Classical conditioning

1. Theories of learning

2. Learning
• Learning can be defined as any relatively permanent change in
behaviour that occurs as a result of practice or experience.

3. Three important elements of learning
• Learning is a change in behaviour, for better or worse.
• Changes due to growth and maturation are not learning.
• The change must be relatively permanent.

4. Classical conditioning

5. Classical conditioning
• Classical conditioning is the kind of learning situation that
existed in the early classical experiments of IVAN P. PAVLOV

6. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
• The researcher with which classical conditioning is most often
associated is Ivan Pavlov. In fact, classical conditioning is sometimes
referred to as “Pavlovian conditioning “
• Famous Russian physiologist in the late 1890s
• Classical conditioning is sometimes called as respondent conditioning

7. Definition
• Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or
respondent conditioning) is a learning process in which an
innate response to a potent stimulus comes to be elicited in
response to a previously neutral stimulus; this is achieved by
repeated pairings of the neutral stimulus with the potent
stimulus

8. Learning of conditioned responses

9. Learning of conditioned responses.
Important terms
• Stimulus – Anything in the environment that can be detected
by senses

10. Unconditioned stimulus.
• Unconditioned stimulus (US)- A stimulus that elicits
an unconditioned response; for example, food is
an unconditioned stimulus for a hungry animal, and salivation
is the unconditioned response.

11. Unconditioned response
• Unconditioned response (UR) - The response that reliably
follows the unconditioned stimulus is known as the
unconditioned response.

12. Conditioned stimulus
• Conditioned stimulus (CS) – It is also called as neutral stimulus
because except for an alerting, or an attentional, response the
first few times it is presented, it does not evoke a specific
response.

13. Conditioned response.
• Conditioned response (CR)- The response that is learned in
classical conditioning is termed as conditioned response (CR).

14. Theories about classical conditioning
• Theories about classical conditioning try to describe the order
to the result of the many, many conditioning that have been
done.
• They speculate about the nature of learning that takes place in
classical conditioning.

15. Theories of classical conditioning.
• The theories are as follows:
1. Stimulus substitution.
2. Information and expectation

16. Stimulus substitution
• This theory, which originated with Pavlov and was influential for many
years, on the idea that the CS, simply as a result of pairing with the US,
acquires the capacity to substitute for the US in evoking a response.
• An association- a link or a bond- is formed between the CS and the US so
that the CS becomes the equivalent of the US is eliciting a response.
• Two areas of the brain, one for the CS and one for the US, became
activated during the conditioning procedure and that activation of the US
area resulted in a reflex, or automatic, response. As a result of the CS-US
pairings during the conditioning procedure, he theorised, the CS acquired
the ability to excite the US area, thus leading to the reflex response

17. Information and Expectation
• A number of experiments have a led to the view that this happens
because the US is a surprising event
• The US induces the learner to look back through recent memory
• The CS is the event consistently found in memory on each trail
before the US.
• An association, or link, is thus said to be formed between the
memory trace of the CS and the US.
• Now when the CS occurs, the US is expected. The conditioned
response is made in anticipation of the US. The form of the
conditioned response often indicates that the learner expects the
US.

18. Significance of classical conditioning
• Many of the subjective feelings- violent emotions to subtle nuances
of our moods-are probably conditioned responses. A face, a scene
or a voice may be the conditioned stimulus for an emotional
response. But we are not always able to identify the origins of our
emotions.
• Since the emotional response to stimuli are learned, perhaps they
can be unlearned. Or perhaps other, less disturbing responses can
be associated with the stimuli that produce unpleasant emotional
responses.
• The extinction and alteration of disturbing emotional responses by
classical conditioning is one form of behaviour therapy.

19. Application
• Something Good can start or be presented, so behavior
increases = Positive Reinforcement (R+)
• Something Good can end or be taken away, so behavior
decreases = Negative Punishment (P-)
• Something Bad can start or be presented, so behavior
decreases = Positive Punishment (P+)
• Something Bad can end or be taken away, so behavior
increases = Negative Reinforcement (R-)

20. References
• Introduction to Psychology------ Tata McGraw Hill edition
• Wikipedia the free encyclopedia.
• Chance------ Paul. Learning and Behavior. Belmont

21. THANK YOU