Classical Conditioning
- Classical Conditioning (CC) (learning via association) is one of the core assumptions of the behaviourist approach
- CC occurs when a neutral stimulus is substituted for the original unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response
- An unconditioned stimulus is one which produces a natural, unforced response i.e. no animal or human has to learn how to feel hunger
- The mechanisms of CC were stumbled upon accidentally (known as a 'serendipitous' discovery) by Pavlov, a physiologist who was measuring the volume of specific enzymes in dog saliva
- Pavlov had been working with dogs in his lab: the dogs were attached to apparatus which held them in place and collected their saliva
- Pavlov noticed that the dogs began to salivate before they saw or smelt their food - in fact they began to salivate when they heard the footsteps of the lab assistants approaching (the dogs had learned that these footsteps = food!)
- Pavlov was astounded by this discovery: the dogs should only salivate when presented with the unconditioned stimulus - food - rather than a neutral stimulus (footsteps)
- In order to test what he had just stumbled upon he set up the following procedure:
- The dog is given food as usual (unconditioned stimulus)
- The dog salivates when it sees and smells the food (unconditioned response)
- A bell is sounded (neutral stimulus) every time the dog is given food (unconditioned stimulus)
- A bell is sounded every time the food is presented (the pairing of neutral and unconditioned stimuli)
- After repeated pairings of the dog salivates when it hears the bell
- The bell has become the conditioned stimulus
- The dog salivating to the sound of the bell has become the conditioned response
- The dog would continue to salivate to the bell however when Pavlov stopped pairing the bell and the food he found that the conditioned response decreased and gradually disappeared (known as 'extinction')
Pavlov's Dogs - now that rings a bell...