Classical Conditioning Paper Psy 390: Associative Learning

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Classical Conditioning Paper MarQuise Simon University of Phoenix Psy 390 Robert Hicks August 11, 2014 In the field of psychology there are various forms of learning. Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning that Ivan Pavlov had stumbled across by mistake. Classical conditioning deals with five important principles known as the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned response and extinction. In the paragraph below it will give the definition of classical conditioning as well as describe and explain the theory of classical conditioning. Then a scenario will be use to explain an example of classical conditioning. In the 20th century, Ivan Pavlov had unexpectedly come across the philosophy of classical conditioning, when he was researching his dogs’ digestion system. During his research he realized that the dogs tend to salivate to the sight of food, so then he paired the food with a bell to see if the…show more content…
Then in 1921, John Watson had expanded Pavlov’s research and began to study humans, his first testing was the little Albert experiment. Watson’s purpose of the Little Albert experiment was to see if he could condition the infant to fear an animal. Classical conditioning is considered to be an automatic or reflexive form of learning. Classical Conditioning can be defined as a learning technique that takes place when two stimuli are continuously placed together causing a response which originally bought about the following stimulus is ultimately drawn out due to the initial stimulus (Olson, Hergenhahn, 2013). There are four elements that are associated with classical conditioning. These key elements are unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response and conditioned
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