Learning - Department of Psychological Sciences

Biological PredispositionsBiological PredispositionsEven humans can develop classically toconditioned nausea.The bright and noisy water studies.Garcia showed that the durationbetween the CS and the US may belong (hours), but yet result inconditioning. A biologically adaptiveCS (taste) led to conditioning and notto others (light or sound).John GarciaCourtesy of John Garcia2526Pavlov’s LegacyPavlov’s greatest contributionto psychology is isolatingelementary behaviors frommore complex ones throughobjective scientificprocedures.Applications of ClassicalConditioningAlcoholics may be conditioned (aversively)by reversing their positive-associations withalcohol.Through classical conditioning, a drug (plusits taste) that affects the immune responsemay cause the taste of the drug to invoke theimmune response.Ivan Pavlov(1849-1936)27A Clockwork Orange28Applications of ClassicalConditioningTwo Famous John Watson QuotesWatson used classicalconditioning procedures todevelop advertisingcampaigns for a number oforganizations, includingMaxwell House, making the“coffee break” an Americancustom.See also, “Little Albert” experimentJohn Broadus Watson29Brown Brothers• “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branchof natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior.Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value ofits data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves tointerpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get aunitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between manand brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, formsonly a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation.”• “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specifiedworld to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at randomand train him to become any type of specialist I might select -- doctor,lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief,regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations,and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it,but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing itfor many thousands of years.”(1930)305