Classical conditioning included a reflective or an automatic response that
transferred from one stimulus to another. Pavlov’s experiments
included how the saliva aids to digestive process. He would give the
dog a meal for sometime and would record its saliva while the dog ate
the meal. Pavlov conditioned the dog to the sound of the bell.
During conditioning Pavlov would ring a bell which is neutral stimulus
and give food to the dog. It becomes a neutral stimulus because it
doesn’t produce any salivation response in dog. He would repeat the
procedure on several times until he started sounding the bell without
food and the dog would salivate to the sound of the bell. The dog
would associate the ringing of the bell to food. The bell has become a
conditioned stimulus and the dogs responds to the bell is called a
conditioned response. Pavlov also found that the basic conditioning
process could be made more flexible by generalisation.
A buzzer with a different tone than the original will elicit the
conditional response if they are similar to the original or perhaps a
tapping noise will probably elicit the salivary response. Also animals
maybe taught to chose between stimuli, to discriminate by conditioning
them to choose. Thus is if presentation of food is paired with
presentation say of a circle shape, which Pavlov was using. The animal
become conditioning to salivation at the appearance of the circle.
However, although different colours of circles can be represented with
food a dog can be conditioned that it only discriminate the others for
the white circle. By reinforcing only the presentation of white circle
stimulus the other circles are not reinforced by the accompaniment of
the food and salivation at their appearance soon stops. One learned a
conditioned response is not necessarily permanent. If the conditioning
procedure is altered so that the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly
presented but without the unconditioned stimulus then the strength of
then conditioned response is gradually reduced until it does not
appear in response to the conditioned stimulus. However extinction is
not a complete eradication of the conditioned response but rather a
learning to inhibit it, a new learning in addition to the original
conditioning.
However most human learning is not based on classical conditioning. In
classical conditioning animals are presented with various conditioned
and unconditioned stimuli. In real life, learning general involves
animal and human interaction actively with the environment. an
alternative procedure based on conditioning is called aversion therapy
and is used to treat such problems as drug addiction and alcoholism.
The aim is to help the patient to develop an adverse reaction to the
stimulus and produces the unconditional response of vomiting. The
medicinal drug or emetic unconditional stimulus is then paired with
the conditional stimulus whish is the alcohol and the two together
acting together produce the unconditional response to vomiting.
Alcohol alone will produce the conditional response of vomiting. The
vomiting is associated with alcohol, but the reflexes are conditioned
the patient cannot stop himself vomiting. Though he may realise that’s
the medicinal drug or emetic that causes the vomiting the association
between unconditional stimulus and the conditioned stimulus is
automatic and thinking about it cannot stop it.
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