Psychology
• Definition - scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
• Different than psychiatry - psychiatry is the study, diagnosis, and treatment of medical
disorders.
Learning
• Definition - a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience.
I.Examples - walking, using utensils, riding a bike, driving a car, getting what you want
from your parents.
A.Many ways to learn:
1.Driving
2.Getting what you want - crying baby
• Fear of the Dentist:
I.How do people learn to fear the dentist?
A.may associate the dentist with pain
B.may get sympathy from parents
C.may have watched how others reacted in fear
II.These examples demonstrate the three basic forms of learning:
A.Classical conditioning
B.Operant conditioning
C.Modeling
Classical Conditioning
Discovered accidentally:
Ivan Pavlov - Russian physiologist - early 1900’s.
A. Studying the digestive process of dogs. He wanted to see how their
stomach prepared to digest the food.
B. We already knew that eating food causes saliva to secrete in the mouth.
This is the initial breakdown of food.
C. He noticed that just the sight or smell of food caused the dogs to salivate.
Pavlov’s Experiment
A. Pavlov rang a tuning fork, and then placed meat powder on the dog’s
tongue, which caused salivation.
1. Why did he use a tuning fork? It is a neutral stimulus - does not
initially cause a response.
B. After awhile, the dogs began salivating after hearing the tuning fork without
the meat powder.
C. This is classical conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Before Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
No Response
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
During Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
After Conditioning:
Conditioned Stimulus
Conditioned Response
Classical Conditioning
Names of different aspects:
Neutral Stimulus (NS) - a stimulus that does not elicit a response.
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) - an event that elicits a certain predictable
response without previous training.
Unconditioned Response (UCR) – an organism’s natural reaction to a
stimulus.
Conditioned Stimulus (CS) – a once neutral event that has come to elicit a
given response after a period of training in which it has been paired with an
unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned Response (CR) – the learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus.
Classical Conditioning
Before Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
No Response
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
During Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
After Conditioning:
Conditioned Stimulus
Conditioned Response
Classical Conditioning
Before Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
No Response
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
During Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
After Conditioning:
Conditioned Stimulus
Conditioned Response
Classical Conditioning
Generalization - the tendency for a conditioned response to be brought about by
stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus.
Extinction – the gradual disappearance of a conditioned response because the
conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.
Pavlov example - What would happen if he kept ringing the tuning fork without
feeding the dogs?
Spontaneous Recovery – if a long time period takes place without either stimuli,
when the neutral stimulus is introduced, the conditioned response will often occur.
Classical Conditioning
Before Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
No Response
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
During Conditioning:
Neutral Stimulus
Unconditioned Stimulus
Unconditioned Response
After Conditioning:
Conditioned Stimulus
Conditioned Response