PSY 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Operant Conditioning Chamber, Little Albert Experiment, Classical Conditioning
1 May 2018
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PSY 1010 Exam 2 Notes
Chapter 6 – Learning
• Classical Conditioning
o Ivan Pavlov
▪ Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
• Unconditioned response: an unconditioned response to an unconditioned
stimulus, no learning is going on (dog salivating to the sight of food)
• Conditioned response: a conditioned response to a conditioned stimulus (dog
salivating to the sound of a bell)
• Acquisition: the initial learning of a conditioned stimulus
• Extinction: over time, the reaction to the conditioned stimulus diminishes (ringing
the bell without presenting the food)
• Spontaneous recovery: developing the conditioned response again after extinction
• Higher-order conditioning: introducing another neutral stimulus to elicit a
conditioned response (pairing the ringing of a bell and shining of a red light with
food)
o John Watson
▪ Stimulus Generalization – Little Albert
• Conditioned to fear what was once not feared (pairing small white mouse with a
loud noise)
• Generalization: Little Albert generalized the fear of white mice to a fear of all white
furry items (white scarf, white rabbit, etc.)
• Operant Conditioning
o The key to operant conditioning is the effect of consequences on behavior
o Learning depends on what happened after the response – the consequence
o Learning/associating actions with consequences
▪ Actions followed by reinforcers increase
• Reinforcement (to strengthen/ increase)
o Anything that, when following a response, causes that response to be more
likely to happen again
• Primary reinforcers
o Satisfies some basic biological need
▪ Food (hunger)
▪ Liquid (thirst)
▪ Touch
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