The Psychology class where we all freaked out about what we’re

taking next semester and the degree audit and all that omg 😫🤯
● Starting Chapter 6
● Learning
● Change in an organism’s behaviour or thought as a result of experience
● Many different kinds, most basic are habituation (clocks, trains) and sensitization
(whispering, coughing)
● Responding to stimuli less or more over time (usually we learn to “ignore” but
sometimes we can’t)

● Learning via association

● Large amounts of learning occur through association
● Simple associations provided the mental building blocks for more complex ideas
● If we didn’t learn to associate - apple with its taste, - our world would be
“blooming, buzzing confusion”

● Ivan Pavlov
● Russian psychologist and 1904 Nobel Prize winner
● Most famous for work on digestion of the dog
● First work on classical conditioning

● Classical conditioning
● One of the greatest discoveries of all time in psychology
● Involves 5 primary components:
● Neutral stimulus (NS) - bell (makes no difference at first)
○ Repeated pairings with…
● Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - meat powder
● Unconditioned response (UCR) - drool
● Conditioned stimulus (CS) - bell (becomes meaningful through association with
UCS)
● Conditioned response (CR) - drool = learning

● Classical conditioning steps

● 1. Neutral stimulus (NS): does not elicit a particular response
○ Ex. bell
● 2. Pair the NS repeatedly with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS - food), which
elicits an unconditioned response (UCR - drool)
○ Food (UCS) and drool/salivation (UCR)
● 3. Eventually, the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus, eliciting a conditioned
response
 ○ Bell and drool/salivation
● The organism reacts the same way to the previously NS as it did to the UCS =
leaning!