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Aim: To investigate and determine whether or not Classical Conditioning is applicable to humans by performing an experiment similar to Pavlov’s.
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Hypothesis: Human salivation level will increase as participants are conditioned
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Null Hypothesis (H0): Salivation level remains unaltered before and after conditioning
METHOD:
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Design: The experiment has repeated measures and within subject design. There were five groups of students, all from separate classes. Each of the five groups were all treated equally and under the same conditions. The rate of salivation of each member in the groups was compared before and after conditioning.
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Participants: The participants of each of the five groups in this experiment are all students from S:t Eskils Gymnasium. There were 19 students from SP1A, 19 from SP1B, 18 from IBP1A, 13 from IB1 Economy and 6 students from IB1 Psychology, which adds up a total amount of 75 participants. The participants were all from ages 16-18 with an almost equal number of males and females. There was only one group that had any true knowledge about the experiment and those were the six IB1 students that study Psychology.
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Materials: Material used were sweets with cola flavor handed to each participant; these sweets were sour tasting mostly due to their sugar coating. The sweets were about 4 cm long. Secondly we have the form that was handed out to each participant. The form contained instructions asking the participants to estimate their rate of salivation, they were allowed to choose one of the following options; “None”, “Little”, “Normal”, “Slightly more than usual”, “Much more than usual” and “extreme amounts”.
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Procedure: First of all it is crucial to mention that all of the groups were treated equally and under the same conditions. We entered each class and started by giving a brief introduction of who we were. We told the students that we studied Psychology at the International Baccalaureate programme and that we wish to perform a small psychological experiment. We asked for their consent and told them the experiment was voluntary, anonymous and completely harmless. The five groups were later informed of the purpose and result of the experiment. The following instructions were given:
“ We will now hand out a form consisting of two parts, ignore the second part for now. Estimate your level of salivation below choosing only one of the options below. -There was now a brief pause allowing the participants to fill in the form-. Ignore the form for now and put it away, you will now be given a sweet that you should not eat now. Each time you hear the term “cellar door” lick your piece of candy, we will repeat this term several times.”
One of us kept on repeating, “cellar door” ten times with a slight pause in between. This person said the term for all of the five groups tested. After ten repetitions the participants were allowed to eat the sweet. We left the students for fifteen minutes and when we came back the participants were asked to take out their forms again and to look at us and listen. The term “cellar door” was then repeated and the participants were asked to estimate their salivation rate and fill in the second part of the form consisting of the same options as the previous part.
RESULTS:
Distribution of the Differences in Rate of Salivation Before and After Conditioning
Table 1 located below, the experimental data is being presented by Binominal Measurement.
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the data from Table 1 as bar charts.
Table 1: Rate of Salivation in Participants Before and After Conditioning
Figure 1: Salivation Level in Participants Before Conditioning
Figure 2: Salivation Level in Participants After Conditioning
Analysis: We used the Binominal Sign Test in order to calculate if there is a significant difference in the results that we obtained from the experiment. The reason we chose this test is due to the nature of our experiment, the relevant data is nominal and the procedure is within subject design. We randomly chose SP1A to perform the Binominal Sign Test on, the data required to perform these calculations is collected in Table 2 below. In columns A and B the numbers are based on the six-grade scale used in the form, 1= “None” 2=”Little”, 3=”Normal”, 4=”Slightly more than usual” a.s.o.
Table 2: Data Required in Order to Determine the Difference Between Rate of Salivation Before and After Conditioning
Figure 3: Calculation Showing the Significance of the Results Gained in the Experiment
The frequency of each sign is:
+ = 7
– = 3
The lesser occurring sign is –, why the number 3 = s
N is calculated to (19 – 9 =) 10, because there are 9 participants that have a difference of 0.
N is compared with s according to the critical level set, these figures can be found in Appendix 2, Table 3.
The table shows that there is no relevant significance of this experiment as p>0.1.
DISCUSSION:
After having performed the Binominal Sign Test, calculating the level of significance of our results we were given that p>0.1, meaning the significance of the results do not acknowledge our hypothesis. From this we can state that humans cannot be conditioned in the same way as dogs.
Evaulating the Method: Our hypothesis proved to be incorrect this time therefore there must be quite a few confounding variables that more or less affected our results.
- Language Barriers:
Our research on Classical Conditioning is an internal assessment in the IB, therefore it is required of us to write the report in English. Originally the experiment was aimed towards English speaking IB classes (IBP1A, IB1) and not any other classes speaking Swedish (SP1A-B). Therefore the form handed out to participants was in English. As we ran out of options we decided to perform the experiment on Swedish classes too. We then realised the form had to be translated in order to suit the participants from the SP classes and overcome a language barrier. The translated form had exactly the same questions as the original one but the participants could still have misinterpreted the question and the options (however this is very unlikely judging from our results). In order to further improve this if the experiment is to be performed again, we could write more easily interpreted answers as well as only having the test performed on those comfortable with speaking English.
- Selection of Sweets:
Looking back at our results it is clear that many people had higher rates of salivation before the conditioning compared to after. This could be due to the selection of sweets. It is extremely difficult to find sweets that everyone like. Perhaps using a different type of sweet might drastically change our results for the better, also we could have tested each group with different types of sweets for comparison purposes.
- Respect Shown to Us:
Another very important confounding variable is the respect shown to us by the participants, this perhaps had the most negative influence on our results. In particular the IB1 Economy class (our mates) showed least respect to us. They talked loudly with eachother, there was also
a very low level of concentration in that class since the teacher was away at that particular moment. This could have lessened the rate of saliva they were producing since they did not pay attention to the researcher saying “cellar-door” and perhaps as mentioned above a feeling of disgust for the sweet. In order to further improve this we could make sure the teacher will be in class making sure the students are focused, also choosing people we do not know which could also possibly be younger could improve our results. The difference in age could result in a more respectful treatment of us.
CONCLUSION:
- In conclusion we could say that the hypothesis should be rejected as the p value is greater than 0.1.
- The salivation rate on humans does not increase after conditioning
- Results reveal that humans cannot be conditioned by the same means as dogs.
