Psychology I
Monday, January 6, 2014
Today’s Agenda:
1. Announcements 2. This Day in History 3. Learning 4. Aristotle’s Laws of Association 5. Laws of Association in Action 6. Classical Conditioning 7. Case Study: Little Albert 8. Designing a Conditioning Experiment
Psychology
& Learning
-1-
Announcements
Attendance
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This Day in History
January 6 th
1838
⚫ This man gave the first public demonstration of the
telegraph.
1853
⚫ This president-elect and his wife are involved in a train
wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. Their son Benny is
killed.
1912
⚫ German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his
theory that continents do what?
1912
⚫ This Land of Enchantment became the 47 th state in the
United States.
1929
⚫ This woman arrives in Calcutta, India to begin her work
among India's poorest and sick people.
2001
⚫ With the vanquished Vice President Al Gore presiding,
Congress certified this Republican the winner of the close
and bitterly contested 2000 presidential election.
Happy Birthday!
Charles Sumner (1811-1874)
203 Years Ago
Howie Long (1960)
53 Years Old
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Learning
How do psychologists define learning?
Learning
⚫ A relatively permanent change in behavior that results from practice or experience
⚫ You can forget
⚫ You can add new information
⚫ There are many ways of looking at how someone learns
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Aristotle’s Laws of Association
Who was Aristotle?
What are Aristotle’s Laws of Association?
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)
⚫ A Greek philosopher and POLYMATH
⚫ Covered many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.
⚫ One of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy
⚫ A student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great
Ἀριστοτέλης
Aristotle’s Laws of Association
⚫ Associations are mental connections between stimuli
1. Experience or recall of one object will produce recall of objects that are similar
2. Experience or recall of one object will produce recall of things that were experienced at the same time
3. The more often two things are experienced together, the more likely it is that experiencing one will cause an
experience of the other
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Laws of Association in Action
Stimuli and Responses
Laws of Association in Action
Experience or recall of one object will produce recall of objects that are similar
Raise your hand to name objects
that come to mind when you see the images.
Laws of Association in Action
Experience or recall of one object will produce recall of things that were experienced at the same time
Raise your hand to name things
that you have experienced at the same time.
Remember!
The more often two things are experienced together, the more likely it is that experiencing one will cause an
experience of the other
How would this relate to any of the examples we’ve given?
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Classical Conditioning
Who was Ivan Pavlov?
How does Classical Conditioning work?
Classical Conditioning
⚫ A process of learning by association in which two events that repeatedly occur close together in time
become fused in a person's mind and produce the same response
⚫ Created by Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936)
⚫ A Russian mathematician who made significant
contributions to psychology
Ива́н Па́влов
Pavlov's Dog
⚫ Phrase used in popular culture
⚫ Used to describe someone who merely reacts to a
situation rather than using critical thinking
Parts to Classical Conditioning
⚫ Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
⚫ Causes a natural normal behavior
⚫ Unconditioned response (UCR)
⚫ A natural response to a UCS
⚫ Conditioned stimulus (CS)
⚫ New stimulus that will be introduced with the UCS
⚫ Conditioned response (CR)
⚫ New/abnormal response to CS
Pavlov’s Observations
⚫ Timing
⚫ CS must be presented prior to the UCS
⚫
CS is a warning sign (.5 to 1 second ahead)
⚫ Repetition
⚫ The more often you pair the UCS and CS the stronger the response
⚫ Extinction
⚫ If you keep presenting the CS without the UCS the CR will go away
⚫ Spontaneous recovery
⚫ The CR can come back for no reason
⚫ Generalization and Discrimination
⚫ If the CS is similar to another stimulus the CR will appear
Using Classical Conditioning
⚫ Counter conditioning
⚫ Changing negative response into a positive
⚫ Pair something they don’t like with something they do like
⚫ Flooding
⚫ Force the person into contact with the fear stimulus
⚫ Desensitization
⚫ Gradual reduction of response
⚫ Slowly introduce the stimulus
Use in Popular Culture
⚫ Aldous Huxley's 1932 science fiction novel Brave New World describes children of lower castes are as
conditioned to dislike books and various objects
associated with nature, like flowers, in order better to fit into their caste's assigned lifestyle.
⚫ Ranked fifth on Modern Library’s list of the 100 best
English-language novels of the 20 th century
Classical Conditioning in Action
“When I was over in Iraq, I had been conditioned to react to airplanes overhead. I was stationed near Baghdad International Airport and had to listen for explosions over the noise of incoming and outgoing airplanes. I became aware of my conditioning when I came home and was nervous for some reason. After I started a journal, I noticed I was nervous at times for no reason. Later, I learned it occurred when planes flew overhead. I live in Savoy and a flight path to Savoy airport is overhead my house. Now that I’m aware of this, in time the nervousness will extinguish because there would be no explosions in Savoy.”
— P. Graham
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Classical Conditioning
Who was Ivan Pavlov?
How does Classical Conditioning work?
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Case Study: Little Albert
What did John B. Watson set out to prove?
How did his experiment reflect classical conditioning?
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Case Study: Little Albert
What did John B. Watson set out to prove?
How did his experiment reflect classical conditioning?
Ethical Questions by Today’s Standards
⚫ By modern American Psychological Association standards, this experiment was unethical
⚫ It would not be able to replicated today
⚫ Ethical concerns:
⚫ Albert was too young
⚫
He was only eight months at the time of the first test
⚫ The experiment evoked reactions of fear
⚫
