Once an animal has been inadvertently conditioned to produce a response to a stimulus, can this association ever be broken? 'Unconditioning' through experimental extinction Let us look now at some of the nuances of Pavlov's findings in relation to classical conditioning. In Depth Craik & Lockhart (1972) Levels of Processing Theory repeated rehearsal) of a piece of information can lead to an increased likelihood that it will enter a person's long-term memory and the response that can be recalled at a later date 3. Similarly, Craik and Lockhart's Levels of Processing (1972) theory on memory suggests that the deep processing (e.g. Like Pavlov's dogs, classical conditioning was leading you to associate a neutral stimulus (the pin approaching a balloon) with bursting of the balloon, leading to a conditioned response (flinching, wincing or plugging one's ears) to this now conditioned stimulus. After this had happened multiple times, you would associate holding the pin to the balloon with the 'bang' that followed. The implications for Pavlov's findings are significant as they can be applied to many animals, including humans.įor example, when you first saw someone holding a balloon and a pin close to it, you may have watched in anticipation as they burst the balloon. receiving food)ĬONDITIONED STIMULUS (CS, eg. The dogs would demonstrate a similar association between these events and the food that followed. These included precise tones produced by a buzzer, the ticking of a metronome and electric shocks. Pavlov continued his research and tested a variety of other neutral stimuli which would otherwise be unlinked to the receipt of food.

This association could be created through repeating the neutral stimulus along with the unconditioned stimulus, which would become a conditioned stimulus, leading to a conditioned response: salivation. A neutral event, such as opening a door (a neutral stimulus, NS) could be associated with another event that followed - in this case, being fed (known as the unconditioned stimulus, UCS). This response demonstrated the basic principle of classical conditioning. He found that the dogs would begin to salivate when a door was opened for the researcher to feed them. These measurements would then be recorded onto a revolving drum so that Pavlov could monitor salivation rates throughout the experiments. Pavlov's dogs were each placed in an isolated environment and restrained in a harness, with a food bowl in front of them and a device was used to measure the rate at which their saliva glands made secretions. By playing sounds to the dogs prior to feeding them, Pavlov showed that they could be conditioned to unconsciously associate neutral, unrelated events with being fed 2. However, the dogs also began to salivate when events occurred which would otherwise be unrelated to feeding. 1 However, the two were unaware of each other's research in this case of simultaneous discovery, and Pavlov received credit for the findings. discovered classical conditioning at approximately the same time as Pavlov was conducting his research ( Coon, 1982). Psychologist Edwin Twitmyer at the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S.

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