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The importance of classical and operant conditioning theory
The importance of classical and operant conditioning theory
The importance of classical and operant conditioning theory
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Learning can be quantified through observable behaviour and is adaptive to a creature’s specific environment at an individual level rather than species level. Behaviour can be broken down into two main categories, respondent behaviour, which is impacted by events that preceded it and operant behaviour, which is behaviour that is influenced by events that follow it. Behaviour can be analysed using a three term contingency of ABC. A is the antecedent, which can increase or decrease a behaviour depending on what is desired, B is the observed behaviour and C is the consequence of that behaviour, certain consequences increase behaviour whilst some decrease it. There are many different ways we learn behaviour and many different types of conditioning. Operant conditioning influences operant behaviour and uses the principles of positive and negative reinforcement and punishment to strengthen desired behaviours whereas instrumental conditioning involves making a response that is instrumental, it is an activity that is voluntary which elicits a consequence. A third type of conditioning is classical conditioning, which can be defined as an association being made between one stimulus and another, resulting in a relationship. For the purpose of this essay, classical conditioning will be the focus. In 1928, Pavlov noticed that dogs salivated when they heard a bell ring in anticipation of food. This sparked his interest in conditioning, he then produced a theory by pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response, and this was a huge breakthrough for psychology as it helped explain why some behaviours are learned. It could be argued that this is significant as it explains why we learn stimuli that is bi... ... middle of paper ... ... complex and as a result, learning behaviour is also complicated. Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning is widely accepted and was an important breakthrough in understanding behaviour and the Rescorla and Wagner model has stood test of time, now widely used in neuroscience. However, we cannot rule out other ways of learning, not just classical conditioning and cannot definitely decide if learning is due to surprise as learning can happen without being immediately visible, and behaviour is not always due to learning, as people often behave in a way that is against what they have been taught and only overt behaviour, such as actions, can be seen, psychologists lack the ability to observe covert behaviour, such as feelings and whilst there are ways of measuring emotions, there is no way to fully understand what someone is feeling and why they behave the way they do.
Ivan Pavlov, a russian behaviorist, is known for his classic conditioning experiments. Classical Conditioning is a type of learning where we associate two stimuli. It is noted that his curiosity aspired when he noticed salivation ran on the tangent of putting food in a dogs mouth. He began noticing that the dog not only salivated to the food in its mouth but with the environment associated with food such as location, sight of the person feeding him, the food dish, even the sound of footsteps. Pavlov considered these “psychic secretions” an annoyance of his study until he realized it all apart of the form of learning.
Pavlovian conditioning is more complicated than it had been initially purported. The paper by Rescorla that was published almost sixteen years ago revealed that there are more complex relationships between different stimulus. According to Robert Rescorla, the Pavlovian conditioning would be better treated as a reflection of the immense efforts of an information-seeking organism. Pavlovian conditioning is also referred to as classical conditioning. The two terms merge to give one meaning. According to Rescorla, Pavlovian conditioning is the behavior modification process that focuses on an intrinsic reaction to a biological stimulus that elicits a particular and desired response.
The study by Watson and Rayner was to further the research of Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist whose most famous experiments involved that of animals, specifically the unconditioned and conditioned reflexes of canines, in reference to salivation and conditioned emotional response. Pavlov demonstrated that if a bell was rang each time a dog was fed; ultimately the animal would befall conditioned to salivate at just the sound of the bell, even where food is was no longer present (The Salivation reflex). Watson and Rayner set out to further the research of conditioned stimulus response, with little Albert. ‘These authors without adequate experimental evidence advanced the view that this range was increased by means of conditioned reflex factors.’ (B.Watson, R Rayner , 1920).
There are non-associative, associative and observational learning. Classical conditioning is an associative type of learning. It is the learning of the relationship between two pieces of information.To have a deeper understanding about classical conditioning, Pavlov’s experiments will be further discussed. According to Dickinson (1981), Pavlov first exposed food to a dog which causes salivation, due to salivary reflex. Afterwards, he exposed a neutral stimulus, in this case a metronome, to the dog which naturally would not make the dog salivate. During trials, the clicking metronome is presented to the dog just before the meal is given. After time passed by, the sound of the clicking metronome caused the dog to salivate because the dog expected to get food. This process of association is called acquisition. In this experiment, the dog was conditioned to associate the clicking sound of metronome with food. The food is the unconditioned stimulus (US), the clicking of metronome is the conditioned stimulus (CS), salivation caused by food is called unconditioned response (UR) and salivation caused by the clicking of metronome is called the conditioned response (CR) (Gazzaniga et al., 2016
In psychology, there are countless approaches to how a subject could learn something; in this paper, however, we are going to talk about the classical conditioning, operant condition and also the application of it in the reality. First of all, we are going to discuss the differences between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when unconditioned stimulus gets paired with conditioned stimulus so that the subject can learn it. However, the learners have to have a neutral mindset about the conditioned stimulus in order for it to be considered as classical conditioning. This type of conditioning has reflex responses, which means it reacts involuntary to a stimulus; salivation could be an example of that.
The strength of classical conditioning is that it can help to explain all aspects of human behavior. Any of behavior can broke down into stimulus-response association, so that according to the classical conditioning, conditioned stimulus will lead conditioned response to occur, then the scientist can observe and determine the behavior (McLeod, 2014). In the case of Pavlovian conditioning, he found that when the conditioned stimulus (bell) was paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food) was presented to the dog, it would start to salivate. After a number of repeated this procedures, Pavlov tried to ring his bell by its own...
In every day life, people and animals alike are always being conditioned to learn. Weather we are learning to enhance bad behaviors, pesky habits, or things we aren’t necessarily conscious of doing. The methods used to be conditioned can be quite broad, but lets narrow them down to two main topics. The first is Classical conditioning, and the second method is Operant Conditioning. During the course of this paper, I will compare and contrast both methods while showing you their similarities and differences as well. I will first compare Operant Conditioning, specifically regarding the experiment I conducted on my dog trying to get her to eat her breakfast, as well as providing another example of how my parents conditioned me to get better grades in school as a child. Lastly, I will contrast my two examples of operant conditioning against one example of Classical conditioning by explaining how I conditioned my cats not to go near the birdcage.
Through operant conditioning principles the method of learning through applications of structured rewards and punishments for certain types of behaviors is applied. Certain components that are applicable to operant conditioning principles include positive reinforcement, or “favorable outcome that are presented after the behavior” (Cherry, 2014); negative reinforcement which would effectively result in the removal of an unfavorable event or outcome after displaying poor behavior. While both of these are a reaction to an action, there are positive and negative punishments that are the result of such conditioning as well.
Classical conditioning is a “type of learning”, which had a huge influence on the school of thought in psychology known as behaviorism. It is a learning process which occurs through pairings of two or more types of stimuli’s. Classical conditioning involves placing a neutral signal before a naturally present reflex. In classical conditioning, we have the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), the unconditioned response (UCR), the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the conditioned response (CR).
Behaviorism is the theoretical approach to learning that looks on the outside influences of an individual rather than the inside. Behaviorism reflects one’s observations and experiences of the environment along with the behaviors of others, not individual feelings and beliefs, (Ormrod, 2015). In other words, behaviorism is constructed on the basis of one’s learning through external factors that cause changes in knowledge and/or behavior. Behavioral learning is marked by conditioning of stimuli, (Ormrod, 2015). There are two types of conditioning, classical and operant. Classical conditioning occurs when one naturally responds to a stimulus. The most renowned example of this being Pavlov 's observation that dogs automatically salivate when food was presented. Pavlov decided do further examine the behavioral qualities of these dogs by produces a noise along with the presentation of the stimulus to encourage a reaction of salivation. Over time, Pavlov took the stimulus away and just rang the bell. He noted that even without the food, the bell would produce the reaction of salivation. Pavlov used this experiment to further his research and present the stimulus-response relationship in which the theory of behaviorism embodies. Operant conditioning arises ...
Two basic concepts in behavioural learning are classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is the most basic way animals learn about their environment and associates stimuli with that environment while operant conditioning has shown how animals learn to associate actions (behaviours) with outcomes (consequences) (Bouton, 2007). Within operant conditioning came Thorndike’s The Law of Effect, which states that stimuli can have multiple responses and from those responses the ones that produce the most agreeable outcome tend to be occur more frequently while the others responses are reduced (Thorndike, 1911). In other words, these outcomes are motivating to the animal causing an increase in behaviour.
Learning is defined as a “process of change that occurs as a result of an individual’s experience” (Mazure, 2006). Researchers assume that the process of learning follows certain general principles, which were developed, into the general process learning theories. These include operant conditioning and classical conditioning which has been put forward by leading psychologists like Pavlov, B.F.Skinner and Thorndike. However, in learning, operant and classical conditoning are opposed by biological constraints that state that there are limitations to the theories. Some of these biological constraints on learning will be discussed below.
An American psychologist, by the name of John B. Watson, is historically known for “selling” the idea of Behaviorism to other American psychologists during the 1900s. Watson insisted that “psychology had failed to become an undisputed natural science because it was concerned with conscious processes that were invisible, subjective, and incapable of precise definition” (Hunt, page256). Watson’s position on human behavior was that it could be explained entirely in terms of reflexes, stimulus-response associations, and the effects of multiple reinforcements upon a person--entirely excluding any mental processes. Watson’s work was based on the experiments of Ivan Pavlov, who had studied animals’ responses to conditioning. In Pavlov’s most well-known experiment, he rang a bell each time he presented the dogs with food. Every time the dogs would hear the bell, their initial response would be to salivate because they believed that food was going to be offered. Pavlov then rang the bell without bringing food, yet the dogs continued to salivate. In essence, the dogs had been “conditioned” to salivate at the sound of the bell. From this research, Pavlov concluded that humans also react to stimuli in the same way--a finding that Watson would later emphasize.
Early in the 1900s a physiologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov devised an approach to the study of learning based heavily on behavior – something that could be easily seen, described, and measured objectively. Pavlov’s behaviorism theory posits that learning occurs through the process of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning occurs when two stimuli are presented close together.
In modern psychology, learning is an important topic. To understand learning, one must also understand the role of behavior in relation to learning. In psychology, classical conditioning, and instrumental conditioning are two types of learning that explain changes in behavior. The relationship between learning and cognition is necessary and their relationship helps to understand learning. With a definition of learning along with an understanding of behavior, the types of learning, and cognition, one can understand what learning is.