PSY 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Listerine, Operant Conditioning, Dependent And Independent Variables
Document Summary
Reflex conditioning was demonstrated by pairing unconditioned stimulus with a unconditioned response stimulus. The dependent variable was the quantity of 96 salivation trials with an intertrial interval of approximately 189 minutes were followed by 29 extinction trials over the course of three sessions. Data from interspersed blank trials indicated that salivation began to stop and start again. Thus the neutral stimulus became a conditioned stimulus, and the unconditioned response of salivation became the conditioned response. The extinction session displayed the previous reinforcement that was used was no longer rewarding. These results are consistent with the finidngs of pavlov (1927) that indicated that salivation could be altered by using pavlovian principles. Pavlov (1927) found that the behavior of an organism can be divided into reflexes and operants. Habituations are behaviors that always occur if an eliciting stimulus occurs. The stimulus response connection is hard-wired into the nervous system.
