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Lesson 25: Ivan Pavlov's Classical Conditioning
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Classical conditioning happens through repeated association of two or more different stimuli. Stimulus means something that happens in our environment. Association means connecting two things together. When we connect two things over and over, our brain learns that they go together. This creates a new response, a new way of reacting.
Classical conditioning is happening all around us every day. The sound of your alarm clock makes you wake up. The sight of your favorite restaurant makes you feel hungry. The color red means stop. These are all examples of classical conditioning. Your brain has learned to connect certain things with certain responses. But before we dig deeper we need to know who is behind the classical conditioning.
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian psychologist who lived from 1849 to 1936. He was very famous in his time. In 1904, Pavlov won the Nobel Prize. This is one of the biggest awards a scientist can win. But Pavlov did not win it for discovering classical conditioning. He won it for his work on digestion, which means how our bodies break down food. However, Pavlov became even more famous for something else. He was the first to study and explain classical conditioning. His experiments with dogs showed how learning happens through association.
Pavlov's Experiment with Dogs
To understand classical conditioning, you need to know about Pavlov's famous experiment. Pavlov had dogs in his laboratory. He noticed something interesting. When the dogs saw food, they automatically started to drool or salivate. This is a natural response. Dogs cannot control it. When you see delicious food, your mouth waters. This is the same thing. It is automatic.
But then Pavlov did something clever. Every time he was about to give food to the dogs, he would ring a bell first. Ring the bell, then give the food. Ring the bell, then give the food. He repeated this many times.
After a while, something amazing happened. When Pavlov rang the bell, the dogs started to drool. They drooled even when there was no food! The dogs had learned to associate the sound of the bell with food. Their brain connected the two things together. The dogs learned that the bell means food is coming. So their body responded as if food was actually there, even though it was not.
There are 4 key elements that are used to describe the process of classical conditioning:
- Unconditioned Stimulus
- Unconditioned Response
- Conditioned Stimulus
- Conditioned Response
1. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
The unconditioned stimulus is something that naturally causes a response without any learning needed. It is automatic. The word unconditioned means it does not need to be learned. It naturally produces a particular response. In Pavlov's experiment, the unconditioned stimulus was the food, or more specifically, the meat powder. The meat powder naturally made the dogs drool. No learning was needed. Dogs are born knowing how to respond to food this way. Think about your own life. If someone threw a ball at your face, you would automatically blink. You do not need to learn to blink. Your body does it automatically. The ball coming at your face is the unconditioned stimulus. Another example is a loud noise. If you hear a sudden, loud bang, you automatically feel startled or jump. You do not learn to do this. It is automatic.
2. Unconditioned Response (UCR)
The unconditioned response is the automatic response that happens when the unconditioned stimulus is presented. It is reflexive, which means it is automatic and you cannot control it. It is involuntary, which means you do not choose to do it. Your body just does it naturally. In Pavlov's experiment, the unconditioned response was the salivation. When the dogs smelled or ate the meat powder, they drooled. This was automatic. They could not stop themselves from drooling. In the example of the ball coming at your face, the unconditioned response is blinking. When the ball comes toward your face, you blink. You do not think about it. Your body does it automatically. If you touch a hot stove, the unconditioned response is to pull your hand away quickly. You do not think about it. Your hand pulls away automatically because it is hot.
3. Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
The conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that is neutral at the beginning. Neutral means it does not cause any special response. At first, the conditioned stimulus does not produce the unconditioned response. But through repeated association with the unconditioned stimulus, it becomes connected. In Pavlov's experiment, the conditioned stimulus was the bell. At the beginning, the bell meant nothing to the dogs. Hearing a bell did not make them drool. But through repeated pairing with the meat powder, the bell became connected to the food. Think about yourself again. Imagine you have a cat. At the beginning, when you pick up a bottle of cat food, your cat does not respond. But after many times of picking up the bottle and then feeding the cat, your cat learns the connection. Now when you pick up the bottle, your cat comes running. The sight of the bottle has become a conditioned stimulus. Another example is the sound of your refrigerator opening. At first, this sound did not mean anything special. But after hearing it many times followed by people eating or getting drinks, the sound becomes connected to food. Now when you hear your refrigerator door open, you might think about food.
4. Conditioned Response (CR)
The conditioned response is the learned response that happens because of the conditioned stimulus. It is similar to the unconditioned response, but it is learned, not automatic. In Pavlov's experiment, the conditioned response was the salivation that happened when the dogs heard the bell. The dogs learned to drool at the sound of the bell. This is the same as the unconditioned response (drooling at food), but it was learned through association. In the cat food bottle example, the conditioned response is the cat running to you when you pick up the bottle. The cat has learned this response. In the refrigerator example, the conditioned response might be you feeling hungry or thinking about food when you hear the door open.
💡To make it easy:
Before Conditioning:
- Meat powder (UCS) causes salivation (UCR)
- Bell (neutral stimulus) causes no response
During Conditioning (meat powder + bell):
- Bell rings
- Then meat powder appears
- Dogs salivate
- Repeated many times
After Conditioning:
- Bell rings (now CS) causes salivation (now CR)
- The connection is learned
The important difference is this. The unconditioned response happens automatically without learning. The conditioned response happens because of learning. Both responses are similar, but one is natural and one is learned.
Key Processes in Classical Conditioning
Pavlov distinguished several key processes that are involved in classical conditioning. These are known as:
1. Acquisition
2. Extinction
3. Spontaneous recovery
4. Stimulus generalisation
5. Stimulus discrimination
2. Extinction
3. Spontaneous recovery
4. Stimulus generalisation
5. Stimulus discrimination
1. Acquisition
Acquisition is the overall process during which learning happens. It is when the organism learns to associate two events together. The word acquire means to get or to learn. In Pavlov's experiment, acquisition is the entire process where the dogs learned to connect the bell with the food. Every time the bell rang followed by food, the connection became a little stronger. Think about learning to ride a bike. Acquisition is the entire process of learning. You start as a beginner. Every time you practice, you get a little better. After many practice sessions, you have learned to ride. This is acquisition.
Another example is a student learning to read. At the beginning, when the student sees the letter A, they do not know what it is. But the teacher shows them many times that the letter A makes the "ah" sound. After seeing this repeated many times, the student learns the connection. This learning process is acquisition. Acquisition takes time. The more times the two stimuli are paired together, the stronger the connection becomes. If you hear a song only one time, you might not remember it. But if you hear it many times, you learn it very well. The more repetition, the faster the acquisition.
2. Extinction
Extinction is the gradual decrease in the strength of a conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented. The word extinction means to end or to die out. Let us use Pavlov's experiment again. After the dogs learned to drool at the sound of the bell, Pavlov stopped giving them meat powder. He just rang the bell with no food following. What happened? The dogs' drooling response got weaker and weaker. Eventually, the dogs no longer drooled when they heard the bell alone. The conditioned response had been extinguished. Think about a traffic light. When you were young, you learned that red means stop. But imagine if red lights stopped being used. Every time you saw red, nothing stopped you. After a while, you would stop responding to red. The response would be extinguished.
Another example is when a student is afraid of the dentist. The student learned to fear the dentist because the dentist caused pain (unconditioned stimulus) many times. But now the student has a new dentist who is very kind and never causes pain. After visiting the kind dentist many times with no pain, the fear response becomes weaker. Eventually, the fear might disappear completely. This is extinction. Extinction is important because it shows us that learned responses can be unlearned. If you have a bad habit, you can extinguish it by breaking the association that created it.
3. Spontaneous Recovery
Spontaneous recovery is when a conditioned response reappears after extinction, following a rest period. The word spontaneous means it happens on its own, without being caused intentionally. Recovery means coming back. This is interesting. Let us say Pavlov's dogs had learned to drool at the bell sound. Then the bell rang many times with no food, and the drooling response was extinguished. The dogs no longer drooled at the bell. But then Pavlov waited a few days and did not ring the bell at all. After this rest period, when he rang the bell again, the dogs started drooling again! Not as strongly as before, but the response came back.
Why does this happen? Scientists believe that the original learning is still stored in the brain. Even though the response was extinguished, it was not completely erased. After a rest period, the response can spontaneously come back. Think about a student who was scared of math. The student studied with a kind teacher and no longer felt scared. The fear was extinguished. But then the student takes a break from math for the summer. When school starts again, the student feels a little bit of the old fear coming back. This is spontaneous recovery. This is important to know because it means that just because a response is extinguished does not mean it will never come back. Sometimes after rest, old responses can reappear.
4. Stimulus Generalisation
Stimulus generalisation is the tendency for another stimulus to produce a response that is similar to the conditioned response. Generalisation means applying something broadly or to many situations. In stimulus generalisation, if you have learned to respond to one stimulus in a certain way, you might respond the same way to similar stimuli. Let us use Pavlov's experiment. If the dogs learned to drool at a bell with a certain sound, they might also drool at other bell sounds that are similar. A slightly higher bell sound or a slightly lower bell sound might produce the same drooling response. Think about Little Albert from the Watson experiment we learned about earlier. Albert learned to fear a white rat. But then he also showed fear when he saw other white, fluffy things like cotton and a fur coat. The fear generalised to similar stimuli.
Here is another example from real life. A child learns to fear dogs after being bitten by a big dog. The big dog is the original stimulus. But the child might also feel afraid of other dogs, even small ones that are different from the one that bit them. The fear has generalised to other dogs. Another example is flavors. If you get sick after eating a particular food, you might feel sick just by looking at a similar-looking food. The nausea response generalises to foods that look similar. The greater the similarity between the new stimulus and the original stimulus, the greater the possibility that generalisation will occur. A very similar bell sound will produce a much stronger generalised response than a very different sound. Stimulus generalisation can be helpful or harmful. When it is helpful, it allows us to apply what we have learned to new situations. But when it is harmful, it causes us to respond the same way to things that might actually be different.
5. Stimulus Discrimination
Stimulus discrimination is when a person or animal responds to one specific stimulus but not to similar stimuli. Discrimination means telling the difference between things. This is almost the opposite of stimulus generalisation. In discrimination, instead of responding the same way to similar things, you learn to respond differently to different things. In Pavlov's experiment, if Pavlov wanted to teach the dogs discrimination, he could ring many different bells. But he would only give them food when a specific bell rang. The other bells would not be followed by food. Over time, the dogs would learn to discriminate. They would only drool at the specific bell that meant food was coming. They would not drool at the other bells.
Think about a traffic light again. You learn to discriminate between different colors. Red means stop. Green means go. Yellow means be careful. Even though these are all lights that look similar, you have learned to respond differently to each color. Here is another example. A baby learns to recognise their mother's voice. The baby hears many voices, but they learn to respond specially to their mother's voice. The baby has discriminated between their mother's voice and other voices. In school, a student learns to discriminate between similar concepts. For example, addition and subtraction look similar because they both use numbers, but the student learns to respond differently to each one. When the teacher says "add," the student knows to do addition. When the teacher says "subtract," the student knows to do subtraction.
Classical Conditioning Quiz: click here
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