Tag Archives: Classical Conditioning

There is a reason the bed is not called a chair

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In my sophomore year of high school, I learned that the bed and chair are not interchangeable items. Sometime in my tenth grade, something happened to my brother’s chair and I ended up giving him mine. I’m not entirely sure of the incident but that was the end result. The main point is that I gave him my chair not really because I wanted to be nice, but because I wanted to use my bed as a chair and this was the golden opportunity with the perfect excuse that the heavens sent from above. At that time, I thought that this was the greatest idea I ever came up with in my entire sixteen years of existence. I rearranged my entire room and it looked pretty nice. My bed-as-a-chair plan was fun and extremely comfortable. After going online or doing my homework, I didn’t have to move to get back to my bed because I was already in it. This was an act that expressed epitome of laziness. However, this ultimate plan of mine actually backfired because at some point, I associated my textbooks with the feelings of sleepiness.

I am one of those people who fall asleep after lying down on a bed for a couple of seconds. During my-bed-is-my-chair plan I would study and do homework while lying in bed but because they weren’t really fun things to do, I would fall asleep not even halfway through finishing reading or doing the homework. It couldn’t be helped in my opinion because first of all, homework and studying is boring and secondly, if I’m in bed of course I am going to be sleepy. So this pattern kept going and going until at some point, I would fall asleep in class just because I was reading the textbooks I read before falling asleep. Apparently I classically conditioned myself to fall asleep whenever I looked at my textbooks. Classical conditioning is when a person correlates a behavior with an external stimulus that is originally unrelated to that behavior. Through repetition, the person eventually starts associating that external stimulus with that behavior and they become linked. In my case, I linked sleeping to my textbooks. This occurred because every time I read my textbooks, it was while I was in my bed, which is where I fall asleep without any effort. Eventually, my brain associated textbook with sleep and as a result, I would fall asleep whenever I looked at my textbook. My bed was the unconditioned stimulus and the feeling of sleepiness was the unconditioned response. The neutral stimulus was my textbook, but became the conditioned stimulus as the conditioned response to this stimulus was to sleep. I may have struggled to stay away in class, but on the Brightside, I learned that year I got a nickname: the one who is always sleeping in class.

Classical Conditioning of My Roommate

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During class we learned about Pavlov, and his experiments with classical conditioning. In Pavlov’s experiments he was able to pair an unconditional stimulus of food with a conditional stimulus of a tone from a tuning fork. After sounding the tone he presented a dog with food, which caused an unconditional response of salvation from the dog. After repeating this several times, Pavlov was able to cause the unconditional response of salvation from the dog just by the conditional stimulus, the tone. This occurred because after hearing the tone, the dog believed that the unconditional stimulus, the food, would be presented to them.

After learning about classical conditioning in psych 100 and watching a video in class of a kid classically conditioning his roommate, I thought I would try the same to see if I could get my roommate to experience a conditional response from a conditional stimulus. To do this, while my roommate was studying and not paying attention, I would shout “Mint”, and would follow by forcefully throwing a mint at him. When he was hit by the mint he naturally flinched. I repeated this several times throughout the day. Finally at the end of the day when he wasn’t paying attention I deiced it was time to see if just the conditional stimulus was cause the response of him flinching even though the unconditional stimulus was absent. Soon as he wasn’t paying attention I shouted “Mint”  immediately he flinched with the expectation that I was going to throw a mint at him. I successfully was able to classically condition my roommate to respond to a conditional stimulus in just a matter of hours.

Since I only paired the conditional stimulus with the unconditional stimulus for a short period of time and the fact that my roommate is also in psych 100, right after I used the conditional stimulus by itself, my roommate understood what was going on and he no longer experienced a conditional response. This showed me that my conditioning had a very short extinction period. Even though it only worked once, I was able to prove that it is possible to cause a response from a conditional stimulus.

Classically Conditioning Bailey

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I have always loved animals, especially dogs. My family has an awesome female boxer named Bailey. When we first got her she was full of energy and constantly wanted to run around and play. Now she is around 5 years old and isn’t quite as energetic as she used to be. We had always let her sit on our couches, but over the years the smell of dog and dog hair was starting to take a toll on our furniture. When we got new white couches in our living room last year, we decided that Bailey would no longer be allowed on them. At first when Bailey would try to jump on the couches with us we would gently guide her off and say “NO” sternly. This worked when we were in the house, but when we weren’t home we would always find her sleeping on the couch when we got back. To help teach her to stay off the couches when we weren’t home we bought a training device. This device was a pressure pad that you lay on top of a surface and when it senses pressure it gives off a loud beep until the pressure is removed. When Bailey jumped on the couches she would become frightened by the beeping sound and quickly jump off. It only took about three times of hearing the beep for her to not go on the couches any more.

This is an example of learning through classical conditioning. Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, and there are four key elements that must be present and experienced. These are an unconditioned stimulus, an unconditioned response, a conditioned stimulus, and a conditioned response. In this case the unconditioned stimulus is the loud beeping noise. Baileys unconditioned response to the beeping noise was to become afraid. The conditioned stimulus was the couch cushions. Finally the conditioned response was to be afraid of sitting on the couch. Now whenever we are hanging out in the living room Bailey enjoys our company by lying in her dog bed next to the couch.

Post #3-Taste Aversion

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In class, we learned that if someone eats something and then later gets sick, they are likely to avoid eating that food either for a long period of time or forever. This concept is called Taste Aversion. The example in class used was how wolves became afraid to come near sheep after they got sick from eating them. When talking about this, I found a direct connection to my life.
When I was younger and got sick, my parents would give me medicine. The medicine they gave me was cherry flavored and in the form of a liquid. I had always hated taking medicine but would be forced to for the sake of my health. However, every time I took the cherry-flavored medicine, I would become sick afterwards. It was almost an immediate reaction. My parents started to realize that I could no longer take this flavor of medicine and instead gave me flavors such as orange or grape. I would be completely fine after taking those flavors. As I got older, I found myself avoiding anything that had to do with cherries. I would not eat cherry-flavored candy, cough drops, ice cream, or even the fruit itself. I still continue to do this today. If I accidentally eat something cherry flavored, I immediately realize it and have to spit it out or throw it away. It brings back the memories of when I was child and how I got sick from this flavor. I’m not entirely sure if I would still get sick if I took cherry medicine today, but I am so traumatized by taking it as a child, that I do not want to test it to find out. It really does not matter to me that I have this problem with cherry-flavored medicine, because it is easy to avoid eating something of that flavor. I always buy mint-flavored cough drops, I don’t buy cherry flavored candies, and I eat mostly all types of fruit but cherries. I feel as though if I had a taste aversion to something that is more common in food, such as egg (whether it be the egg it self or used in a recipe), it would be harder for me to eat the things that I love. My hatred and avoidance with anything involving cherries has not impacted my life in a dramatic way but I know that is something I will probably never grow out of.

Classic Dad – Classic Conditioning

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Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which the subject develops a response to a stimuli. This was shown through many experiments with animals, the most famous being Pavlov’s dogs, in which he conditioned a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell at a certain pitch. He also performed an experiment on a baby, Little Albert, who he caused to have a hatred towards rats and other furry animals.

An instance of classical conditioning occurred in my house during the fall of 2012 involving my father and my dog. My dad attended Penn State in the mid 1980’s, and has been a loyal alum ever since, watching every broadcasted sports game, and attending two or three football games a year. He lives up to the Yochim name, being a very competitive person. Needless to say, he gets very into the games, which can lead to yelling, swearing, and an occasional pillow getting thrown across the room. My dog, a four year old golden we rescued as a puppy, was trained by my father, who would yell and flick him lightly on the nose when he misbehaved.

During the football season of 2012, we gave my dad a Penn State jersey as a gift. It became a weekly thing for him to wear his Penn State jersey during the games, to show his pride and take him back to his college days. Unfortunately for my dog, this was also the year the sanctions against Penn State began, leading to every win being more vital to prove we were strong enough to get past the setback, causing my dad to be even more emotionally invested in the action. So every Saturday, my dog would happily sit by my dad’s side as he wore his jersey and cheered on the football team. But every Saturday something would get my dad excited or upset and he would yell, causing my dog to sulk away, afraid of being hit for doing something wrong. Soon enough, my dog caught on that when my dad had his Penn State jersey on, he would get upset and yell, which in turn upset my dog. To this day my dog will hide under the computer desk at the very sight of my dad in a jersey.

My dog was conditioned (accidentally) by my father to associate wearing a jersey with him being yelled at and punished. The unconditioned stimulus, which naturally has a response, is my dad yelling. The unconditioned response, or the naturally occurring response, is my dog sulking away to hide. Over time, the conditioned stimulus (originally an irrelevant stimulus) presented itself as my dad’s football jersey, and the conditioned response (learned response) is my dog being afraid of my dad wearing his jersey.

Classical and Operant Conditioning

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In class, we discussed the concepts of classical and operant conditioning.  Classical conditioning involves pairing a stimulus that was previously neutral with an unconditioned stimulus. An example of this theory can be given using my cats.

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For this example, we need a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus. These happen to be the sound of a bag of cat treats being shaken (the neutral stimulus) and the delicious taste of the treats to my cats (unconditioned stimulus).  When my cats were in the room, I gave them a treat and then shook the bag. After doing this many times, they associated the sound of the bag being shaken with the yummy taste of a treat. Now, when I shake the bag of treats and they are in another room, they come running. It doesn’t even have to be the bag of treats. If anything is shaken and sounds at all similar to the treats being shaken, my cats come running because they want to be given a scrumptious tuna flavored snack. This has turned the sound of the treats being shaken into the conditioned stimulus and the running into the room has become the conditioned response.

Behaviorist B.F. Skinner developed the theory of operant conditioning to explain how voluntary behavior is learned. Our textbook explains that, “in this theory, behavioral responses that are followed by pleasurable consequences are strengthened, or reinforced. An example of this has to do with me. Last semester for Educational Psychology, we were given an extra credit opportunity to conduct an operant conditioning study on ourselves. I had wanted to drink more water, so I made it my goal to drink four bottles of water a day. To condition myself to do this, I had to reward myself to reinforce the behavior. I chose my reinforcer to be a West cookie. So, every time I drank four bottles of water in a day, I had a West cookie for dessert. After the experiment period was over, I found myself drinking more water in a day than I had before. This semester I still drink more water than I used to, and this is because my behavior was reinforced enough to make this behavior stick.

Bibliography:
Cherry, Kendra. “Classical vs Operant Conditioning.” About.com Psychology . About.com, n.d. Web. 4 Feb 2014.
Ciccarelli, Sandra K., and J. Noland White. Psychology. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2012. 14. Print.

Classical Conditioning With My Pup Sadie

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Classical Conditioning With My Pup Sadie

Ivan Pavlov is credited with the discovery of classical conditioning, when in 1902, he discovered that his dogs had the unconditioned response to salivate in the presence of food, but could have a conditioned response to salivate at the ring of a bell. He did this by ringing a bell before giving his dogs food, therefore allowing them to associate the bell with the presence of food. Eventually, when he rang the bell without the presence of food, the dogs had the conditioned response of salivating.

My personal experience with classical conditioning stems from attempting to get a conditioned response out of my German shepherd, Sadie. My family and I received Sadie when she was 11 months old. Her previous owners had not really attempted to train her in anyway and she was quite difficult to control, since Sadie was mainly my dog, the job of training her fell largely upon me. I began by training her to be calm by saying “down!” and ignoring her while holding a treat until she calmed down, then gave her the treat. I kept repeating the behavior until she had been conditioned to be calm, I did the same while teaching her to sit, stay, give me a paw, lay down, and roll over. Sadie now has the conditioned response of doing an action due to the newly conditioned stimulus of a verbal command, these newly conditioned responses and stimuli were all made possible by the unconditioned stimulus of a treat.

Another way in which Sadie is classically conditioned is that a previously unconditioned stimulus of the doorbell ringing has become a conditioned stimulus towards her unconditioned response of barking and being a guard dog, this is because the doorbell ringing continuously indicates the presence of strangers, which triggers her instinct to warn the family of the presence of said strangers.