This past week during lecture we started learning about, well... learning. We talked about Ivan Pavlov who researched digestion in dogs. Pavlov used an initially neutral stimulus to induce a response. In Pavlov's case, he used a metronome and food. He first started the metronome and then presented food to the dog. The dog began to salivate due to an automatic response to food. Over time, just hearing the metronome caused the dog to salivate. The metronome was the neutral stimulus, the food was the unconditioned stimulus, and the salivating was the unconditioned response. When the dog started salivating when it heard the metronome (even in the absence of food), the unconditioned response (salivating) became the conditioned response. The metronome became the conditioned stimulus.
I found a video of a college student's take on classical conditioning. In the video he conditions his roommate to respond to the sound of a Staples "Easy Button." Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo7jcI8fAuI
In this case, the initially neutral stimulus was the sound of the button, the unconditioned stimulus was being shot by an airsoft gun, and the unconditioned response was flinching. After a few times, the unconditioned response became the conditioned response when he heard the sound of the button. This student successfully conditioned his roommate to flinch at a sound that would normally would not make him flinch.
Classical Conditioning with the aid of an airsoft gun
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