the classical conditioning (engl. classical conditioning) is one of the best known learning theories and is part of biology and psychology. She deals with the control of reactions and examines the different approaches that exist for this.
Classical conditioning definition
Classical conditioning is one Learning theory of behaviorism. A living being learns in a certain way signal towards a certain one involuntary natural reaction to show. That is why it is also called classical conditioning signal learning.
One involuntary reaction means the reaction not consciously controlled becomes. Naturally means that the reaction is innate. So no new behavior is learned, but to show an already existing behavior in a new situation.
Other terms for signal are appeal or stimulus. This is why it is also called classical conditioning stimulus-response learning or in English Stimulus Response Learning. So that you don’t get confused with the abbreviations for stimulus and response, the term is used in this explanation stimulus and the abbreviation S used while the abbreviation R stands for reaction.
The behaviorism behavior = «behaviour») was developed in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century and examines the directly observable behavior of people. Behaviorists assume that all human behavior has been learned and can be changed or unlearned. Internal processes such as thoughts and feelings are not taken into account. You can find out more in the detailed explanation of behaviorism.
Classical conditioning explained simply
The founder of classical conditioning was the Russian chemist and physiologist Ivan Pavlov.
Its famous experiment with his dog explains exactly how classical conditioning works.
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) actually researched the physiology of the digestive tract and even received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1904 for his treatises on digestion. During his research work on dogs, he noticed that the dogs did not only salivate when they were eating. Instead, the dogs started salivating as soon as they saw the man who always fed them. This observation prompted Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment.
Figure 1: Pavlov with dog and research teamSource: Zimbardo & Gerrig, 2004
Pavlov’s dog
Pavlov wanted to find out what influences the saliva production of his four-legged friends. To do this, he thought of an experiment that would make him and the phenomenon of classical conditioning world famous. Classical conditioning, just like Pavlov’s experiment, occurs in three phases:
- Before conditioning
- during conditioning
- After conditioning
phase before conditioning
Pavlov had observed that his dog produced saliva as soon as it was given food. This is a natural, innate process that serves to stimulate digestion.
The lining is with it more natural or unconditioned stimulus (engl. unconditioned stimulusUCS), the one natural or unconditioned response (engl. unconditioned responseUCR), i.e. triggers the flow of saliva. When Pavlov rings a bell, it does not trigger salivation. The bell is therefore used as a neutral stimulus. neutral stimulusNS) designated.
stage during conditioning
The dog should now learn to react to the sound of the bell by salivating. For this he will neutral stimulus (NS), i.e. the bell, rang. Immediately afterwards the dog gets food (unconditioned stimulus, UCS) and responds with salivation (unconditioned response, UCR).
It is important that always exactly this Series maintained: First the neutral stimulus (NS) is presented, then the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). The conditioning also occurs faster the more directly the two stimuli occur one after the other. This is called temporal contiguity. This is the only way to learn a connection (or association) between NS, UCS and UCR.
post-conditioning phase
After some time, Pavlov observed his dog salivating when the bell rang, even without Pavlov feeding the dog. By pairing the neutral stimulus (NS) bell with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) feed, the neutral stimulus (NS) became a so-called conditioned stimulus (engl. conditioned stimulusC.S).
This conditioned stimulus (CS, bell) alone is now able to induce salivation. The flow of saliva is one conditioned response (engl. conditioned reactionCR).
Important terms of classical conditioning
Here you will find an overview of the most important terms of classical conditioning:
In the context of classical conditioning, however, there are a few other important terms:
- excitatory and inhibitory conditioning
- (stimulus) generalization
- (stimulus) discrimination
- extinction (extinction)
- spontaneous recovery
- reconditioning,
- Contextual renewal
- Restoration
In classical conditioning, a general distinction is made between excitatory and inhibitory conditioning.
the excitatory conditioning describes the elicitation of a conditioned response (CR) by coupling an initially neutral stimulus (NS) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Inhibitory conditioning means that there is no conditioned response (UCR) after the triggering unconditioned stimulus (UCS) has been coupled to an initially neutral stimulus (NS).
Of the Pavlovian dog is an example of excitatory conditioning. To you the inhibitory conditioning the following example will help you:
A child is afraid (UCR) of loud thunder (UCS). When the child is with the mother (NS), it is not afraid. If the child hears loud thunder (UCS) and is with the mother, the mother becomes the CS who ensures that the UCR does not occur, so that the child is not afraid.
Another important phenomenon in classical conditioning is the generalization:
(stimulus) generalization means that it doesn’t necessarily need exactly the learned CS to trigger the CR. Instead, a stimulus similar to CS can also trigger CR without the need for new conditioning for each similar stimulus.
Already Pavlov could do that Generalization in his dog watch:
Pavlov noticed that his dogs responded not only to the conditioned bell sound (CS) with salivation (CR), but also to similar stimuli, such as the sound of a flute or a gong.
The process that counteracts generalization is called discrimination.
In the (stimulus) discrimination is learned to show the conditioned response only to the specific conditioned stimulus or stimulus, but not to similar stimuli. The conditioned stimulus is differentiated or discriminated from other stimuli.
In Pavlov’s dog, the stimulus discrimination could look like this:
During the conditioning phase, the dog is presented with the bell sound (NS) paired with the food (UCS). In between, other tones (flutes, gongs, or even bells with a different tone) are played to the dog, but without pairing them with the UCS. The dog thus learns that only a certain bell sound is associated with food. After conditioning, salivation (CR) only occurs on this particular tone (CS), but not on the other tones.
A conditioned stimulus serves as an announcement to an organism of the expected unconditioned stimulus. So when Pavlov’s dog hears the bell, he expects food and prepares for it by producing saliva. However, if the conditioned stimulus no longer reliably announces the unconditioned stimulus, one speaks of extinction or deletion.
extinction or deletion refers to the weakening of the CR after repeated occurrences of the CS without occurrence of the UCS until the CR is no longer shown at all.
So Pavlov’s dog can the learned link so to speak «forget»:
If the bell (CS) is rung several times without the dog getting any food (UCS) afterwards, at some point it will no longer salivate after the bell tone.
Strictly speaking, however, the term deletion is not quite correct. There are certain phenomena that show that the learned association between CS and CR never completely disappears:
spontaneous recovery means that the CS is again followed by a CR if neither CS nor UCS are presented for some time after the extinction. However, the CR is then weaker than after the original conditioning.
If, after extinction, the CS and UCS are paired again, the CR is re-learned faster than after the original conditioning. This is called reconditioning.
Contextual renewal (engl. renewal): If the conditioning phase occurs in a certain context A, but the extinction phase occurs in a different context B, then after the extinction the CR is not shown in context B, but in context A it is.
If, after the extinction, the UCS is presented again without the CS, this is sufficient for the Restoration (engl. reinstatement) of the CS-CR association.
A phenomenon that is particularly important for psychotherapy is the counterconditioning.
counterconditioning means that a learned association is overwritten, so to speak, by pairing the CS with a new UCS, which triggers a new UCR opposite to the CR.
The following example shows how counterconditioning works:
When a rat is electrocuted (UCS1), it exhibits a fear response (UCR1). When the shock is paired with a sound (NS), the sound becomes the CS, which elicits the fear response (CR). The rat should now learn not to be afraid of the sound anymore. To do this, she is presented with the tone (CS) along with a new stimulus that the rat is comfortable with. In this case, the new UCS2 is fodder. The rat is thus presented with the sound (CS) together with the food (UCS2) until it no longer shows a fear reaction to the sound.
The last important term you will learn is the second order conditioning know:
second order conditioning means a new NS2 is paired with a CS. After the conditioning phase, this CS2 is also capable of eliciting the CR without ever having co-occurred with the UCS.
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