Learning is defined as a relatively
permanent behavior change due to
experience
 Learning should not be temporary, it
should have staying power
 We know that learning has occurred
when the behavior has changed
 Learning does not occur in a vacuum. It
results, either directly or indirectly from
experience
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Associative learning: learning that
certain events occur together. The
events could be 2 stimuli as in classical
conditioning, or a response and its
consequence as in operant
conditioning.
 We learn by association. We learn to
connect smells to taste, or sounds to
outcomes(think music in a scary movie)
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Associations feed our habits. We associate certain
behaviors with certain contexts (popcorn with the
movies). This feeds into habitual behaviors like
addictions as well. It can make it very difficult, for
example, to quit smoking. Smoking is associated with
certain places or activities for the smoker. The places
or activities then become settings that make it harder
to quit. (Siegel, 2005)
S. Siegel found that environmental cues can elicit
withdrawal symptoms and relapse to drug use. The
contribution of drug associated stimuli is connected
to Pavlovian conditioning. According to the analysis,
addiction treatment should incorporate learning
principles to extinguish the association between the
stimuli present and the effects of the addictive drug.
Animals also exhibit associative learning.
 Animals learn that certain events precede
other events or outcomes, they will adapt
to increase positive outcomes or decrease
negative outcomes
 The issue of learning in animals has become
significant when dealing with animals raised
in captivity but released into the wild.
Successful adaptation requires
nature(genetic predispositions) and
nurture(appropriate learning)
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Conditioning is the process of learning
associations.
 In classical conditioning, we learn to
associate two stimuli and therefore to
anticipate/predict events
 In operant conditioning, we learn to
associate a response (our behavior) and
its consequence
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Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist
studying digestion, when he accidentally
discovered classical conditioning
 The work of Pavlov laid the foundation
for the school of thought known as
behaviorism. Behaviorism was founded
by John Watson
 Behaviorism believes that psychology
should be an objective science based
on observable behavior.
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Pavlov noticed that dogs salivated when
they tasted food, but also when they
smelled food and often when they saw
the food dish. He was studying the
digestive system when he made his
observations. Although at first he was
annoyed by this issue, he came to the
realization that the dogs were learning
and that he could experiment with this
phenomenon.
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The experiments involved placing dogs in
neutral settings with no outside stimuli. Food
and later meat powder would be presented to
the dogs. Later in the experiment, the
food/powder would be presented with a
neutral event, something that the dog would
not associate with food. The experiment was
investigating whether or not the dogs would
learn to associate the neutral event with food
and would salivate for the neutral event in
anticipation of the food.
The answer was yes.
A tone would be sounded prior to giving
the dogs food. After pairing the tone and
the food several times, the dogs would
salivate at the tone alone.
 This concept has been studied in humans.
Gottfried (2003), showed Londoners
abstract pictures coupled with the scents
of peanut butter or vanilla, their brains soon
responded in anticipation at the sight of the
abstract figures alone.
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Before conditioning
US: unconditioned stimulus :food
UR: unconditioned response: salivation
NS: neutral stimulus: tone
During conditioning
NS +US= UR
Tone + food= salivation
After conditioning
CS: conditioned stimulus: tone
CR: conditioned response: salivation
CS = CR
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Acquisition: the initial learning process,
when a neutral stimulus is linked to the
unconditioned stimulus so that the
neutral stimulus starts triggering the
conditioned response
Timing is important in classical
conditioning. Studies have shown that
the CS must precede the US by about ½
to 1 second in order to bring about the
CR. There are other types of timing in
classical conditioning.
 Delayed conditioning: the CS precedes
the US, but they overlap just a little. This is
the best for conditioning, especially if the
time delay between CS and US is short.
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Trace conditioning: the CS precedes the US
and they do not overlap. The longer the
time delay between the CS and the US, the
more difficult conditioning is.
 Simultaneous conditioning: the CS occurs at
the same time as the US. This does not work
well and results in poor conditioning. The CS
does not predict the US.
 Backward conditioning: the CS follows the
US. Little or no conditioning takes place,
unless response is biologically predisposed
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Higher order conditioning: a new neutral
stimulus can become a new conditioned
stimulus. This occurs when a new neutral
stimulus is paired with a conditioned
stimulus to create a pairing of the stimuli.
This creates a new CS with a usually
weaker connection. This is also called
second order conditioning.
Extinction: the diminishing of a conditioned
response (occurs in both classical
conditioning and operant conditioning)
 Pavlov discovered that after sounding the
tone repeatedly without providing food ,
the dogs responded less (less and less
salivation).
 This represents extinction. The CR diminishes
because the CS no longer indicates US is
about to occur.
 In classical conditioning , extinction occurs
when the US is no longer paired with the CS.
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Spontaneous recovery: the
reappearance, after a pause, of a
previously extinguished CR
 Spontaneous recovery can only occur
after extinction. The unconditioned
stimulus does not need to be
reintroduced. The recovered response
will be weakened.
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Generalization: the tendency, once a response
has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the
conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses
Generalization is automatic.
An example of generalization would be that a
dog might salivate to a different tone.
Generalization can be adaptive, as in children
taught to fear moving cars and adapt that
fear to moving trucks or other vehicles
A study from 1986 (Rozin, et al) showed that
desirable foods are unappealing when shaped
like an unappealing object. For example,
fudge made to look like dog feces.
Discrimination: the learned ability to
distinguish between a conditioned
stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an
unconditional stimulus
 With large amounts of training
(overtraining) Pavlov’s dogs learned to
discriminate between tones. The dogs
would respond to the tone that they had
been trained with but not to other tones.
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How do cognitive processes and biological
constraints affect classical conditioning?
In a 1972 study by Robert Rescola and Allan
Wagner showed that animals can learn the
predictability of an event. Rats were given a
shock preceded by a tone. The tone always
preceded the shock. Sometimes a light was
used in tandem with the tone. The rats reacted
with fear at the tone but not at the light. The
light is always followed by a shock but the light
does not always occur. The tone is always
connected to the shock. So, in the minds of the
rats the tone is a better predictor.
The more predictable the association the
stronger the conditioned response.
 To learn the predictability is a cognitive
process, requiring thought to occur.
 Martin Seligman (1975, 1991)performed
experiments with dogs that showed the
concept of learned helplessness.
 Learned helplessness: the hopelessness and
passive resignation an animal or human
learns when unable to avoid repeated
aversive circumstances/events.
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In the experiment, dogs were strapped in to
a harness and shocked(stage 1). Because
the dogs were given no means to escape
the aversive event, most of them learned a
sense of helplessness. When later shocked
while not harnessed (with an available
means of escape)(stage 2) the dogs would
cower in fear and helplessness.
 Dogs that were given a means of escape in
stage 1, would escape the shocks in stage
2.
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The dogs that had been given a means of escape, had learned
personal control.
 Learned helplessness in humans has been linked to depression.
New therapies have been created to help people who suffer
from learned helplessness to overcome this issue, to unlearn
helplessness.
 Some dogs never gave up trying to escape, Seligman and Meier
watched as these dogs attempted escape over and over. They
became curious about these dogs and expanded the research.
Seligman(1991)studied learned optimism, which was the term
coined to describe the attitude of the dogs who tried to escape
even when there was no hope.
 This has led to more research on how to help people be more
optimistic and less helpless. Together the topics of learned
helplessness and learned optimism have led to advances in the
fields of depression, death, happiness, optimism, grief and
education.
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For many years scientists believed that you
could condition all the same, whether people,
pigs or pigeons. They also believed that any
natural response could be conditioned or
connected to any stimulus.
How has this changed? Why have these beliefs
changed?
An animal’s capacity to be conditioned does
seem to be constrained by its biology. The
predispositions of each species impacts the
learning associations. They are prepared to
learn associations based on the connection to
survival.
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John Garcia and Robert Koelling(1966),
noticed that rats in a radiation
experiment were avoiding water in
plastic bottles located in the radiation
chambers. They wondered of the rats
had been classical conditioned to avoid
the water. Could the rats have linked the
water (CS) to the sickness (UR)caused by
the radiation (US)?
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The researchers decided to test their hypothesis. They
gave the rats a particular taste, sound or sight (CS)
followed by radiation (US) that led to sickness
(nausea or vomiting). The rats then began to avoid
those flavors but not the sights or sounds. These
aversions to foods that cause illness could occur
even if the US and the CS were separated by hours.
These aversions also only connected to taste not the
other stimuli. This indicated to the researchers that
not everything could be conditioned.
Rats detect tainted, dangerous food through taste
and with food illnesses timing is altered. So the
researchers concluded that these contradictions
were adaptive, to promote survival of the rats.
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What has come of Pavlov’s research?
Classical conditioning is seen as a basic form of
learning
Although his ideas were incomplete, his
research has pushed us to new ideas,
treatments and further research
Why is his work important?
1) many other responses to many other stimuli
can be classically conditioned in many other
organisms
2) the process of learning can be studied
objectively
Foundations of behaviorism
 Treatment of phobias
 Treatment of drug addiction (Siegel,
2005)
 Treatment of depression
 Motivation studies
 Health related issues (Ader & Cohen,
1985)
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