Psychology Assignment 4
Task 44: Define the principles of Classical conditioning.
The study undertaken by Ivan Pavlov is still today the most well known example of classical conditioning. After studying the digestive system of dogs in 1927, Ivan noticed that his dogs would salivate at the sight of the lab assistant bringing them food. Through the process of classical conditioning, soon the sight of the lab assistant alone was enough for the dogs to salivate. Pavlov believed that the dogs had learnt to expect food from the assistant by association; he then investigated his theory further by beginning to experiment with a neutral stimulus, in this case the sound of a bell.
Pavlov sounded a bell as food was placed in front of the dogs, it did not take long for the dogs to produce saliva at the mere sound of the bell.
The process of Classical Conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning as it is also known as works as follows:
Stage 1 – Food in this experiment is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). The UCS equals salivation which is the unconditioned response (UCR). Salivation is an involuntary automatic response to a certain stimulus. This is a reflex controlled by the lower part of the brain; no learning is required to produce this response. At this stage before learning has taken place, the sound of a bell will cause no response or an irrelevant response from the dogs.
Stage 2 – Acquisition is the initial stage of learning, after repeatedly pairing food with the sound of a bell, the dogs will now begin learning to associate the two stimuli together, as soon as the dogs begin to salivate in response to the bell, we can say that the response has been acquired. The bell is a conditioned stimulus CS, as the response of salivation is only produced when in conjunction with the UCS, the food. Bell (CS) + Food (UCS) = Salivation (Unconditioned Response UCR).