Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov was famous for hs classical conditioning experiements with learning and behaviorism. He noticed that when a dog was given food, the dog would salivate. To test learning ability, Pavlov paired feeding a dog wih a sound tone. After some time, the dog started salivating when he heard the sound tone. Pavlov's experiment lead him to create variables relating to the stimuli and responses he observed.  The natural reaction for the dog when given food was to salivate. Pavlov identifed this and called the response an unconditioned response (UR). The food given was the stimulus that triggered the salivating response so the food was called the unconditioned stimulus (US). Once the dog learned that a sound tone triggered food, the dog began salivating once the noise was heard. The learned response to the noise was called a conditioned response (CR). The tone was the learned and controlled stimulus that triggered a response and was called the conditioned stimulus (CS). Through Pavlov's work, many physchologists have realized that a process such as learning can be studied objectively. This site compares classical conditioning with operant conditioning with given examples. Operant conditioning is learning through consequences. One associates their own actions with positive and negative consequences, striving to recieve positive consequences. Try to see if you can distinguish between the two types of learning in the site listed below.


http://www.utexas.edu/courses/svinicki/ald320/CCOC.html