In Pavlov’s experiment, the sound of the tone served as the conditioned stimulus that, after learning, produced the conditioned response (CR), which is the acquired response to the formerly neutral stimulus. The conditioned stimulus (CS) is a neutral stimulus that, after being repeatedly presented prior to the unconditioned stimulus, evokes a similar response as the unconditioned stimulus. The unconditioned stimulus (US) is something (such as food) that triggers a naturally occurring response, and the unconditioned response (UR) is the naturally occurring response (such as salivation) that follows the unconditioned stimulus. After the association is learned, the previously neutral stimulus is sufficient to produce the behaviour.Īs you can see in Figure 8.3, “4-Panel Image of Whistle and Dog,” psychologists use specific terms to identify the stimuli and the responses in classical conditioning. Classical conditioning refers to learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone) becomes associated with a stimulus (e.g., food) that naturally produces a behaviour. Pavlov had identified a fundamental associative learning process called classical conditioning. The animals had learned to associate the sound with the food that followed. Initially the dogs salivated only when they saw or smelled the food, but after several pairings of the sound and the food, the dogs began to salivate as soon as they heard the sound. He systematically controlled the onset of the sound and the timing of the delivery of the food, and recorded the amount of the dogs’ salivation. He conducted a series of experiments in which, over a number of trials, dogs were exposed to a sound immediately before receiving food. With his team of researchers, Pavlov began studying this process in more detail. Pavlov realized that the dogs were salivating because they knew that they were about to be fed the dogs had begun to associate the arrival of the technicians with the food that soon followed their appearance in the room. In the early part of the 20th century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), shown in Figure 8.2, was studying the digestive system of dogs when he noticed an interesting behavioural phenomenon: the dogs began to salivate when the lab technicians who normally fed them entered the room, even though the dogs had not yet received any food. Explain the roles that extinction, generalization, and discrimination play in conditioned learning.Review the concepts of classical conditioning, including unconditioned stimulus (US), conditioned stimulus (CS), unconditioned response (UR), and conditioned response (CR).Describe how Pavlov’s early work in classical conditioning influenced the understanding of learning.

A dogs purpose exposed