PSYC10006 Chap.1 Classical Conditioning: Pavlov, Watson and Preparedness
Classical Conditioning: Pavlov, Watson and Preparedness
Classical conditioning is associative learning: a cue that meant nothing comes to trigger a reflex because it reliably arrives just before something biologically significant. The whole of this first module rests on five labels, and the difficulty is that the same physical event changes label depending on where you are in the procedure.
A tone is a neutral stimulus before the pairing and a conditioned stimulus after it, without changing in any way; salivation is an unconditioned response when food produces it and a conditioned response when the tone does.
Once the labels are secure, the module adds five phenomena that follow acquisition, the behaviourist programme that grew out of the method, and two limits on the whole picture: biological preparedness, which says not every pairing can be learned, and Preparatory Response Theory, which says the learner is acquiring information rather than having a reflex rewired.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Why prediction is worth learning: cues that signal reward or danger let an organism prepare
- 02
The five labels, and the two moments at which one of them flips
- 03
The three-phase structure of a conditioning study, and why phase one is the control
- 04
Acquisition: the conditioned response rises across early trials and then plateaus
- 05
Stimulus generalisation, and why the response weakens as similarity drops
- 06
Stimulus discrimination, and the fact that it is trained rather than assumed
- 07
Extinction, spontaneous recovery and rapid reacquisition on one time course
- 08
Why recovery and fast relearning show extinction is new learning, not erasure
- 09
Behaviourism: observable stimuli and responses only, and its position on nature and nurture
- 10
A conditioned emotional reaction in a human infant, and how it generalised
- 11
Biological preparedness: taste with illness is learned in one trial, taste with pain is not
- 12
Stimulus substitution against Preparatory Response Theory, and the observation that splits them
Attach the five labels to an unfamiliar scenario
- 1Locate the innate pairing. Food requires no learning history to produce approach and feeding behaviour, so food is the unconditioned stimulus.
- 1Name its response. The behaviour food itself produces is the unconditioned response. Everything else is labelled relative to this pair.
- 1Establish that the cue was neutral. In week one the sound produced a head turn and nothing more, which is an orienting response rather than a reflex. That is what qualifies the sound as a neutral stimulus at the start, and answering that the sound already had an effect and so was not neutral is the trap here.
- 1Name the flip. Once the cat runs to the kitchen on the sound alone, the sound is a conditioned stimulus.
- 1Name the response it now produces. The approach elicited by the sound alone is the conditioned response, and it may look identical to the unconditioned response; only the elicitor has changed.
Key terms
- Orienting response
- The shift of attention a neutral cue can produce before any conditioning has occurred. It is not a reflex, which is why a cue that draws attention still counts as neutral and why noticing a cue is not evidence that it has been conditioned.
- Spontaneous recovery
- The reappearance of a conditioned response after a delay following extinction, usually weaker than the original. Together with fast relearning it is the reason extinction is understood as a second, inhibitory association rather than as erasure.
- Biological preparedness
- The evolutionary predisposition to learn some cue-outcome pairings quickly and others poorly or not at all. It is demonstrated by a comparison rather than a single result: taste with illness is acquired in one trial while taste with pain is not.
- Preparatory Response Theory
- The account in which the conditioned stimulus supplies information that lets the learner prepare for what is coming. Its discriminating prediction is that the conditioned response need not match the unconditioned response, and often does not.
- Stimulus discrimination
- Responding only to the specific trained cue and not to similar ones. It is produced by presenting the similar cues without the unconditioned stimulus, so the generalised responding extinguishes.
Classical Conditioning: Pavlov, Watson and Preparedness FAQ
How do I stop mixing up the unconditioned and conditioned response?
Do not ask what the behaviour is; ask what produced it in that sentence. If the trigger is the innately significant event the response is unconditioned, and if the trigger is the cue that merely predicts it the response is conditioned. The behaviour itself is often identical in both cases, so it never settles the answer.
Does extinction erase the original learning?
No, and the module gives two observations that force that conclusion. The response returns on its own after a delay, and re-pairing the two stimuli restores it far faster than the original learning took. Neither would happen if the association had been removed, so extinction is understood as a second, inhibitory meaning learned for the same cue.
Is a fear that generalises to new objects still classical conditioning?
Yes. Generalisation is one of the five phenomena the module lists, and it means a response also occurs to stimuli resembling the trained cue, weakening as the resemblance drops. A fear spreading to a similar-looking object is the same effect demonstrated in a human rather than a separate mechanism.
Which theory should I use if a question describes an animal freezing?
Check whether the scenario also reports what the unconditioned stimulus produced. If the conditioned and unconditioned responses differ in form, that favours Preparatory Response Theory, because stimulus substitution predicts they should match. If the unconditioned response is never reported, the question is probably about terminology instead.
Assessment move
Build the five labels into a reflex before anything else, because every question in this area depends on them and most marks lost here are labelling errors rather than conceptual ones. Take three scenarios you have not seen, write the innate pair first in each, and only then work outward to the cue; starting from the cue is what produces answers with the two stimuli swapped.
Next, learn the five phenomena as one picture rather than five definitions, since four of them sit on a single time course and the shape is easier to hold than the list. For the two theories, memorise the single observation that separates them rather than both accounts in full: whether the conditioned response matches the unconditioned one.
And practise stating preparedness as a comparison, naming both cells you are contrasting, because a single fast result is compatible with the simple account the evidence is meant to defeat.
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