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