Classically Conditioning my Cat

Classical conditioning is a type of learning founded by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist, in the early 1900s. It involves the association of a stimulus with a response. For example, in Pavlov’s experiment involving his dogs, they began associating the sound of the bell with food. Therefore, every time the bell rang the dogs would proceed to salivate because of the anticipation of being fed. Classical conditioning experiments often involve four key components; an unconditioned stimulus (US), unconditioned response (UR), conditioned stimulus (CS), and conditioned response (CR). In Pavlov’s experiment, the US was the presentation of food and was followed by the UR, which was the dog’s salivating. Now, when Pavlov introduced the ringing of the bell every time he was feeding the dogs, he was slowly starting to build their association of the bell with the food. After repeated feedings, the CS was now the bell and the dogs would proceed to salivate, meaning that the salivation was the CR.

Even if a classical conditioning experiment is fully successful, there are ways that an organism can stop responding to a CS. Extinction refers to when an organism will stop responding to it’s CS. Continuing with Pavlov’s dogs as an example, the dogs will eventually stop responding to just the ringing of the bell (CS).

The funny part about classical conditioning is that it can be done on any organism and is sometimes even displayed in TV shows, like The Office. So, before this class, I never realized that I classically conditioned my cat to associate the sound of his treat bag with a reward of treats. When I first started giving my cat treats, he would always run over every time he saw the treat. Eventually, I just started to shake the bag of treats and he would just run over. So, the US was the presence of the treat while the UR was him running over. Since I started shaking the bag and he started running over, the CS was the shaking of the bag and the CR was him running to anticipate a treat.

Even though Pavlov conditioned his dogs in an experimental setup, it is important to see that classical conditioning can be done in an accidental way. There are several other examples of classical conditioning that can be named, like the fear of doctors as we grow up because of the pain caused by shots.

One thought on “Classically Conditioning my Cat”

  1. I can definitely relate to this post because I also have a cat and never realized I classically conditioned him before learning about this. When my cat is hungry, I would usually grab his food from the pantry and then he would wait next to his bowl for his meal. Over time, he became conditioned to the sound of the pantry door opening. As a result, whenever I would go into the pantry to grab something, he would run to his bowl thinking he would get food when in reality I was just getting food for myself.

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