More Examples of Classical

Conditioning
 Watson and “Little Albert”
• Watson paired a white rat
with a loud, scary noise
• Presented the two stimuli
together to “Little Albert”
– Albert was not scared of
the rat, but was scared of
the noise
• After repeated pairings
and presentations …..
what happed?
 Classical Conditioning and Little Albert
• Loud noise= UCS
• Fear of the noise= UCR
• White rat= CS
• Fear of rat= CR
Classical Conditioning and Little Albert
• “Little Albert’s” conditioning is known as
Conditioned Emotional Response
– Emotional response that has become classically
conditioned to occur to learned stimuli
– Examples: Fear of dogs, fear of dentist
 Conditioned Emotional Response
• Used by advertisers in commercials
– Use certain objects or types of people to generate
a specific emotion
– Examples: Attractive women/men, cute baby, a
puppy
 Conditioned Emotional Response
• Vicarious Conditioning
– Classical conditioning of a
reflex response or
emotion by watching the
reaction of another person
• Example: Getting a
shot….1st kid cries a
little, kids down the
line start to cry, and
eventually kids are
crying before they even
see the needle!
Why Does Classical Conditioning Work?
• Stimulus Substitution
– Pavlov’s Theory
– Classical conditioning occurs because the
conditioned stimulus became a substitute for the
unconditioned stimulus by being paired closely
together
– The same place in the brain is activated by both
the unconditioned stimulus and conditioned
stimulus
Why Does Classical Conditioning Work?
• Cognitive Perspective
– Classical conditioning occurs because the
conditioned stimulus provides information or an
expectancy about the coming of the
unconditioned stimulus
– In other words, you react because you know (or
expect) what is going to happen
• Example: Rats (p. 187)