Ivan Pavlov - Classical Conditioning PDF

Ivan Pavlov Classical Conditioning “I am convinced that an important stage of human thought will have been reached when the physiological and the psycholo...

Ivan Pavlov Classical Conditioning “I am convinced that an important stage of human thought will have been reached when the physiological and the psychological, the objective and the subjective, are actually united, when the tormenting conflicts or contradictions between my consciousness and my body will have been factually resolved or discarded.” - Ivan Pavlov Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born on September 14, 1849 at Ryazan, where his father, Peter Dmitrievich Pavlov, was a village priest. Inspired by the progressive ideas of D. I. Pisarev and studied at the church school in Ryazan. Pavlov abandoned his religious career and decided to devote his life to science. Pavlov became passionately absorbed with physiology, which in fact was to remain of such fundamental importance to him throughout his life. Pavlov studied and practice medicine from 1870 onwards. It was thorough his study of medicine (physiology) that he came upon his theory of conditioning. In the early 20th century, Pavlov focused his studies on the secretory activity of digestion. By observing irregularities of secretions in normal unanesthetized animals, Pavlov was led to formulate the laws of the conditioned reflex. He used the salivary secretion as a quantitative measure of the psychical, or subjective, activity of the animal, in order to emphasize the advantage of objective, physiological measures of mental phenomena and higher nervous activity. AKA he watched how much the doggos drooled to understand more about their reflexes. This reflex is ‘hard wired’ into the dog. In behaviorist terms, it is an unconditioned response (i.e. a stimulus-response connection that required no learning). In behaviorist terms: Unconditioned Stimulus (Food) > Unconditioned Response (Salivate) However, when Pavlov discovered that any object or event which the dogs learnt to associate with food (such as the lab assistant) would trigger the same response, he realized that he had made an important scientific discovery. Accordingly, he devoted the rest of his career to studying this type of learning. Pavlov knew that somehow, the dogs in his lab had learned to associate food with his lab assistant. This must have been learned, because at one point the dogs did not do it, and there came a point where they started, so their behaviour had changed. A change in behaviour of this type must be the result of learning. So, in a series of experiments, he set out to provoke a conditioned response to a previously neutral stimulus. He opted to use food as the unconditioned stimulus, or the stimulus that evokes a response naturally and automatically (the unconditioned response/reflex). The sound of a metronome was chosen to be the neutral stimulus. The dogs would first be exposed to the sound of the  ticking metronome, and then the food was immediately presented. After several conditioning trials, Pavlov noted that the dogs began to salivate after hearing the metronome, creating a conditioned stimulus and conditioned response/reflex. "A stimulus which was neutral in and of itself had been superimposed upon the action of the inborn alimentary reflex," Pavlov wrote of the results. "We observed that, after several repetitions of the combined stimulation, the sounds of the metronome had acquired the property of stimulating salivary secretion." In other words, the previously neutral stimulus (the metronome) had become what is known as a conditioned stimulus that then provoked a conditioned response (salivation). 1) In your own words explain the following key terms: neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, uncondition response/reflect, condition stimulus, and conditioned response. Neutral Stimulus: Something that does not create or result in a response. However, it can be trained to become a conditioned stimulus. Example: A cake drawing on birthday card on the table (does not affect behaviour) Unconditioned Stimulus: Something that creates or results in a response naturally or automatically without conditioning Example: Smelling a favourtie food and known hunger Unconditioned Response/Reflect: An automatic response to a stimulus that does not require conditioning Example: Mouth Watering with food Conditioned Stimulus: A stimulus in which could be learned to trigger a response. Example: Ice cream truck music Conditioned Response/Reflex: A response to a stimulus that could be learned. Example: Asking for money for ice cream 2) How does Skinner’s form of operant conditioning, using reinforcers/punishers to condition a response, differ from Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning? Both focus on the cause and consequence of an action. However, they differ in how a scenario would be perceived. With Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, he primarily looks at how the responses from the environment (operants) are caused by an action after the behaviour. Punishers, reinforcers, and neutral operants can not be explored until a response is given as the result of the behaviour. On the other hand, Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning would investigate how factors before the behaviour would impact that decision or action. An example is the usage of conditioned stimuluses in which were learned to trigger a response. To summarize, Skinner would look at the influences that take place after the behaviour. However, Pavlov would look at the influences before.