Application of Classical Conditioning
The application of classical conditioning involves using the principles of association between stimuli to modify behavior. This can be seen in various therapeutic techniques, such as systematic desensitization for treating phobias, and in advertising and marketing to create positive associations with products. Classical conditioning has also been applied in animal training, particularly in the field of behaviorism.
8 Key excerpts on "Application of Classical Conditioning"
eBook - ePubLearning and Memory
Basic Principles, Processes, and Procedures, Fifth Edition
- W. Scott Terry(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...What factors contributed to this renewed dominance of Pavlovian conditioning? Some researchers view conditioning from an ecological or evolutionary perspective and consider its role in ensuring survival (Hollis, 1997). The application of conditioning to areas such as drug tolerance and immune system regulation has connected conditioning to the field of health psychology. And classical conditioning offers model systems for neuroscientists to study the biology of learning. Possibly foremost among our reasons for studying classical conditioning is to conduct basic research on associative learning. Associative learning refers to the hypothesized connections that are formed between the internal representations of events, such as stimuli and responses. A simple illustration is word associations, for example, the stimulus word TABLE often evokes CHAIR as a response. But when and how are associations formed? Classical conditioning is one tool we can use to study the conditions under which associative learning occurs. The Definition of Classical Conditioning Simply put, classical conditioning can be defined as the presentation of two (or more) events in an experimentally determined temporal relationship. A change in responding to one of those events is measured as an indication of whether an association has been learned between them. The learning that occurs in classical conditioning can be described on several levels: behavioral, as the learning of a new response; cognitive, as the acquisition of knowledge about the relationship between stimuli; or neural, as the pattern of synaptic changes that underlie conditioning. Say we are to perform an experiment in which mild but aversive electric shocks are to be presented randomly in time. Because of our ethical discomfort with shocking animals or college students, let us suppose the participants are all faculty in the Economics Department...
- Edward S. Neukrug(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...J. Maia J. Maia Maia, J. J. Jozefowiez J. Jozefowiez Jozefowiez, J. Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning 163 167 Classical Conditioning Classical (or Pavlovian) conditioning is a process through which animals learn relationships between stimuli present in their environment. It is crucial to adaptive behavior and survival because it allows the prediction of rewarding, harmful, or neutral events (i.e., outcomes) on the basis of others that preceded them (i.e., cues). If the outcome has a biological meaning, the animal will exhibit overt anticipatory responses in the presence of the cue, which can be behavioral, cognitive, or emotional in nature. Classical conditioning can also lead to the development of inappropriate or prejudicial behaviors that are implicated in many psychological disorders, such as drug addictions, anxiety disorders, phobias, and relapse from therapy. Historical Context Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov (1849–1936) pioneered the scientific study of classical conditioning. Initially a physiologist of digestion (for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904), he later reoriented his work toward the study of conditioned reflexes. In his famous experiments on dogs, he paired an initially neutral stimulus (NS; e.g., tone) with an unconditioned stimulus (US; e.g., food). The food has a biological meaning for the dog and therefore produces an unconditioned response (UR; e.g., salivation), whereas the tone does not. After several pairings with the food, the tone becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS), which triggers a conditioned response (CR). That is, the tone becomes a stimulus that predicts the occurrence of the food, as witnessed by the fact that in its presence the animal exhibits anticipatory responses (e.g., salivation). Pavlov was interested in studying the CR as a tool to understand brain functioning...
eBook - ePub- Julian C. Leslie(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 5 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING We saw in Chapter 1 that two major approaches to behavioral science have evolved. One of these developed, from the work of Thorndike on the Law of Effect and of Skinner on reinforcement contingencies, into the study of operant behavior and this was reviewed in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. The other approach derives from the attempts of a number of theorists, early in the twentieth century, to account for behavior in terms of reflex connections between stimuli and responses. Their ideas were given empirical substance by Pavlov's experiments on conditioned reflexes. Classical conditioning, the procedure devised by Pavlov, results in a previously neutral stimulus coming to elicit a change in behavior because of its occurrence in conjunction with another stimulus. Other procedures, more recently devised, also result in stimuli producing behavioral changes because the organism has a history in which those stimuli have been presented in relation to other significant events. Historically, the study of these processes has followed from our understanding of reflexes, which we shall consider first. The study of reflexes provides a strong link between some fundamental aspects of human behavior and that of many other species, because there are a number of behavioral characteristics we share with those species, including habituation whereby we adapt to persistent stimuli and the orienting response whereby we react appropriately to novel events. The main part of this chapter will review Pavlov's discoveries, but also some of the many phenomena that have been identified in recent research. The influence of classical conditioning has been shown to be pervasive and thus extend far beyond the simple reflexes in dogs used so effectively as an experimental paradigm by Pavlov...
- Steven R. Lindsay(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Pavlov viewed the physiological significance of reflexive behavior in terms of psychic balance: “Reflexes are the elemental units in the mechanism of perpetual equilibration” (1927/1960:8). Classical conditioning is the most fundamental manner in which the animal learns about the changing stimulus contingencies in the surrounding environment, adjusting to them through the anticipatory action of various preservative and protective mechanisms. Through classical conditioning, innate reflexes are brought under the predictive control of causally independent (i.e., neutral) stimuli that are related to the unconditioned stimulus-response event by temporal contiguity and spatial orientation. Such learning is normally outside of voluntary control and is largely (but not entirely) independent of response-generated consequences (e.g., rewards and punishment). Classical conditioning appears to have been discovered by chance. Pavlov, a physiologist, was occupied with an investigation of the dog’s salivary response when he noticed that the more experienced dogs that he had been testing began to salivate before the samples of food were presented to them. This anticipation seriously confounded his physiological measurements of salivary flow in the presence of food but led him to make a much more important psychological discovery. He concluded that the alterations in salivary flow that he observed in his dogs were mediated by higher cortical mechanisms. Further, he hypothesized that the dog’s salivary response could be used as an objective measure with which to investigate these higher nervous functions systematically “without any need to resort to fantastic speculations as to the existence of any possible subjective state in the animal which may be conjectured on analogy with ourselves” (1927/1960:16)...
- Amy E. Wenzel(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Tanja Michael Tanja Michael Michael, Tanja Classical Conditioning Classical Conditioning 659 663 Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning in which organisms adjust their responses according to observed temporal relations between environmental stimuli or stimuli that are produced and perceived within the organism. It is also known as Pavlovian conditioning, as Ivan Pavlov is often credited with its discovery. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who studied the digestive system. In the 1920s, he described that his laboratory dogs started salivating not only at the presentation of food (which is to be expected, as saliva helps break down food) but also at stimuli that appeared in temporal proximity to the presentation of food (e.g., a metronome that was switched on shortly before feeding). Because of Pavlov’s famous experiments, the best known form of classical conditioning comprises the pairing of a neutral stimulus, the conditioned stimulus (CS), with a biologically potent stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus (US) that elicits an unconditioned response (UR). After repeated pairings of the CS with the US, the organism exhibits a conditioned response (CR) when confronted with the CS. Thus, according to this terminology, Pavlov’s dogs displayed a CR when salivating to the sound of the metronome. Importantly, as the CR is not a biologically hard-wired response, it is less permanent than the UR and open to extinction. Extinction describes the gradual decline of a behavior when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US. The phenomenon of extinction was also first described by Pavlov, who documented that his dogs gradually stopped salivating at the sound of the metronome when it was no longer presented in the context of feeding...
- Bruce B. Frey(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Michael E. Dawson Michael E. Dawson Dawson, Michael E. Anne M. Schell Anne M. Schell Schell, Anne M. Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning 275 277 Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning is a simple associative learning process first systematically investigated by Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who studied the digestive processes in dogs and who incidentally noticed that dogs salivated not only to the presentation of food but also upon hearing the footsteps of the research assistant bringing the food. In follow-up laboratory studies of conditioning, Pavlov and his associates presented a neutral sound of a beating metronome (the conditioned stimulus [CS]) followed by the presentation of food (the unconditioned stimulus [UCS]), which elicited salivation (the unconditioned response [UCR]). After several CS-UCS pairings, the sound of the metronome began to elicit salivation (the conditioned responses [CR]), which it had never done before. The dog was classically conditioned to salivate to the metronome. Since the time of Pavlov, classical conditioning has been extensively studied in a variety of lower animals as well as in humans. Of particular interest has been conditioning of emotional responses. This entry first looks at how classical conditioning has been studied in humans before discussing the studies of classical conditioning in animals, including research on the brain systems involved in conditioning. Classical Conditioning in Humans Emotions such as fear can be readily classically conditioned in both humans and lower animals. A common classical conditioning procedure with humans involves pairing a neutral CS such as a mild tone with an aversive UCS (e.g., moderately intense electric shock). The CR is usually measured by changes in autonomic responses such as heart rate and skin conductance following the CS. A conditioned emotional response can be established sometimes with only one pairing of the CS with the UCS...
eBook - ePubLearning & Behavior
Eighth Edition
- James E. Mazur(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...As discussed in the next section, many emotional reactions seem to fall into this category. Second, research on classical conditioning has led to several major treatment procedures for behavior disorders. These procedures can be used to strengthen desired “involuntary” responses or to weaken undesired responses. The remainder of this chapter examines the role of classical conditioning in these nonlabora-tory settings. Classical Conditioning and Emotional Responses Everyday emotional responses such as feelings of pleasure, happiness, anxiety, or excitement are frequently triggered by specific stimuli. In many cases, the response-eliciting properties of a stimulus are not inborn but acquired through experience. Suppose you open your mailbox and find a card with the return address of a close friend. This stimulus may immediately evoke a pleasant and complex emotional reaction that you might loosely call affection, warmth, or fondness. Whatever you call the emotional reaction, there is no doubt that this particular stimulus—a person’s handwritten address on an envelope—would not elicit the response from you shortly after your birth, nor would it elicit the response now if you did not know the person who sent you the letter. The envelope is a CS that elicits a pleasant emotional response only because the address has been associated with your friend. Other stimuli can elicit less pleasant emotional reactions. For many college students, examination periods can be a time of high anxiety. This anxiety can be conditioned to stimuli associated with the examination process—the textbooks on one’s desk, a calendar with the date of the exam circled, or the sight of the building where the exam will be held. Classical conditioning can also affect our emotional reactions to other people. In one study using evaluative conditioning, participants were asked to look at photographs of people’s faces, and each photograph was paired with either a pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant odor...
- Nancy Fenton, Jessica Flitter(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Research & Education Association(Publisher)
...Chapter 8 Learning Psychologists define learning as an enduring or relatively permanent change in an organism caused by experience or influences in the environment. Behaviors that are caused by factors such as fatigue, intoxication, or illness are not considered to be the result of learning because they are not long-lasting or permanent. Changes in an organism due to normal growth, aging or genetics are also not the result of learning because they were not caused by experience or environmental influences. Much of the understanding of how learning works is the result of discoveries made by behaviorists. According to early behaviorists, including John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner, psychology should include the investigation of only observable and measurable behaviors. Although the study of learning is typically associated with the perspective of behaviorism, learning is also influenced by biological, cognitive, and social factors. Psychology involves the identification and investigation of a variety of types of learning that include classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, and the impact of cognition and biology on learning. STUDY TIP Be able to identify the stimulus and response relationship between the environment and an organism involved in learning. Any factor in the environment that causes a reaction is known as a stimulus, and any reaction by an organism that is either voluntary or involuntary is called a response. Classical Conditioning Historically, the psychological study of learning began in Ivan Pavlov’s laboratory in Russia in the late nineteenth century. Pavlov was initially studying what he called the salivation reflex or the involuntary behavior of salivating in response to meat powder placed in the mouths of dogs. While conducting research, a problem occurred, because the dogs began to salivate before the meat powder was placed in their mouth in response to the sight or sound of the experimenter...
