Ivan Pavlov and the Theory of Classical Conditioning

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Ivan Pavlov and the Theory of Classical Conditioning

Historiography PSY496

Robert Shannon

7/24/2012

       Learning by way of classical conditioning was introduced by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), a Russian physiologist, in 1903, and by John B. Watson (1878-1958), who studied the effects of classical conditioning in infants. Although a number of forms of learning exist, the most fundamental type of learning is associative learning. Associative learning is achieved by creating a new association that connects events in one’s environment. Associative learning comes in two forms: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. The general idea of Pavlov’s experiments was the presentation of food as a stimulus to the dog. Once this had been accomplished, Pavlov began to pair meat powder with a variety of stimuli like ringing a bell; therefore, Pavlov had established how stimulus-response bonds, that some consider the essential foundation of learning, were formed. John B. Watson extended the work of Pavlov and applied his work to human beings (Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2010). The focus of this paper will be on the type of learning introduced by Pavlov by way of his experiments with dogs and classical conditioning.

       According to A Dictionary of Psychology (2010), classical conditioning is defined as “One of the two major forms of , being the process of through which an initially neutral , such as the ticking of a metronome, comes to elicit a particular , such as salivation, as a consequence of being paired repeatedly with an , such as food” (para. 1). Classical conditioning is a spontaneous or reflexive kind of learning that requires a stimulus that obtains the capability to induce a response that was initially evoked by a different stimulus. Classical conditioning then couples that neutral stimulus with the stimulus that evokes a desired reflex, and the stimulus that brings forth the desired reflex is presented even when the reflex does not occur. Ultimately, the goal of the classical conditioning process is to evoke the desired reflex by way of the neutral stimulus (Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2010). In other words, an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) like Pavlov’s meat powder and the unconditioned response (UCR), like the dogs salivation, is paired with the bell, the conditioned stimulus (CS), which ultimately produces the desired conditioned response after repetitive pairings, and eventually without the need of the (UCS). This scenario is classic classical conditioning; however, this type of learning can be applied to any scenario in which behavioral modification through learning is desired.

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       The owner of a small farm in Georgia had a dog and a hen house filled with chickens. His family loved their dog; however, they depended upon their chickens for meat and eggs. On a number of occasions, the family dog had found a way to enter the chicken coop at night while the farmer and his family slept. The dog had come to like eating the chickens that provided the family with the meat and eggs on which they depended. Although the farmer had taken all the necessary steps to fortify the hen house, the dog ...

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