Today I will write about Classic Conditioning. This helps us learn. First of all, learning can be defined as “The process of acquiring through experience, novel and relatively enduring information or behavior.” Something is not learned when it happens out of maturity or instinct. Learning should happen through experience and last a long time.
Secondly, there are two common methods of learning.
Classical conditioning is learning by association. This is what Pavlov discovered out after conducting his experiment.
Here’s what he used for his experiment.
- A dog.
- Dog food (aka meat powder)
- A bell.
Now before “conditioning” (which means before the dog learns through association.) When the dog food is brought before the dog, the dog salviates and when the bell is rung it doesn’t salviate.
The dog’s food is called “Unconditioned Stimulus.” The dog’s response is called “Unconditioned Response”. Finally, the bell is referred to as “Neutral Stimulus”.
After that, Pavlov rang the bell every time he fed the dog. By doing this a few times, the dog salivated when the bell was rung.
Hence, the “Neutral Stimulus” became “Conditioned Stimulus” and the “Unconditioned Response” became “Conditioned Response”. This change happened because conditioning succeeded.
So what was the result? The dog started salivating when the bell rang even if food wasn’t brought.
Now this isn’t the end. There is also extinction.
Which means how long it takes the dog to lose its association. It loses its association when the “Conditioned Stimulus” (A bell) is activated repeatedly without the “Unconditioned Stimulus” (Dog food) being present. It stops giving the “Conditioned Response” (Dog salivating) after a few times the bell rings and the food isn’t brought.
Now what are real life examples of classical conditioning?
- First of all, you probably see classical conditioning everyday in your life. In marketing, ads usually associate their product with something desirable so people want to buy it more.
- There is also another thing which you might find relatable. Have you ever gotten sick after eating a certain food? Perhaps you ate some cheese and that night you started vomiting. Chances are, you will avoid that food until you think it is safe to eat it.
- This also happens with fear. Have you ever got a near-drowning experience? Maybe you were walking near a pool then you slipped and almost drowned. Because of this you will automatically tend to avoid large bodies of water because of this conditioning. This doesn’t have to be just water. If you ever got bitten by a dog as a child, chances are you are scared of every dog you see. Even if the dogs are friendly and cute.
- Finally we have music. If a certain music was playing he best part of your life, you will automatically love it when the song starts playing. This could also be associated with bad events. Maybe a song was paired with a death. Because of it, whenever you hear the music you will be uncomfortable and try to avoid it.
Now this is classical conditioning. If you liked this blog, please check out my other blog posts as well. Thanks!