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.