conditioned to occur to learned stimuli, such as a fear of dogs or the emotional reaction that occurs when seeing an attractive person

Variables

factors that can change in an experiment

salient

most noticeable or important

John Locke

17th century English philosopher who opposed the Divine Right of Kings and who asserted that people have a natural right to life, liberty, and property. In Psychology, we know him for his Essay on Human Understanding which advocated that we were all born the same, endowed with the same rights and born a blank slate

Little Albert Experiment

1920 - Watson - classical conditioning on a 9 month old baby - white rat was paired with a loud clanking noise resulting in crying and fear of rat

Enlightenment

A philosophical movement which started in Europe in the 1700's and spread to the colonies. It emphasized reason and the scientific method. Many members of the Enlightenment rejected traditional religious beliefs in favor of Deism, which holds that the world is run by natural laws without the direct intervention of God.

serendipity

An accidental but fortunate discovery

Robert A. Rescorola

Discovered reliable signals and unreliable signals using a rat experiment. Robert Rescorola reliable rats

acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.

unconditioned response (UR/UCR)

In classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (US), such as salivation when food is in the mouth.

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

Performed pioneering conditioning experiments on dogs. These experiments led to the development of the classical conditioning model of learning.

John Garcia

Researched taste aversion. Showed that when rats ate a novel substance before being nauseated by a drug or radiation, they developed a conditioned taste aversion for the substance.

John Watson and Rosalie Rayner

They taught a baby, Little Albert, to be scared of a white rat by playing a loud noise after he touched it

higher-order conditioning

a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone. (Also called second-order conditioning.)

Learning

a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience

food aversion

an intense dislike of a food, biological or psychological in nature, resulting from an illness or other negative experience associated with that food

unconditioned stimulus (US/UCS)

in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers a response.

Discrimination

in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus

innate

inborn; natural

Extinction

the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.