PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Classical Conditioning, Edward Thorndike, Radical Behaviorism

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Paul Wehr

Document Summary

Classical conditioning refers to learning the results from associations of neutral environmental stimuli with automatic (involuntary, physiological) responses: pavlov"s salivation studies show that we have conditional reflexes where our responses are based on our previous experiences. Unconditioned stimulus (us) a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response in the absence of learning. Unconditioned response (ur) a reflexive response elicited by a stimulus in the absence of learning. Conditioned stimulus (cs): initially neutral stimulus comes to elicit conditioned response (prior to learning this is the neutral stilulus) Conditioned response (cr): reflexive response elicited by the conditional stimulus. To create a conditioned response, the neutral stimulus must precede the unconditioned stimulus by a short interval (< 1 second). Conditioning won"t happen if they co-occur or if the unconditioned stimulus precedes the neutral or if the time interval is too long. High-order conditioning: a neutral stimulus can become a conditioned stimulus by repeatedly pairing it with another conditioned stimulus.