HPS111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Classical Conditioning, Foodborne Illness, Habituation
WEEK 6
Learning – a process by which experience produces a relatively endearing change in an organism’s behaviour
or capabilities. There are five basic learning processes:
Habituation – a decrease in response to a repeated non-threatening stimulus. i.e. when you grow used to
something. Habituation serves as a key adaptive function. If an organism responded to every stimulus in its
environment, it would become overwhelmed and exhausted.
Sensitisation – Increased response to a repeated stimulus. i.e. when you start to get annoyed at something.
Classical conditioning – a process in which an organism learns to associate two stimuli (e.g. a song and a
pleasant event), such that one stimulus (the song) comes to elicit a response (feeling happy) that originally
was elicited only by the other stimulus (the pleasant event).
Pavlov’s pioneering research – Pavlov found that if he continuously paired a tone with food, the dogs would
eventually start to salivate to the sound of the tone instead.
•Basic principles in classical conditioning:
Acquisition – refers to the period during which a response is being learned. In this stage, the tone is a ‘neutral
stimulus’ – something which has no effect on the subject. The dog food is an ‘Unconditioned stimulus’ (UCS) –
something which elicits a reflex action. The salivation to the food is an ‘Unconditioned response’ (UCR) –
something which is a reflex action, prompted by the UCS.
Learning trial – In this stage, the NS (tone) and UCS (dog food) is paired several times until when presenting
the NS alone will elicit a ‘conditioned response’ (CR) (salivation) – a response elicited by a conditioned
stimulus. If this occurs, the NS then becomes a ‘conditioned stimulus’ (CS) – something which elicits a reflex
conditioned response, through association with an unconditioned stimulus.
One-trial learning – does not require multiple pairings to elicit a conditioned response, learning happens in one
pairing due to the NS/CS being particularly traumatic/aversive. E.g. getting food poisoning from a food and then
being conditioned to never eat it again.
Presenting the CS and UCS at the same time (simultaneous pairing) produces less rapid conditioning.
Learning is fastest when the CS is presented first (2-3 secs before UCS) and is still present when the UCS is
presented (forward pairing).
Learning is slowest when the CS is presented after the UCS (backward pairing).
Conditioning is strongest when :
1) there are repeated CS-UCS pairings
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Learning a process by which experience produces a relatively endearing change in an organism"s behaviour or capabilities. Habituation a decrease in response to a repeated non-threatening stimulus. i. e. when you grow used to something. If an organism responded to every stimulus in its environment, it would become overwhelmed and exhausted. Sensitisation increased response to a repeated stimulus. i. e. when you start to get annoyed at something. Pavlov"s pioneering research pavlov found that if he continuously paired a tone with food, the dogs would eventually start to salivate to the sound of the tone instead. Acquisition refers to the period during which a response is being learned. In this stage, the tone is a neutral stimulus" something which has no effect on the subject. The dog food is an unconditioned stimulus" (ucs) something which elicits a reflex action. The salivation to the food is an unconditioned response" (ucr) something which is a reflex action, prompted by the ucs.
