questions

Ivan Pavlov:

1.   What was Pavlov actually studying when he developed his theory of classical conditioning?

2.    

He was studying dog digestion and he noticed that the dog drooled when he heard the assistant coming.

2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.

In his digestive research, Pavlov and his assistants would introduce a variety of things into the dogs mouth and measure the saliva production that the items produced. Salivation, he noted, is a reflexive process. It occurs automatically in response to a specific stimulus and is not under conscious control. However, Pavlov noted that the dogs would often begin salivating when there was no food and no smell. He quickly realized that this salivary response was not due to an automatic, physiological process. Based on his observations, Pavlov suggested that the salivation was a learned response. The dogs were responding to the sight of the research assistants' white lab coats, which the animals had come to associate with the presentation of food. Unlike the salivary response to the presentation of food, which is an unconditioned reflex, salivating to the expectation of food is a conditioned reflex.

3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment.

Unconditioned stimulus was the food that he gave the dog, or the stimulus that evokes a response naturally and automatically. The sound of a metronome was chosen to be the neutral stimulus.After several conditioning trials, Pavlov noted that the dogs began to salivate after hearing the metronome. "A stimulus which was neutral in and of itself had been superimposed upon the action of the inborn alimentary reflex In other words, the previously n

\utral stimulus (the metronome) had become what is known as a conditioned stimulus that then provoked a conditioned response (salivation).

4. Explain what extinction means in relation to classical conditioning.

Extinction occurs when a conditioned response decreases or disappears. In classical conditioning, this happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus

5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.

Stimulus Generalization is when the conditioned stimulus to produce similar responses after the response has been conditioned. For example, if a rat has been conditioned to fear a stuffed white rabbit, it will exhibit fear of objects similar to the white rabbit.

6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.

Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. For example, if a door bell were the conditioned stimulus, discrimination would involve being able to tell the difference between the door bell and other similar sounds.

7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.

One limitation was that he experimented only with a few dogs, and the second limitation, was that the dogs caught up to his tricks too fast so they started drooling before they were supposed to.

8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.

He theorized, that we learn by classical conditioning, he explained that we learned by getting used to things or situations, and that we react to different environments by seeing what happens around us or by associating new things together with things that we already now

John B. Watson:

1.Explain (in detail) how Watson's "Little Albert" study was conducted.

He got a little baby who was not scared of anything because he had no knowledge of the world and showed him a rat, the baby wasn’t afraid of it at first but then he started to bang a big metal tube that made an awful noise at the same time that he brought the rat out, therefore the baby associated the rat to the ugly noise. At the end Watson would show little albert the rat, and he would emediately start crying, because he felt scared because he had associated the ugly noise to the furry white animal.

2.Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study

The conditional stimulus was the rat, the unconditional, was the hitting of the instrument, and the condition response was the baby crying after he had learned that the rat was associated with the sound

3.Explain at least two limitations of this study.

One limitation was and still is that it was unethical and it can’t be repeated, and another limitation was that he only tried it with one baby, therefore the experiment was not consistent.

Explain Watson's law of frequency.

Says that the more frequently two things are put together, the more stronger their association will be and it will be easier to learn or get used to something.

5. Explain Watson's law of recency.

Is referring to the response that most recently occurred after a stimulus

6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.

According to Watson behaviors can be reduced to relationships between stimuli and responses

Article summaries

Starting Highschool one hour later may reduce teen traffic accidents

                  This article describes the impact that the amount of sleep children get depending on what time school starts has on their behavior and actions. The experiment was carried out and directed by senior author Barbara Phillips, MD, director of the UK Healthcare Good Samaritan Sleep Center in Lexington, KY. They experiment showed that schools that start at later hours such as 9am have better test results than students who wake up for schools starting at  7am. High school students who also drive themselves to school got into less driving accidents when they were better rested. Trafic accidents for students who started school at 9 am were significantly lower than for those starting school at 7 am. I believe this experiment is interesting because it shows the importance of 1 hour more of sleep both in academics and in other social behavior such as driving. Children tend to sleep less during the teenage years because there is so much distraction but they still need a significant (8 to 9 hours) amount of sleep. Making school start later can help remedy this.








Highschool students with a delayed school start time sleep longer, report less day time sleepiness

                  This article reports how the time school starts affects children’s sleep patterns. The experiment was done by Zaw W. Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn. It was done on 259 students who completed the condensed sleeping habits questionnaire. When school started early, the students slept 33 minutes less than they did when the schedule was changed. Also after the change in starting time, it was recorded that many of the students used an average of 83 percent of their extra time to sleep. In my opinion this article is excellent because it shows  in a very concise and precise way that students will use the extra time to actually sleep which will result in more alerts students throughout the day.

Being a night owl in high school is linked with having a lower college GPA

                  This article lead by author Jennifer Peszka, PhD, psychology department chair at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark reports the effect of sleep on GPA. It establishes a connection between the hours slept and the performance of students on academics. Students who sleep less and become night owls tend to have lower GPA’s. The article says that students who are morning persons are more likely to have a higher GPA average such as 3.18 instead of having a low one like 2.84 which is the GPA average for people who are “night owls”. The sample taken was of 89 students with the ages of 17-20 years of age.I like the fact that this experiment was safe and did not involve depriving anyone of sleep, instead it just reported findings. It also summarized some of the stuff we had learnt before that studying too late at night in completely unproductive. Our bodies reach a point where they are exhausted and need sleep in order to actually learn.

http://www.gearlive.com/news/article/q209-night-owls-more-stamina/

http://patdollard.com/2008/06/whats-your-opinion-drunk-driving-hoax-to-scare-teens-out-of-drinking-and-driving-with-video/
http://seaholmhighlander.com/lifestyles/student-life/424-sleepless-in-seaholm