One of the major differences involves the types of behaviours that are conditioned. While classical conditioning is centred on involuntary, automatic behaviours, operant conditioning is focused on voluntary behaviours. It is important we view each conditioning technique in greater detail to gain a complete understanding of it. The first conditioning type we are to analyse is classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a theory of learning founded by Ivan Pavlov, It is a way of learning through past association, he accidentally stumbled upon this theory as he was studying the digestive system of the dog and then applied it to human psychology.
Is it Ethical to Test on Animals? The animal testing issue is a subject that gets people wound up into a blitzkrieg of words. Each person has a say as to what is the correct method, if any, as to testing animals in psychological experiments. My mentality is better the animal then me. I prefer it that animals be tested over human beings in every situation.
Classical conditioning is seen through Pavlov’s dogs (1902), because in Pavlov’s investigation he used the bell as a neutral stimulus, so whenever he gave food to the dogs he also rang bell, so after a number of repeats of this procedure he tried the bell on its own, as expected the bell now being rang caused increased salvation for the dog, showing that the dogs have learned that the bell means they are getting fed, now the bell is the conditioned stimulus. Secondly, attachment could also be through operant conditioning, because whilst a mother is feeding her child, the infant feels as though it is gaining pleasure or a reward as they are being fed. Because the child has a positive response to being fed such as smiling, this behaviour is reinforced for the mother, because the mother gains pleasure for seeing her child happy, which is a reward. The reinforcement process is there fore reciprocal and strengthens the attachment between the two of them. Although there could be a weakness to the learning theory because Harlow’s Monkeys could be used to criticise it.
The Behaviorists are a group of psychologists who focus on these stimulus-response connections, the two most famous being Watson and Skinner. Behaviorism arose because there was dissatisfaction with approaches in psychology that involved 'unscientific, techniques such as introspection and dealt with immeasurable aspects of behavior such as the role of the unconscious mind. Behaviorists try to explain the causes of behavior by studying only those behaviors that can be observed and measured. They leave focused their efforts on two types of learning processes known as classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical Conditioning( Classical conditioning is a form of learning that incorporates the body's natural physical response to stimuli.
Then Pavlov began to notice that the dogs began to salivate when he saw an empty plate, or when he saw the experimenter; the dogs even salivated at the sound of the foot steps from the experimenter as they were about to enter the room. Noticing these responses from the dogs, Pavlov decided to test his discovery of condition reflexes. In his experiments testing conditioned reflexes, before the experimenters would enter the room to feed the dogs Pavlov would have a light turned on or have a bell rung. At first the dogs had a neutral reaction to the light or bell because the dogs have not associated those stimuli with being feed. After many trials of pairing, with the light or the bell, with the food, eventually the dogs began to associate being feed with the stimuli if the light or the bell.
He studied the salivation in dogs and concluded that a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus to a dog and make it salivate, when it is paired with food. For example, when giving food to a dog, it starts salivating. When making a tone with a bell everytime before giving food to the dog, the salivation starts with the bell-ringing. The final part of this experiment is the observation of salivation, only at the bell-ringing, even when no food follows. This is in principle a learning effect.
In classical conditioning, Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), conducted an experiment on the eating habits of dogs. In the experiment, Pavlov rang a bell whenever he gave his dog food. After repeating this procedure several times, he realized than whenever the bell rang, the dog could start salivating. The dog had associated food with the sound of the bell. Pavlov concluded that the dogs demonstrated classical condition, whereby the bell was a neutral stimulus and by itself could not produce a response such as salivating (Coon, Mitterer, Talbot & Vanchella, 2010).
Classical conditioning entails a response that is evoked through the nervous system. The behavior is connected through one’s sensory perception (the five senses). Classical conditioning involves a learned response which is prompted unconsciously and usually involves some response of the autonomic nervous system (fear, sadness, joy, anxiety, etc.). Classical conditioning is the technique of pairing a controlled stimulus with an uncontrolled stimulus to evoke a response. Pavlov’s dog is a most famous example.
Classical Conditioning Psychology 390 June 3, 2011 Classical Conditioning Often in the scientific world discoveries are made when one is looking for an answer to another question. Such is the case with Ivan Pavlov and his discovery of Classical Conditioning. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian Physiologist, recognized the significance of the theory of classical conditioning while studying the digestive tract of canines. In his experiments he saw that when the canine was presented with food it salivated but when the food was paired with a bell over an extended period of time the same result occurred when the canine was exposed to the sound of the bell. This rather simple concept is now the foundation of Classical Conditioning.
Classical conditioning functions in this ways as before conditioning occurs the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the conditioned stimulus (CS) function disjointedly. In the course of training, the animals start to connect the bell with the food that produces salivation (Terry, 2009). Pavlov's innovation of classical conditioning continues to be the most vital in the memoir of psychology.