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Jonathan Knudsen

Psychology 1010

October 10, 2017

Classical Conditioning: A Type of Learning

Introduction

When a new form of life enters the world, whether it is a human or an animal, it begins a

process that can last a lifetime. This lifelong process is called learning. There are many different

types of learning that an individual can go through. A common type of learning is associated

learning. This learning process occurs when an individual makes an association or connection

between two events. A type of associated learning, known as classical conditioning, focuses

more specifically on making an association between two stimuli. In this paper, the classical

conditioning learning method, along with its discovery and examples, will be discussed in

greater detail.

Literature Review

The classical conditioning learning process was discovered back in the late 19th, early

20th century, by a Russian scientist, Ivan Pavlov. He was performing a scientific test on dogs to

show that sham feeding (feeding where food does not reach the stomach to be digested, due to an

implanted esophageal fistula) still produces gastric secretion just like it would if the food made it

to the stomach. In his experiment, in place of measuring the amount of gastric secretion, Pavlov

and his associates measured salivation. As they performed their experiments, they realized every

time they placed a glass of carbon bisulphide in front of the dog, the dog began to salivate. After

observing this behavior, Pavlov quickly changed his experiment to look further into this
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psychological phenomenon (Clark 2014). His curiosity led him to discovering the learning

process known as classical conditioning.

To understand classical conditioning, it is important to understand the definition.

Classical conditioning is the learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated

with an innately meaningful stimulus and acquires the capacity to elicit a similar response

(King, 2016, p.169).

To understand the experiment which Pavlov conducted, some vocabulary first needs to be

discussed. A stimulus that produces an unlearned response is known as an unconditioned

stimulus, or US. The unlearned response that automatically follows that stimulus is called the

unconditioned response, or UR. A conditioned stimulus, or CS, is a neutral stimulus that creates

a conditional response after it is associated with the unconditional stimulus. The conditional

response, or CR, is the learned response that occurs upon encountering the conditional stimulus

after it is associated with the unconditional stimulus (Domjan, 2005).

Pavlovs experiment involved testing a dogs UR (salivation) to its US (meat powder).

After testing this, Pavlov decided to add in a CS (ringing of a bell). He was testing to see if he

could get a CR (salivation before seeing the food) from the CS. Before giving the dog the meat

powder, Pavlov would ring a bell. Once the dog associated that the ring of the bell came before

the meat powder, Pavlov observed that the dog began salivating after the bell rang, but before the

meat powder was presented.

Pavlov then began trying different methods. Instead of giving the dog the meat powder

right after the bell rang, he gave the dog nothing. He observed that the dog still salivated when

the bell rang, even when no meat was administered directly after. He attributed this observation

to the fact that the dog was accustomed to getting the meat right after the bell.
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This method was performed several times and led to what Pavlov called extinction, or the

weakening/stopping of the CS when the US didnt follow. He waited for a period of time and

tested the CS again. He noticed that after waiting for a time period, the dog began to salivate

again even without the presence of the US. Extinction is not the same as forgetting. Forgetting

refers to the disappearance of any behavior over time. Extinction refers to the disappearance of a

conditioned behavior when the CS no longer predicts the US (McSweeney, 1984, p.626). He

called the return of the CR spontaneous recovery.

Once Pavlov put together his observations from his experiment, he proposed his idea of

classical conditioning. He noted that classical conditioning begins with acquisition. That is the

initial learning of the connection between the US and CS when the two stimuli are paired (King

2016, p.171) In the acquisition stage, there must be contiguity and contingency. Contiguity

means that when the CS is presented, the US promptly follows. Contingency helps the dog

understand that the CS is a dependable indicator that the US (food) is on its way.

After Pavlovs discovery of classical conditioning, others began expanding upon his

experiment. In an experiment performed by Siegel, he discovered that the conditioned response

did not need to resemble the unconditioned response. He performed an experiment on rats where

they presented a specific tone (the CS) to them and then injected the rat with morphine (the US).

The morphine injections increased the animals' tolerance for pain, a tone which preceded

morphine made them less tolerant of pain (McSweeney, 1984, p.620-621). Although the

responses for these two stimuli were different, the rat still acquainted the tone with the injection

of morphine.

This process of learning can explain many types of behaviors. One of these main

behaviors is fear. We might develop fear of the dentist because of a painful experience or a fear
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of driving after having been in a car crash (King, 2016, p.173). People learn many of their fears

by classical conditioning.

Application

After developing a deeper understanding of classical conditioning, I have noticed how

much we use this process of learning in life. I work as a teacher assistant in a classroom with

kids who have behavioral and learning disabilities. In our classroom we allow the kids time to be

on the computers to play learning games. We started out by telling the kids when it was time to

log off at the end of their computer time. Once we told them, the kids would log off and return to

their seats. Later in the year we began using a timer so we as the teachers could keep track of

time so we didnt leave them on the computers for too long. Once the timer rang, we would tell

the kids it was time to log off the computers and head back to their desks.

After several times of prompting them, using both contingency (always telling the kids to

log off the computer after we heard the sound of the timer) and contiguity (mentioning to log off

right after the timer rang), I started noticing that once the kids heard the timer, I did not have to

say anything for them to immediately log off and return to their desks.

In this example we can see that the unconditioned stimuli would be me asking the

students to log off. The unconditioned response was the kids logging off the computer and

heading to their seats. The conditioned stimulus was the sound of the timer. Once the kids

associated the sound of the timer with me telling them it was time to log off, their conditioned

response was to log off the computer and head back to their seats.

Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding how classical conditioning works as a learning process is

very helpful as a teacher and will also be helpful when I am a parent someday. From this
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experience, I have learned a new way to help my students learn. I have also gotten a better

understanding of how this process of learning affects how we develop behaviors such as fears. I

would really like to study further in depth what allows the brain to pair the two stimuli together. I

understand that using contiguity and contingency helps the brain to pair the stimuli, but I am

more interested in what is actually causing the process in the brain.

After studying the topic and reading the scientific journals, I feel that this topic is not

only useful to me, but to others as well. One example of how this could help individuals would

be overcoming or preventing fears. Understanding this process could help us know what the

stimulus to a specific fear is. That would allow us to either avoid these stimuli or to use another

stimulus to overcome the fear.

I have enjoyed developing a deeper understanding of what classical conditioning is and

feel that it is a beneficial learning strategy, not only for psychologists, but for parents and

teachers who help children to learn and develop.

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References

Clark, R. E. (2004). The Classical Origins of Pavlov's Conditioning. Integrative Physiological & Behavioral

Science, 39(4), 279-294.

Domjan, M. (2005). PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING: A Functional Perspective. Annual Review Of Psychology,

56(1), 179-206. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141409

King , L. A. (2016). Experience psychology (3rd ed.). New York , NY: Mcgraw-Hill.

McSweeney, F. K., & Bierley, C. (1984). Recent Developments in Classical Conditioning. Journal Of

Consumer Research, 11(2), 619-631.