Please read sections 3.3 and 3.4.
After reading section 3.3, please respond to the following questions.
Section 3.3 expands on the Pavlov chapter and further explores classical conditioning. What are three things that you did not know before about classical conditioning? What do you think you will remember mostly about the section? Why?
After reading section 3.4, please respond to the following questions.
Section 3.4 introduces Watson. Prior to reading the section what did you know about Watson? After reading the chapter what information did you find that may have added to what you already knew about Watson?
Please make sure you turn in your reading exercises so we can give you credit for doing them.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Section 3.3
1) After emitting a behavior of reading this chapter, I learned a few new things about the concept of classical conditioning. (1) The first new thing I learned is the concept of positive contingencies. Positive contingencies occur when an association develops to the extent where the conditioned stimulus predicts the onset of the unconditioned stimulus. This is also called excitatory conditioning. The example of the weather station emitting a behavior of being accurate pertaining to predicting the occurrence of rain was very helpful for me emitting a behavior of understanding the concept. (2) The second new thing I emitted a behavior of learning was that conditioning can occur in a one-time trial. Most researchers in the past emitted a behavior of believing that conditioning could only occur through repeated trials of association, but John Garcia emitted a behavior of discovering that in some situations, only one trial of association was needed for learning to occur. (3) The third concept I learned was taste aversion. This occurs when food is associated with the effects of something toxic. An example of this is when someone drinks too much tequila and vomits, in the future the smell alone of tequila can make the person vomit.
2) I will emit a behavior of remembering the difference between positive contingencies and negative contingencies. Positive contingencies occur when the CS predicts or signals the arrival of the US, and the likelihood of the UR occurring is increased. In contrast, negative contingencies signal that the UR will not be present and/or delivered. The example of positive contingencies of the accurate weather station predicting rain was effective in helping me emit a behavior of remembering the definition of positive contingencies because it is a real-life example. Likewise, the example of Pavlov emitting an inhibiting behavior of the salivation of dogs by showing ellipses in his discrimination training was also helpful in applying the concept.
Section 3.4
1) Prior to reading this chapter, I knew that Watson emitted a behavior of conducting the famous Little Albert study. He believed that humans were born with three basic emotional reflexes: fear, rage, and love. In the Little Albert study, he conditioned a 9 month old baby to fear rats and rabbits by pairing them with loud noises. I also knew that he eventually emitted a behavior of marrying his research assistant Rosalie Raynor. Watson studied hundreds of babies, and disagreed with the idea of eugenics and that humans were limited by their genetic inheritance. He believed that human behavior is learned and not innate (tabula rasa-“blank slate”).
2) After reading the chapter, I have emitted a behavior of learning some new things about John Watson. I learned that Watson believed that there was no dividing line between humans and animals in regards to the study of behaviorism. He emitted a behavior of believing that the basics of behaviorism aren’t different between humans and animals, so results from animal studies could be generalized to humans, as well.
Section 3.3
After emitting the behavior of reading section 3.3, I was much more knowledgeable of classical conditioning as a consequence.
1.) The first new concept that I learned elicited me to read the material even more closely. Positive and Negative contingencies were introduced to me in this chapter. Positive contingencies can be referred to as excitatory conditioning and negative contingencies can be referred to as inhibitory conditioning. These names are pretty straight forward and elicit an understanding based on terminology. However, I was not aware that a positive contingency signaled an increased likelihood that the unconditioned stimulus will occur. A negative contingency signals the likelihood that the unconditioned stimulus will occur is decreased. This concept could be confusing because even though one is labeled as “negative” and one is labeled at “positive”, both are still focused on the unconditioned stimulus occurring. They are different because one focuses on the likelihood of the behavior to actually occur and the other is focusing on the likelihood of the behavior not occurring.
2.) The second concept that was introduced to me in this section is known as discrimination training. This occurs when two different stimuli are used to signal two different contingencies. Pavlov’s experimental neurosis is the example provided in the text. The circle was paired with the stimulus and the delivery of food. The ellipse was shown to the dogs, but without the arrival of food. The ellipse was used at the negative contingency due to the fact that food was never given. The circle would be considered a positive contingency because the delivery of food is viewed as a desirable consequence to the dog. This is what led to discriminate training.
3.) The third concept that will be remembered after emitting the behavior of reading section 3.3 is taste aversion. I have heard of this concept before, but never studied are read about it in-depth as a consequence to my interest. The interesting thing about taste aversion is that an individual that has experienced a less than favorable consequence to a food or drink does not actually have to even consume the item again to feel nauseated. Just the smell or taste of the item is enough to make the individual feel ill. The example in the text refers to tequila, which I believe the majority of people can relate to. I also have a taste aversion to artichokes. For my birthday a few years ago, my boyfriend at the time made me a nice dinner. The dish included chicken, rice, and artichokes. I’m pretty sure the raw chicken and artichokes were prepared on the same cutting board and that is what led to my illness. However, I still associate artichokes and getting sick together.
4.) The thing that I will remember from reading this chapter is the experiment with bunnies. I will remember this because I had not heard of it prior to the reading. Their blinking responses were tested when air was blown in their face. I enjoy learning and reading about animal experiments because you rarely hear of animal testing going on in today’s society because of animal cruelty laws.
Section 3.4
1.) Prior to emitting the behavior of reading the section about Watson I could not remember what he did exactly. I assumed it was about animal experiments due to the majority of the other sections in this chapter to be based around animal findings.
2.) After reading the first paragraph about Watson, the text elicited a remembering response. He is known for his rat maze experiments. I found it interesting that during Watson’s time as a psychologist, the study of psychology was divided into two sections; structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism broke psychology into basic concepts and made it more into a science. Functionalists sided with Darwin and survival. Watson did not reinforce either of these concepts, but instead he believed animals and humans adapted the environment through habit and reflex.
This blog assignment elicited me to read section 3.3, which further discusses Pavlov and classical conditioning. This section reinforced my learning of classical conditioning because there were a number of new things I learned. 1) This chapter emitted the use of the term positive contingencies to describe the prediction of the US by the use of the CS. Further reinforcing this term into my memory is the example of thunder and lighting, and how the lighting is the CS that predicts the thunder which is the US. Later on in the chapter another form of contingency was described: negative contingencies. Negative contingencies emit an opposite effect because instead of predicting the onset of the US, they predict the offset of a US. 2) I also learned that some measure the strength of a contingency not by how many pairings occur between the two stimuli but by how well the CS predicts the US. In other words if the onset of the CS always predicts the onset of the US this will reinforce the strength of the conditioning. 3) I did not know that there were different types of conditioning based on the onset and offset of the US and CS. Being elicited to label different scenarios as one of the forms of conditioning made me realize that it can be difficult to distinguish the different forms from one another.
I will emit the most recognition for the different forms on conditioning such as Simultaneous conditioning, short-delayed conditioning, trace conditioning, long-delayed conditioning and backward conditioning. I found this aspect of classical conditioning to be the most surprising because I never realized that the time between the onset and offset of the US and CS can influence the effectiveness of the conditioning.
1) Before being elicited to read section 3.4 on Watson, I knew very little about his work. However, after emitting a behavior of reading this section I realized that I have heard of his Little Albert experiment I just hadn’t known it was his work. Furthermore, before reading this chapter I have become familiar with the various schools of psychology such as structuralism and functionalism. It was helpful to know a little background information before. Also, the part of this section that discussed phobias had a lot in common with what I said in my topical blog last week. The only difference is that I discussed the extinction process.
2) Most of the information presented in this chapter will reinforcement my behavior of learning about Watson. I learned that he saw structuralism and functionalism as the wrong approaches to studying psychology. He also saw no dividing line between man or brute (animals). I don’t completely agree with ideas but that doesn’t mean they won’t elicit me to learn. I found it very interesting that Watson saw humans as a blank slate at birth. He believed that he could take any child and manipulate their experiences to turn them into doctors, lawyers, artists etc.
3.3) After emitting a reading behavior, I became a lot more informed about topics that I did not know about. Some of these topics elicited me to keep reading because they were interesting, and I learned new things that I already did not know before.
1. The first concept in this reading that I did not know was the difference between positive and negative contingencies. I cannot say that I have never heard of them, because I have, but I did not know exactly what they are, and what they mean to the full extent. Positive contingencies occur when the controlled stimulus (CS) predicts the uncontrolled stimulus (US). The examples that were used to explain this concept were not very aversive to me, which was nice, and helped me elicit more reading. The example that they used was the lightning and thunder example. If you see lighting, you know thunder is coming. So the lightning is the controlled stimulus while the thunder is the uncontrolled stimulus. Yet, is a meteorologist says that it is going to rain, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will actually rain! Negative contingencies are a little different, yet are similar in some ways. A negative contingency states that the likelihood of a uncontrolled stimulus will decrease. I thought this was a little harder to come up with examples for, but I went along with it and tried. I THINK an example that would work for this would be a baseball teams winning. The probability of a baseball team winning will DECREASE if 3 of their best players are sitting out, for some reason, such as an arrest. Not sure if this works, but I thought I’d just give it a try!
2. The second concept that emitting a thinking behavior would be the conditioned emotional response. This was used to talk about studies that were done on rats. I had heard of this topic, but never actually knew exactly what it meant. This was somewhat aversive to me because I was not sure if I was getting the concept, yet I think I do now! After reading it, I knew I had heard of it being used in shock studies, which it what was explained in this section of reading. The conditioned emotional response is something/someone being presented with a stimulus, and then a shock after. For example, if an animal such as a rat was shocked, then it will usually emit a freezing up behavior. The shock would be the uncontrolled stimulus and the behavior would be the uncontrolled response.
3. The third concept that I learned while emitting a reading behavior of this section would be the concept of classical taste aversion. This happens when a taste of something is relates to something else that is makes us sick. The example that was used in the reading was alcohol. If you drink too much of it you feel sick. So say the next day when you see the bottle of tequila you were taking down the night before, you will start to feel sick. Another good example that was used was for chemo patients. I have also heard the same thing, chemo patients should not eat their favorite foods after receiving the chemo, because it may make them sick, therefore they will not enjoy the foods they once loved.
I think that the concept I will remember the most from this section of reading will be the positive and negative contingencies. I think after emitting a reading behavior over that part, I really started to understand, which was pleasurable. Also, a lot of the example that the section showed and the ones I came up with relate to everyday life pretty easily, which makes the concept not so aversive! Also, the research that Pavlov did was interesting as well, which will elicit a remembering response to this section.
3.4) Before emitting a reading behavior of this section, there were some things that I knew about the researcher/psychologist John Watson. I have emitted reading behaviors on him in the past, for other classes. One thing I did know about Watson was his ‘Little Albert” research. We discussed this in my intro class, as long as other psych classes such as abnormal psychology. So I did know some background back his study in behavior, as well as ‘Little Albert,’ yet I did not know as much as the section of the book explained. I knew that he and his research assistant chose a baby that did not seem too scared by many things, yet they tried to put an aversive stimulus on the baby to see if he would become upset. Once they found something that Albert got upset from, they used that to make him afraid of other things. The section of reading explains a lot more, and it makes the reading behavior more pleasurable.
In this reading there were many in depth things about Watsons research and studies that I did not learn in other classes. Going back to little Albert, I did not know that the stimulus Albert was afraid of was loud noises. So once they put a loud noise with other things, such as a rat, Albert would then be afraid when he just saw the rat. Also, I did not know that Watson had an affair with is research assistant, and that they actually ended up getting married (juicy)! Also, I did not know that Watson believed we were born with 3 reflex emotions. These emotions are fear, rage, and love. I thought this information was all very pleasurable, and I did not feel aversive after emitting the reading behavior.
The first thing I didn’t know before reading section 3.3 was that there was a name for taste aversion so strong that someone doesn’t want to eat something after one time. This actually happened to me once. I had an upset stomach, which prompted a behavior to drink some achlker-seltzer. This elicited a very violent response from my stomach, and made me emit a throwing up behavior. Ever since, I haven’t been able to take achlker-seltzer. I will link that memory with the idea of one trial learning to make it stick. The second thing I didn’t know was that emitting a conditioned stimulus slightly before the unconditioned stimulus will elicit the association between the two faster. I had always thought that simultaneous stimuli would work best, but reading the information elicited a surprised response on my part. The third thing I’ll remember from section 3.3 is that there are excitatory and inhibitory contingencies. It was interesting reading that some dogs exhibited one contingency, while others emitted another. This elicited an interested response because I wonder why some dogs had different reactions than others. I think that I’ll emit a remembering behavior on the first thing better than the others because it was probably the most interesting thing to me and the thing that I can easily think of examples for.
Before reading this section, I confess to emitting a brain lapse behavior and not remembering much about Watson at all. I’m pretty sure he worked with animals and he may have been the 1st president of the APA? Obviously he was a behaviorist and I knew he was American. In the dim recesses of my brain I’m thinking he came up with operant conditioning??? Obviously I should have emitted a better remembering response in History and Systems. After reading about Watson, I emitted a duh! response when realizing that he was the guy with the Little Albert study. I also learned that he thought that behaviorism was the end all, be all to getting anyone to emit the correct responses. I emitted a surprised behavior upon finding out that he was indirectly involved in systemic desensitization. I’ll have to emit a better remembering behavior this time, because that elicits an interested response on my part.
3.3
Before emitting the behavior of reading section 3.3 I took a little time to think about what I actually knew about classical conditioning. I knew about the dogs and the different stimulus’s and responses. Other than that I didn’t really fully understand the different behaviors involved. The different things I will emit to memory are: 1. Positive contingency. I never remember talking about this before in any of my other psychology classes. And if we did talk about it I didn’t pay attention. This happens when the conditioned stimulus predicts the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus. As I continued emitting the behavior of reading I realized how important positive contingency is to the classical conditioning cycle. 2. I also learned about discrimination training. This is using two different stimuli’s to signal different contingencies. Pavlov was really smart in doing this because as a consequence it made it more difficult for the dogs. He tried to trick the dogs but still see if they could be conditioned. 3. The last thing I learned was about trace conditioning. This where the CS is presented only just before the US. So the CS is extinguished soon after it is presented and the same with the US.
I will remember positive contingency most from reading this section because to me it kind of ties everything together. It is used during the conditioned stimulus to have the unconditioned stimulus happen. You need positive contingency to predict any other behaviors that will happen after the behavior. For me it is the puzzle piece that holds all the other ones together.
3.4
Emitting the behavior of thinking about Watson all I could like of was that saying about something “Dear Watson”, otherwise I couldn’t really remember much about him. Then after I started reading I started thinking “Duh! I remember talking about him in intro. to psychology,” but I still didn’t remember exactly what he did. So know I have emitted to memory that Watson was the man who started behaviorism. He also did the study with little Albert and showed how people especially children can be conditioned to certain responses. His interest in children and how people function as a whole really intrigues me. As a consequence of reading this section it also imbedded the concepts of structuralism and functionalism further in my mind. I really enjoyed reading about Watson this week and how he contributed to psychology.
Structuralists I kind of view as the 'hard-core scientists' because they wanted to be able to put everything on paper.They liked to have an equation or explanation for everything. While functionalists believed that if an ability or trait existed, then it must have
something to do with enhancing our survival rate. So in my own terms: everything happens for a reason even if we can't explain it, and that's what makes us what we are today. Although Watson didn't really go for either of these it was good for me to learn more about them and she how their different ideas contributed to psychology.
This chapter (3.3) elicited the remembrance of three things I didn't know about classical conditioning. The first is discrimination training. Pavlov paired one stimulus (the circle) with a positive contingency (receiving food) and paired the other stimulus (the ellipse) with a negative contingency (not receiving food). As a result, each time a circle was shown to the dog, he would salivate in anticipation of receiving food. The dogs would not emit the behavior of salivating when presented with the ellipse. Pavlov would then make each stimuli more and more like the other (circle becoming more ellipse-like, ellipse becoming more circle-like) in succession. As a result of this sensory confusion the dogs would either emit excitatory behaviors such as barking, salivating, and agitation or they would emit an inhibitory behavior and become helpless and apathetic. What I found to be especially interesting was that the dogs emitted these behaviors months and even years after the experiment. He concluded that inability to differentiate between the discriminative stimuli results in conflict. The second thing that elicited remembrance was the different kinds of conditioning. The differences are in the times of the onset and offset of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. In simultaneous conditioning, the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus are presented at the same time. In short-delayed conditioning, the conditioned stimulus is presented and then before the CS's offset, the unconditioned stimulus' onset is presented. In trace conditioning, the conditioned stimulus is presented and offset is completed. Then directly after, the unconditioned stimulus is presented and offset is completed. In long-delayed conditioning, the conditioned stimulus is presented and drawn out and before offset is completed the unconditioned stimulus is presented. And finally, in backward conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus is presented first and offset is completed. Then directly after, the conditioned stimulus is presented. The third thing that elicited remembrance was that despite the fact that in order for a neutral stimulus to be converted to a conditioned stimulus, repeated trials are necessary. However, John Garcia contradicted the basic rules of classical conditioning when he discovered that, in some cases, it only took one trial to condition the previously neutral stimulus. An example of this is conditioned taste aversion (CTA). This occurrs when we experience a taste that leads to nausea, vomiting, or illness. The taste itself doesn't necessarily need to elicit the behavior of vomiting, it just needs to be associated with the nausea or vomiting. A common example of this is the taste or smell of liquor eliciting nausea. When I drink too much whiskey I get a stomach ache and throw up. Therefore, whenever I smell whiskey my stomach starts to hurt. It only took one experience for me to associate whiskey with nausea.
One thing I will remember will be the multiple methods of conditioning with different onset and offset times of the US and CS. The importance of timing to conditioning is extremely important to treatment efficacy.
Before emitting the behavior of reading this chapter (3.4) I knew a few things about Watson. I was aware of the Little Albert study that resulted in generalized fear to any stimuli similar to a white rat. I read later on in the chapter that Watson had no real intentions of desensitizing Little Albert and ridding him of his newly learned fears. Turns out the study conducted by Mary Cover Jones to extinguish fear in a little boy worked. Mary Jones used a procedure called systematic desensitization. Systematic desensitization can be paired with relaxation techniques to help eliminate phobias.
I learned that Watson rejected both the structuralists' and functionalists' views and believed that we adapt to our environment through reflexes and habits. To Watson, there was no divide between humans and animals. He believed we could all learn from each other.
Section 3.3
One thing that I did not know before emitting a reading behavior was the term inhibitory conditioning which is the arrival of the conditioned stimulus inhibits a behavior rather than inducing it. Another thing I did not know before emitting a reading behavior was that “rabbit restrainers” are actually manufactured to hold a rabbit in place in order to perform research on the rabbit. I also did not know the different terms for when the conditioned stimulus is presented such as trace conditioning, simultaneous conditioning, short-delayed conditioning, long-delayed conditioning, and backward conditioning.
I will remember inhibitory conditioning the most after emitting a reading behavior because this term is new and it is more difficult to think of examples for this type of conditioning.
Section 3.4
Before emitting a reading behavior of section 3.4, I knew that Watson had an affair with his assistant which led to the divorce of his first wife and the marriage to his assistant. I also knew that Watson performed the “Little Albert” study which conditioned “Little Albert” to fear white, furry objects. I also knew that Watson was never able to desensitize “Little Albert’s” fear. I knew that Watson did some work with advertising and that he was fired from a university after having his affair.
After emitting a reading behavior, I learned that Watson studied the amount of myelination and the ability to learn in rats. I also learned that Watson did not think that there was a difference between man and animal; that is if you understood the behavior of one then it could be applied to the other.
In section 3.4, I found it interesting that Watson started off studying myelination and the ability of rats to learn for his graduate studying. I learned from this section that this was the subject of his dissertation in graduate school. I find that to be really interesting for a couple of reasons. For one, I feel like brain structure and its influence on learning was not as popular as it is today so it is interesting that Watson chose to study it at such a young age. I also found this interesting because it seemed that Watson really switched schools of thought. At first, it seemed like he was leaning towards a more biologically centered few and then he switched (and was very influential) in behavioral psychology.
I also found Watson's ideas about the similarities between animal and man to be very interesting. I agree that to some degree we are able to learn a lot about human psychology from animals. There are a lot of structures in animals' brains that are very similar to that of humans. However, I disagree that the difference between animals and humans should be entirely disregarded. While humans share many characteristics with animals such as communication, tool use, etc., I still feel like there are very defining differences which are emotional response, higher degree of planning, and reflection. I think that there was such a fight to get away from introspection that Watson ignored some key differences. I think it would be interesting to see how Watson's views would change if he lived in a different time.
In section 3.3, I thought that the time in which the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus was presented paired nicely with schedules of reinforcement that we learned about previously. The timing in which the unconditioned or conditioned stimulus was presented effected how effective the conditioning was which is very similar to schedules of reinforcement. It is fairly easy to determine which type is most effective after you understand the principles of classical conditioning. Trace conditioning is the most effective type and it is when the conditioned stimulus (previously neutral stimulus) is introduced and then terminated right before the unconditioned stimulus is introduced and then terminated. It is very logical that this is the most effective type because it allows the organism to make an association between the CS and the US in the way that the CS precedes the US. It is also logical that backward conditioning which is when the US is introduced and then terminated before the CS in introduced and terminated is not very effective because the CS is neutral until associated with the US. Since the CS is presented after the US, the organism probably would not pay much attention to the CS.
3.3 Classical Conditioning- Advanced Principles
Three things I remembered from this section was what Robert Rescorla did with Pavlov’s research by opening it up into the contingency theory. This could be broken down into two subgroups, one of which is called positive contingency which is an indicator that the conditioned stimulus causes or predicts that the unconditioned stimulus will appear. This would occur if we had a weather man who was awesome at predicting the weather and was 100% spot on when he said it was going to rain. The other subgroup is negative contingency indicates that the unconditioned response will be absent. This would be like if you show a triangle to a dog when you only give it a treat when you show it a circle; at the same time this would be an example of experimental neurosis, or discrimination, which leads perfectly into my next point. The second thing which I remembered from this chapter was the importance of discrimination when it comes down to behavioral modification. This could, yet again, tie back into having a well defined target behavior. Pavlov did this with his dogs with ellipses and circles and made them nearly indistinguishable which made the dogs go nuts because they didn’t know how to behave, poor pups. I thought it was also interesting that some of the dogs exhibited excitatory behavior, barking, chewing, being agitated, while others would act helpless and cower, exhibiting an inhibitory response, when the stimuli were too hard to distinguish. I wonder if it is a personality difference in dogs that caused this or some other factor. The third thing that I remembered from the chapter was the model of Conditioned Emotional Response(CER) which is pairing an unconditioned stimulus with a conditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response to the paired stimuli. The example that we had to work through, with Jeff being very sensitive to the word ‘smile’ I thought was an excellent example of this kind of classical conditioning.
One thing I remembered about this section was one of the diagrams that made it pretty clear on how Conditioned Emotional Response works before, during and after the process has been completed. At first they are two separate behaviors but through a succession of combining a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus they are seen to be the same thing or seen as one having a direct correlation with the other. Then the subject thinks that if they experience on of the stimuli then the other is probably right on the way. After this has been accomplished then you can take away the unconditioned stimulus and leave the neutral stimulus because the subject will act the same way to the neutral stimulus as they would to the unconditioned. Very clear picture and I’m definitely a hands on learner/visual.
One thing that I didn’t like, or more so, remain confused about is the graphs of CS and US. As I am typing this I am starting to connect the dots though. Because they are on two separate lines they are two different behavioral lines. Therefore one item is a conditioned stimulus which in turn sparks an unconditioned stimulus to occur, depending on the kind of conditioning. I kind of skimmed over this portion of the text but now this makes a little more sense with the activities we were to complete.
3.4 Watson
Three new things I learned about classical conditioning were as follows. Not just from the reading that we had to do but because I was able to relate it back to my History and Systems of Psychology class that I took last year with Otto. In response to many of the writing prompts I was able to recall from memory what the significance of Watson’s Behaviorist Manifesto. First, I remembered that he had first presented it at some big conference but he was generally ignored as being a part of some wing-ding psychologist theory. It is not as though his ideas in behaviorism swept the nation overnight, but in the end he did have a very large following. In addition to all of this I remembered that the big players at the time were the fundamentalists and the structurists. The fundamentalists were huge Darwin guys who sought to tie everything back to evolution and to find a purpose for psychological features this way. Structurists sought to break everything down to their very basic elements, like the elements in chemistry, and then build them up from there to clearly define human nature. Both of these sought to use introspection, which was an unreliable, unscientific form of research but it was all they had at the time, so that is what they used. Watson simply rejected all of this because, for him, it wasn’t scientific because it could rarely be replicated and physically observed. For Watson, humans were simply very complex animals in the way they behaved but ultimately they could be broken down into three simple emotions; fear, anger, and love. And of course, in addition to all of this I remembered the scandals that took place with Watson, from his torture of Little Albert to his affair and ultimately landing in the advertisement business.
One thing I remembered from this section was the bit dedicated to systematic desentization and how that can work with phobias. My example dealt with clowns because I freaking hate clowns. With the makeup on you cannot really tell what emotion they are displaying or who they really are, and the fact that I have seen way too many horror movies probably doesn’t help at all. I am not brave enough to follow the plans for systematic desentization to clowns so I will simply live with my irrational fear because, like in the case of fearing F-5 tornados in Cali is survivable because you don’t deal with them, I don’t deal with clowns on an everyday basis…or do I?
Well, I’m just assuming that I’m jumping on the bandwagon with really not liking Watson’s lack of a moral compass. This just goes to show that people, no matter their great contributions to society are still at their very basics, human, and thus imperfect. Clearly if he were to propose his Little Albert study to the ethical board he would be stripped of his license and hopefully banned from being within a ½ mile of any children. Interestingly, though sad, is the fact that if he lived in the 21st century and was involved in an affair with a research assistant it would simply be shrugged off as just another one for the tallies, a dime a dozen. Man, we live in a corrupt society.
**3.3
After emitting a reading behavior of section 3.3, I found that I did not know many things about classical conditioning.
1. I learned that in classical conditioning shock methods were used on rats.
2. The second thing I learned about classical conditioning for human research, use aversive techniques such as putting hands in ice, and electrical shock.
3. The third final new knowledge I learned about classical conditioning was the different types of conditioning such as trace conditioning. Trace conditioning is when the CS is presented slightly before the US.
I will remember the different experimental methods used on animals and humans in conditioning. I will remember these methods because I believe that the research was very aversive for not just the animals, but for the human subjects as well. I really found it interesting that they used rabbits as animal test subjects.
**3.4
Before emitting a reading behavior for section 3.4 I knew that Watson believed that children can be “anything” through using behavior modification techniques. Also, I remember Watson believed that nurture was the basis of a person’s behavior rather than nature.
After emitting a behavior of understanding and reading in this section I found more intriguing information about Watson by watching the youtube videos on his studies. The Little Albert study was one of the studies I found to be very interesting because he used different instruments to reveal the 3 basic reflex emotions of fear, rage, and love. I personally did not like the instruments used to “scare” the 9 month old child used in the Little Albert study due to many ethical questions. However, I did find it very interesting that Watson did not consider any biological reasoning to behavior and stressed on environment stimuli.
Section 3.3: Three things I did not know about classical conditioning before are first, about the negative and positive contingencies. I don’t think I knew much about them and even now, this concept is kind of hard to grasp. A positive contingency is when the conditioned stimulus signals the unconditioned stimulus arrival. The negative was the part that was a little difficult to understand.
The second thing I didn’t know was the excitatory and inhibitory conditioning. It is somewhat self-explanatory, with excitatory, the reaction will be done after the stimulus. With inhibitory, the reaction will be resisted after the stimulus.
The third thing was the conditioned emotional response. Which is also called the CER. This is when there is a presentation is a stimulus and then a shock. Then, the stimulus will then cause the Conditioned response of freezing up.
The thing I will remember most are the examples we emitted the behavior of answering. They were great practice and I got to apply the information I read to the real life situations. These were a great way to really think a lot about the classical conditioning.
Section 3.4: Before reading this section, I didn’t know much about Watson at all. Only a bit about the Little Albert study, but it had been a couple years so it was a little foggy before. Some new things about Watson that I didn’t know were the myelination of the rats. I had no idea he did work with this. This is something I am learning about [myelination], in my other biology class and it’s interesting that a psychologist dealt with this. I find it interesting that he said basically that he could make a child into anything possible. This I believe is somewhat true, with a little bit of untruth. I think that it is definitely possible to shape a child, but it’s hard when children are very much affected by their classmates. I also refreshed my memory about the systematic desensitization; which is helpful in overcoming phobias. This is a great thing to be able to use in every day life!
3.3
Three things I didn't know about classical conditioning before are:
1) Positive contingencies and negative contingencies. I think that when learning about this in the past I remember hearing about them or maybe even learning about them slightly but I do not recall learning about them in any kind of depth.
2) That positive contingencies were called excitatory conditioning and negative contingencies were called inhibitory conditioning. I simply didn't know this because I wasn't very familiar with the positive and negative contingencies themselves.
3) The order of presentation matters in classical conditioning. I guess I just wouldn't have thought about it in that way.
I think that I will remember the discriminative training the most out of this chapter. Just reading the way he did use this kind of training was interesting to me and I think that it is something that I will be able to relate back to this section and Pavlov.
3.4
Prior to reading this section, my knowledge on Watson was limited in the fact that I couldn't pick it out and tell you that it was from Watson. As usual, I know I have learned about him before, but keeping all of the different people I have learned about in the past is hard so this was really a refresher on what information really belonged to Watson. I did however know that Watson was responsible for the Little Albert study because that is a very common example used in almost every psych class you can take.
After reading the chapter, there were quite a few different things that helped me keep my information straight. I found that Watson was using the Little Albert study to show that fear, rage, and love COULD be conditioned into something more. I also was refreshed on the fact that systematic desensitization is really good for helping someone get over a phobia they have, and that it is a combination of relaxation, visualization and taking small steps towards confronting the particular fear. I actually find systematic desensitization very interesting and would love to see it in the works and to see the results it would give.
After emitting a reading behavior for section 3.3 I learned that the majority of the material in this section was completely new to me. 1.) I didn't know about conditioned emotional response which involves the introduction of a stimulus followed by a shock. I thought it was interesting how a conditioned stimulus, such as a tone, will eventually elicit the same response as a unconditioned stimulus, such as a shock, from an animal. Over time the animal will emit the same behavior for both stimuli. 2.) I also didn't know about the order of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. It makes sense that it matters in what order they are presented. I learned that most conditioning is considered trace conditioning, which is when the conditioned stimulus is presented before the unconditioned stimulus. I found spontaneous conditioning, where both the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are presented at the same time in order to elicit a response, and I learned about backwards conditioning, where the unconditioned stimulus is presented before the conditioned stimulus. 3.) Conditioned taste aversion also elicited a learning behavior from me. This is when a specific taste is associated with an aversive consequence, such as vomiting. I think this concept, conditioned taste aversion, will be easiest to remember because it is relatable. For the longest time I couldn't drink orange juice because I used to mix it with vodka and one night drank way too much and as a consequence, got sick. After that just the sight or smell of orange juice would make me nauseous.
Before emitting a reading behavior for section 3.4 I knew a few facts about John Watson. I knew he was considered the father of behaviorism, he, along with his assistant at the time Rosalie Rayner, conducted what has become known as the Little Albert experiment, in which they conditioned a boy to be afraid of rats and other white furry object by pairing their presence with loud noises, Watson eventually married his graduate assistant, Rosalie Rayner, and had kids, and didn't believe in emitting that much affection towards children, including his own. I knew everything about Watson in this section, only because it was presented in my history and systems class last semester. However, I was unaware of the desensitization research behavior emitted by Mary Cover Jones. I think it is interesting to know that our fears can be desensitized gradually through systematic desensitization. I also found the information about not being afraid while we're eating interesting as well.
Throughout section 3.3, I discovered several things in which I wasn't previously aware of. First, I definitely understand how Conditioned Emotional Response (CER) works now! When we experience something (CS), and the consequence (CR) is consistent, we begin to recognize and predict consequences to the experience (CS), and we become conditioned to respond in a particular way (CR). When you add an unconditioned stimulus into the mix, that response (UR) becomes that much stronger. After so many times of associating the CS with the US, eventually the US becomes the CS and elicits a UR. The photos/diagrams also helped in putting together the process of CER.
Another things I learned from reading this section is the types of testing they conduct on animals and humans. I wasn't really aware of the kinds of devices and mechanisms psychologists use for testing. For example, the rabbit cage used for holding it completely still - I literally thought it was a joke when I first glanced at the picture! But after reading through, it's a tad less startling.
Finally, before reading section 3.3, I wasn't aware of Pavolv's discrimination experiment. I find it very interesting how he would use the different shapes in order to form positive and negative contingencies. With the circle, he would associate that with the behavior of presenting food, while with the ellipse, it was never paired with food. A positive contingency (salvation) was formed with the circle. In turn, a negative contingency (inhibition of salvation) occurred in the presence of an ellipse.
Overall, I will remember the process of CER the most. I believe this happens more often than most realize because, whether conscious or unconscious, we react to different stimuli in our environment according to our past experiences. For example, if a professor walks into the room and tells the students to get out a blank piece of paper and put your books on the ground, your conditioned emotional response would be anxiety or fear of a pop quiz. This is all based on predictive cues tracing back to previous experiences.
In section 3.4, Watson and his contributions to psychology are discussed. Previous to reading this, I didn't know much about Watson besides the fact he studied rats and conducted the Little Albert study. Therefore, almost the entire chapter added to my minimal knowledge of Watson. More specifically, I enjoyed the tidbit on the two branches of psychology that developed: structuralists and functionalists. According to structuralists, they believe in the basic elements, and that if we understand these, we can understand the building blocks of the complex human being. It was very scientifically oriented and used the method of introspection. On the other hand, there were the functionalists. This group were avid believers in Darwin theories and that any trait that existed can be attributed to enhancing our survival. I also thought his thoughts on the human and non-human barrier were very interesting. I don't know if I agree or not, but it is something I'd like to read more on.
3.3
After emitting the behavior of reading section 3.3, I learned that positive contingencies occur when the CS predicts the US, experimental neurosis is when animals can’t tell the difference between stimuli, and that the order in which you present stimuli is important in classical conditioning. I think I will be most likely to remember conditioned emotional response from this section because it seems like such an extreme type of conditioning because shocks are administered.
3.4
Prior to reading this section, I had heard of Watson’s Little Albert Study. In my clinical psychology class, I learned that Little Albert heard an unpleasant noise every time an animal was present, therefore he started to fear all furry animals, which we also read about in this section. Before reading this section, I was unfamiliar with the Behaviorist Manifesto and the concepts of structuralists and functionalists.
After emitting the behavior of reading section 3.3, I realized there are many concepts related to classical conditioning that I have never even heard of. This curiosity elicited me to read this section carefully and remember the new terms. The first thing I did not know about classical conditioning was excitatory vs. inhibitory contingencies. Excitatory conditioning is referred to as a positive contingency as well. This contingency signals an increased likelihood that the unconditioned stimulus will occur. While the inhibitory conditioning, or negative contingencies, signals the likelihood of the unconditioned stimulus occurring is decreased. Another term that I learned from reading this section was the conditioned emotional response or, CER. CER typically involves the presentation of a stimulus followed by a shock. This conditioning method was originally used on rats and would elicit them to emit a freeze up unconditioned response. I found this to seem very cruel at first, but it is also quite interesting. The final thing I learned further about classical conditioning that I had not previously known was the order of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. I learned that it matters when they are presented and in what order and that this is referred to as temporal relationship.
The ideas I will remember most are all of the different conditioning types related to temporal relationships. Specifically, I will remember trace conditioning. This is what most conditioning involves. Trace conditioning is where the CS is presented slightly before the US. I learned from the reading that another way to think of this relationship is the CS being presented followed by the CS being terminated then the US being presented and finally the US is terminated. Typically trace conditioning is the most effective method. This section elaborated this idea and also provided a diagram which was helpful in connecting all the methods.
Prior to emitting the behavior of reading section 3.4, I knew very little about the scientist John B Watson. I only knew about the Little Albert experiment with the white rat and the loud noise in the attempt to create fear. I did not know any specifics or really why he needed to know this information. After completing this reading assignment, I have come out with much more knowledge about Watson and am surprised at how much I did not know.
I learned that Watson originally was working with white rats to examine the degree of myelinization in the brain and the rat’s ability to learn. All in all, he found little to no relationship between the myelinization and brain ability. Watson felt that there was no dividing line between humans and animals. He believed behaviorism could be used to emit applications that would help people and society. I had known the basics about the Little Albert experiment, however, I learned in this reading that the mother pulled Albert out of the experiment a month in and therefore Watson was no longer able to think about attempting to “desensitize” Albert’s conditioned emotional response or if it was possible. More information about Watson that I learned was that he had an affair with his lab partner, Rayner and later went on to marry her and took a new job at an advertising agency. Watson made no original contributions to the field of advertising but he did deliver on some ways that his beliefs in psychology could contribute in applies areas. Mary Cover Jones did a study that actually proved desensitization is possible. She experimented on a 3 year old boy named Peter who was easily upset. She found that people don’t get scared while they are eating. This new knowledge led to the concept of systematic desensitization which is used all of the time today through many different relaxation methods.
3.3-
The first thing that I did not know before about classical conditioning is positive contingencies. A positive contingency occurs when the CS predicts or signals the arrival of US. I really liked the thunder and lightening example. The flash of lighting predicts that the sound of the thunder will soon arrive.
The second thing that I did not know about is experimental neurosis. I knew somewhat of what it entailed, but I did not know the word experimental neurosis. In this, Pavlov would use such things as shapes to develop a positive contingency. In the case of Pavlov's dogs, this contingency is that the shape would elicit the salvation in the dogs, then treating them with food. After doing positive contingencies, he would do his experiments in negative contingencies. By doing this, he would show the dog a shape that would elicit salivation, but would never reward the dog with food. This would then inhibit salivation.
The third thing that I did not know about is discrimination training. This also is along the lines of experimental neurosis, but is used in a way of trickery to inhibit the animal from knowing when to salivate. By doing this, Pavlov showed the dog two similar shapes confusing it. If the dog was able to discriminate between these shapes, Pavlov would then make the task more difficult. The dog's nervous system would then become confused and the dog would not know whether to salivate or inhibit salivation.
The one thing that I will remember most about this chapter is the types of conditioning. I'm not remembering these because they came easily to me; rather I am remembering them because I had so much trouble with them. I feel like the text is not clear in explaining them. Besides this, on a better note, I will remember is that conditioning in humans can be learned through eye blinking as well as electrical shock. Most interestingly though, one method is putting a humans hand in ice water.
3.4
Basically I knew a lot about Watson and his Little Albert study. I knew that he had taken a young child and presented him with fuzzy creatures or anything fuzzy for that matter. I knew that he was presented with a rather aversive stimuli, which was the hammer striking the steel bar. I did not know about the plate of small pieces of paper that were on fire. I only thought that Albert was afraid of loud noises. I knew in particular that Albert was afraid of the white rat. I also knew that Watson concluded that most if not all behaviors are learned. As for what I did not know about Watson- I did not know that Watson never had a chance to desensitize Albert. He was removed from the study too quickly in order for this to take place.
I would really like to know more about Mary Cover Jones. She took a 3 year old boy and planned to desensitize him. She had noticed that he was easy to upset. She quickly learned and theorized that people were never afraid while eating.
3.3
I really didn’t know hardly anything about this section before emitting this reading behavior. I did not know that there were certain types of classical conditioning for one. I didn’t know that trace conditioning was when the CS is presented slightly before the US. The CS is presented and then the CS is terminated, and the same happens with the US. I also did not know that Simultaneous conditioning is when the CS occurs at the same time as the US. (I also did not know how to spell simultaneous). The third thing I didn’t know was the concept of positive and negative contingencies. I still don’t fully understand those concepts actually. I get that when a neutral stimulus because the conditioned stimulus, they have a positive contingency. It was just hard to think up examples for the two.
What I will remember most is Pavlov’s use of the different shapes for contingency. He used different shapes and showed them to the dogs when he was giving them food. When he showed one shape, he gave them food but when he showed the other, he gave them no food. Therefore, the dogs would salivate with the first shape (positive contingency) but wouldn’t with the second shape (negative contingency). I’ll remember this part because I had learned it before in a history class and thought it was a very interesting topic.
3.4
Before emitting a reading behavior of this section, I knew that Watson was a very important person in psychology. I knew that he dealt a lot with the behavioral aspect of psychology and had much influence in that area. I knew that Watson conducted the very famous Little Albert study with the child and the rat.
I emitted a learning behavior about Watson, however, in that he stated that it’s okay to study humans and non-humans because all animals are believed to be part of a continuum. I believe that there is a difference and needs to be a line dividing the two. Yes, some studies can be applied to humans, but not all of them. There needs to be a line somewhere. Overall, I enjoyed this section much more than section 3.3!
Section 3.3
The first thing I didn’t really know, and when I say that I mean that I didn’t really think about it before, is the taste aversion phenomenon. This when a person may eat a certain food and then get sick and in the future they stay away from that food because they start to feel sick again if they taste it. I guess it’s happened to me, but I‘ve never really considered it classical conditioning before. The second thing that I didn’t know about is positive contingencies. This is when a conditioned stimulus predicts an unconditioned stimulus. The example of lighting and thunder was the perfect example for me to learn the concept because it’s something we see (and hear) all the time. The third thing that I didn’t know about was Rescorla’s contingency theory. He believed that it wasn’t so much the number of pairings between the CS and the US, but rather how well the CS predicted the US.
I also think that that is what I will remember the most in this section. I just think that it’s interesting thinking about the effectiveness of a CS through its ability to predict the US rather than the pairing. It just has more real world applications than the other.
Section 3.4
Before reading this section the only thing I knew about John B. Watson was that he was the man who did the “Little Albert” experiment. The experiment had “Little Albert” interact with rats; he didn’t have any problem with them until he repeatedly was startled by a sound when the rat was around. Pretty soon he was scared of rats and other animals.
In this section I learned that Watson had a behavioral manifesto that said psychology should be objective rather than subjective. He also said in his manifesto that there is no dividing line between humans and other animals. I also learned that the “Little Albert” experiment led to the discovery of systematic desensitization by Mary Cover Jones. Systematic desensitization is done by creating a list of phobias or fears in a ranked order, a relaxation exercise is then learned, and finally the person uses the technique to get more comfortable with their fears.
The reading assignment elicited me to emit the behavior of reading section 3.3. This reading behavior elicited me to learn more about classical conditioning and its principles. I will emit the behavior of reciting some of the things I learned and will remember from this chapter. The first thing I learned was what positive contingency is. Positive contingency occurs when the conditioned stimulus predicts or signals the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus. The example used in the chapter is lightning and thunder Light travels faster than thunder so the light shows before the sound. This means the light will signal that the sound is going to arrive soon after. The second thing this chapter emitted me to learn is what negative contingencies are. Negative contingencies are like positive contingencies however it signals the likelihood that the unconditioned stimulus will not occur. The example used in the reading is when Pavlov conducted his discrimination procedure that elicited the experimental neuroses. An aversive thing I learned in this chapter is that positive contingencies are referred to as excitatory conditioning while negative contingencies are referred to as inhibitory conditioning. This is aversive because it is hard for me to remember which one is which. The final thing I learned from this section is what backward conditioning is. Backward conditioning is when the unconditioned stimulus is presented before the conditioned stimulus. The diagram in the reading is very pleasurable because it helps show the different types of conditioning in picture form to understand when the conditioned stimulus is happening and when the unconditioned stimulus is happening.
Before emitting the behavior of reading the section 3.4, I forgot exactly what Watson had done for psychology. I knew he had a lot to do with classical conditioning and I hat d watched the “little Albert” video plenty of times before in other classes. After reading the section, it had a pleasurable response because it really refreshed my memory. I learned that in the time that Watson was doing his research, psychology was divided into two groups: functionalists and structuralists. Functionalists believed that if an ability to or trait existed, then it must have something to do with enhancing our survival rate. Structuralists on the other hand believed that if you understood the basic elements these elements could then be used as basic building blocks to construct the complex nature of humans. Watson believed the psychology was the study of behavior and that humans and animals learned to adjust to the environment through habit and reflex. He thought there was no dividing line between humans and animals and humans could learn from animals. Watson conducted his little Albert study to demonstrate how humans learn to generalize the basic reflexes they were born with to a wide range of objects and with complexity of emotions. He wanted to show that emotions could be conditioned into something more. This study has also been reproduced by Mary Cover Jones. After reading this section, I was positively reinforced by learning more information about Watson and classical conditioning.
After emitting a behavior of reading Section 3.3, I learned a few new things about the concept of classical conditioning. First, I learned about taste aversion. This is when food is associated with something toxic, or aversive. For example, when I was younger I ate too much candy corn and got sick off of it. Now whenever I see or smell candy corn, I feel sick to my stomach. The second thing I learned is that you can measure the strength of a contingency not only by how many pairings occur between the two stimuli, but by how well the CS predicts the US. This means that if the onset of the CS will always predict the onset of the US, the strength of the conditioning will be reinforced. The third thing I learned about classical conditioning is the different types of conditionings. For example, trace conditioning is used when the CS is presented just before the US. I will remember taste aversion the most from this chapter. I did not know what this term was called, but I was very familiar with the concept. Now that I know what it is, I can think of many taste aversions of my own.
Prior to reading Section 3.4, I had known that Watson conducted the Little Albert study. Watson emitted a behavior of studying and conditioning a 9 month old baby to fear rabbits and rats. That is all I really remember learning about Watson in my previous classes. What I learned about Watson after reading this chapter is that he believed the basics of behaviorism are not any different in humans than they are in animals. This in turn could mean that results from animal studies could be generalized over to human studies, as well. I also emitted a behavior of learning that Watson believed we adapt to our environment through reflexes and habits.
After emitting a reading behavior from this section, I will elicit in remembering three things of classical conditioning that I did not already know. The first thing I will remember is positive and negative contingencies. A positive contingency is also referred to as excitatory conditioning and increases the likelihood of the unconditioned stimulus to occur more often and a negative contingency is referred to as inhibitory conditioning which decreases the US to occur more often. The second thing I will emit in remembering about classical conditioning is that there are different conditioning types that include simultaneous conditioning in which the CS and US occur at the same time, Short-delayed conditioning in which the CS occurs a little before the US, Trace conditioning in which the CS occurs a while before the US, Long-delayed conditioning in which the CS is occuring until the US occurs, and backward conditioning in which the roles are switched and the US is presented before the CS. Lastly, I will emit in remembering what conditioned taste aversion is. It is when a taste is associated with something toxic and it makes us sick. So for an example, if someone has ever drank rotten milk or eaten old cheese and got sick from it, just the smell alone can make a person sick. The thing I will emit in remembering most about this section is positive contingency because it's very easy to associate this with every day life and it almost always has a CS that elicits an UR. Negative contingency is a little bit harder to understand.
Before emitting a reading behavior on this section on Watson, I knew that he experimented with the Little Albert study examining classical conditioning in humans. I also remember that he wrote Behavior Manifesto and that his key concept in defining this was introspection which is reflection on ones experiences. After reading about Watson, it became more clear to me what exactly Watson contributed to in psychology. I had forgotten about the structuralist and functionalists with the structuralists believing in basic elements as building blocks to humans and functionalists believed abilities and traits were important for survival. After reading about the 3 basic reflex motions in the Little Albert Study, I also remembered learning about it in my History and Systems class. Something new that I learned that I had forgotten completely about was systematic desensitization. This is how people can overcome phobias, through visualization techniques, and relaxation techniques. After emitting a reading behavior, I learned more about classical conditioning and how Watson contributed to it.
3.3
After emitting the behavior of reading this section of the chapter I learned that..
1. There is a conditioned emotional response
2. There are many other types of conditioning that can create different results
3. Taste aversion can be a controlled response.
I think I will remember mostly the information about the Taste Aversion because it is interesting and got me thinking about how we could use that to help those trying to diet.
3.4
I knew about the little Albert study with Watson and how he went about it. I knew that Watson had an affair and was in big trouble because of that and the damage done to little Albert. I also knew he was studying mylenation and how Albert's mother removed him from the study. I knew that he believe that behavior could shape anyone into anything and that he believed that Fear, Love and Rage were our three primary emotions. I didn't know about the method of introspection when a person documents subjective experience. I didn't know Watson rejected both structuralists and functionalists.
Section 3.3
This blog assignment elicited me to read the chapter and learn some new terms. The three things that I didn't know about classical condition before are:
1) Positive and Negative Contingencies. Positive contingency is when the conditioned stimulus signals the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus. Negative contingency is that the unconditioned response won't be delivered.
2) Experimental Neurosis. Pavlov studied that dogs can differ from a circle and an ellipse. The consequence of reading this article was learning about this term.
3) Conditioned Emotional Response. This reminds me of the study where there are people in a room and for every wrong answer, they receive a shock, or so the people that are emitting the shock think so.
I will remember all of the different types of conditioning because there are so many and they were difficult for me to decifer between. Hopefully with more practice, I will progress and be able to elicit remembering the terms.
Section 3.4
Prior to reading this section, I was very familiar with Watson's Little Albert experiment. He elicited a series of experiments to see how humans learn how to generalize their basic reflexes when they were born with complexity of emotions. I was also familiar with the two terms structuralist and functionalists.
After reading the article, I was surprised to learn that Mary Jones Cover did almost the same experiment as the Little Albert, but with 3 year old, Peter. She was focused on seeing if the fears could be removed. Systematic desensitization is used today to help people overcome their phobias. It was also interesting that Watson did not see a difference between humans and animals, but thought that we could all learn from each other.
3.3:
After emitting the behavior of reading 3.3 I learned about some things that I did not know before. One thing that I had never heard about before was positive and negative contingency. I thought I understood it as emitted the reading behavior, but I had a hard time thinking of examples. The example of the lightning signaling that thunder will soon occur as a positive contingency was positive because I think it helped reinforce the idea of what positive contingency means. The second thing that I did not know before emitting the reading behavior of 3.3 was that there are so many different types of conditioning. I found it a little aversive at first trying to figure out the difference between all the different types of conditioning, but then I realized that it all is based on the timing of the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. Another thing that I did not know anything about before this class was the contraptions that animals were put in order to be in the conditioning experiments the animals were a part of. I had always heard about the different experiments that psychologists had done with animals, but I never realized the aversive contraptions they put in. Maybe I just was never paying attention before or I just never heard as much detail about the studies as I have in these readings.
I think the thing that I will remember the most about this section is probably the studies with the rats and rabbits, because I found the treatment of the animals to be so aversive. I couldn’t believe that the rats were put into a cage where they were shocked from the bars on the bottom of the cage. Also the rabbits in the eye blink study and they were put into a contraption where only its head has room to move. I just think it seems sad because I would never want to be in one of these types of studies and at least people who are in these studies are there voluntarily because they are usually being reinforced with money or credit for class.
3.4:
Prior to reading this section I had heard about Watson in other psychology classes. All I really remember about him is his Little Albert Study where he conditioned a baby to be scared of stimulus using loud noises. I also remember hearing something about how Watson had an affair with a student while he was married and had to resign from the school where he worked.
After emitting the behavior of reading this chapter I now know more about Watson. Such as Watson did not believe that there was any dividing line between humans and animals. He believed that studying animal behavior could be applied to humans. Watson believed that we were born with 3 basic reflex emotions, fear, rage, and love. I also found out that the baby known as little Albert was chosen because he was not afraid of much. So that is why Watson used the loud sound to condition fear for little Albert. Also Watson never had a chance to desensitize Little Albert because his mother pulled him from the study. Watson also believed in tabula rasa which means we are born with a blank slate and that we learn everything based on our environment.
3.3:
After emitting the behavior of reading 3.3 I learned about some things that I did not know before. One thing that I had never heard about before was positive and negative contingency. I thought I understood it as emitted the reading behavior, but I had a hard time thinking of examples. The example of the lightning signaling that thunder will soon occur as a positive contingency was positive because I think it helped reinforce the idea of what positive contingency means. The second thing that I did not know before emitting the reading behavior of 3.3 was that there are so many different types of conditioning. I found it a little aversive at first trying to figure out the difference between all the different types of conditioning, but then I realized that it all is based on the timing of the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. Another thing that I did not know anything about before this class was the contraptions that animals were put in order to be in the conditioning experiments the animals were a part of. I had always heard about the different experiments that psychologists had done with animals, but I never realized the aversive contraptions they put in. Maybe I just was never paying attention before or I just never heard as much detail about the studies as I have in these readings.
I think the thing that I will remember the most about this section is probably the studies with the rats and rabbits, because I found the treatment of the animals to be so aversive. I couldn’t believe that the rats were put into a cage where they were shocked from the bars on the bottom of the cage. Also the rabbits in the eye blink study and they were put into a contraption where only its head has room to move. I just think it seems sad because I would never want to be in one of these types of studies and at least people who are in these studies are there voluntarily because they are usually being reinforced with money or credit for class.
3.4:
Prior to reading this section I had heard about Watson in other psychology classes. All I really remember about him is his Little Albert Study where he conditioned a baby to be scared of stimulus using loud noises. I also remember hearing something about how Watson had an affair with a student while he was married and had to resign from the school where he worked.
After emitting the behavior of reading this chapter I now know more about Watson. Such as Watson did not believe that there was any dividing line between humans and animals. He believed that studying animal behavior could be applied to humans. Watson believed that we were born with 3 basic reflex emotions, fear, rage, and love. I also found out that the baby known as little Albert was chosen because he was not afraid of much. So that is why Watson used the loud sound to condition fear for little Albert. Also Watson never had a chance to desensitize Little Albert because his mother pulled him from the study. Watson also believed in tabula rasa which means we are born with a blank slate and that we learn everything based on our environment.
3.3
After emitting a reading behavior, I learned more about classical conditioning than I had known previously. Prior to reading this chapter I did not know about positive. A positive contingency is something that had no correlation, a neutral stimulus and some response, after conditioning, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus and the response is now a CS. For example, when I was younger and had not yet learned to drive, I did not know why my mother was stopping randomly and what the bright red sign stood for. After learning how to drive, I now know that the red sign means “stop” and elicits a stopping response. The target behavior now has a positive contingency with the stop sign. Positive contingencies can also be referred to as excitatory conditioning,
I had also not known about negative contingencies prior to emitting the target behavior, reading. A negative contingency is a conditioned stimulus does not elicit the target behavior from occurring. For example, late at night, at times the traffic light by my high school would not change when I pulled up to the line like it usually does during the day. So usually the conditioned stimulus, the light being red, elicits the behavior of me stopping. Late at night, though, rather than stopping until I see a green light, the conditioned stimulus causes me to only stop shortly to ensure that there are no cops around. This can also be called inhibitory conditioning.
I also did not know that the order of presentation is important in classical conditioning, also known as temporal conditioning. There are five different types, simultaneous conditioning, short-delayed conditioning, trace conditioning, long-delayed conditioning, and backward conditioning. Simultaneous conditioning is when the unconditioned stimulus and conditioned stimulus are presented at the same time. Short-delayed conditioning is when the conditioned stimulus is presented slightly before the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus ends before the unconditioned stimulus ends. Trace conditioning is when the conditioned stimulus is presented and ends and then the unconditioned stimulus is presented and ends. Long-delayed conditioning is when the conditioned stimulus is presented for a long period of time and the unconditioned stimulus is presented right before the conditioned stimulus ends and then the unconditioned stimulus will end. Finally, backward conditioning is when the unconditioned stimulus is presented first, ends, and the conditioned stimulus is presented and ends.
I will remember taste aversion most from this chapter because I have experienced it recently. A few weeks ago I ate out at a restaurant and had a mushroom and Swiss burger and it caused me to be very sick for a few days after. Now just the thought elicits a sick feeling and I will probably not be able to eat one for a very long time. What is a little crazy is that this was my favorite burger for awhile and one time emitting that behavior will cause me to not be able to emit this target behavior for a long time.
3.4
Prior to reading this chapter I did not know that because Watson had a very public affair he was forced to resign from Johns Hopkins University. Because of this, he was not really able to practice psychology and do research. This is very unfortunate because it really was a personal matter and was nobody else’s business, and this affair ruined a career which had a lot of potential. Who knows how much more Watson could have contributed to psychology had this not been such a big deal at the time?
Before emitting the reading behavior, I did not know that Watson was going to desensitize Little Albert from the fear that he had learned through classical conditioning. I now know that Watson was going to do so to remove the fear elicited after Albert saw a furry animal. While the study was completely unethical, it is unfortunate that Albert’s mother did not allow Albert to remain in the study to desensitize him, removing the fear elicited. Not only is it unfortunate for Albert because he has to live with this, it is unfortunate that we cannot know how the study would have ended and we obviously cannot repeat such a study today.
3.3
After emitting a reading behavior for section 3.3, I have obtained some knowledge that I did not previously have. The first concept I will remember is positive contingencies. I guess I knew the concept before this, but I didn’t know what name it had. Positive contingency occurs when the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus indicates that the unconditioned stimulus is going to arrive. The lightning and thunder example will help elicit a memory behavior for this concept. I also learned about negative contingencies which signal a decreasing likelihood that that the US will occur. I understand the concept, but have a difficult time thinking of times in real like in which it happens.
The second concept that will elicit a memory behavior for me is excitatory and inhibitory conditioning. I learned they are essentially synonyms for the previously mentioned concept of positive and negative contingencies. I understand that concept, so excitatory and inhibitory conditioning will also elicit a memory behavior.
The third concept that elicited new me to obtain new knowledge is conditioned emotional response (CER). For this to happen a neutral stimulus occurs and it is usually followed by a shock or something else that is aversive. This elicits the participant to associate the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus which is an aversive stimulus. Therefore, CER causes neutral stimuli to become aversive to the participant.
3.4
Prior to emitting a reading behavior for section 3.4, I really didn’t know much about Watson. I remembered his name, but details for him were a little blurry. After emitting a thinking behavior for a little bit, I recalled he did a study with a rat and a baby. I also remembered the baby was scared but outside of that, I could not recall anything else. This section introduced quite a bit of new information about Watson for me and also reminded me of some information that I had forgotten. I actually had no idea he was associated with myelinization at all. I will emit a memory behavior for this because I remember learning about it in biopsych and have previous knowledge on the subject. I also was reminded how unethical the Little Albert experiment was. I definitely do not think it is right to scare a baby like that, even if it did teach us about classical conditioning. Another portion of Watson’s work section 3.4 elicited me to remember was the quote about the twelve infants. I believe environment plays a big part in development, but I believe people are born with certain talents. No matter how they are raised, they will not excel in an assigned trait or profession.
3.3
Three things that I didn't know about classical conditioning before reading this chapter were excitatory contingencies, inhibitory contengencies, and conditioned emotional response.
One thing that I think I will remember most about this chapter section would be conditioning in humans. The reason I thought this was interesting was because of how they experimented on humans, like how the shock is a stimulus and how it is at such a low intensity yet the body can still pick up the stimulus.
3.4
What I knew about Watson before I read this chapter section was the little Albert experiment. In this experiment Watson took a 9 month old child and conditioned him to be afraid of certain objects. He went on to say that if you give him a child he could make them into anything he wanted with the right conditioning and no outside interference.
The thing that I really didn't know about Watson was his affair he had with a woman that ruined his marriage and got him kicked out of Johns Hopkins University. This seemed ridiculous to me to kind of bring to a halt somebody who was making good strides in the field of psychology.
3.3)
When I emit the reading behavior, I first learn about two concepts: Positive Contingencies and Negative Contingencies. The first one is positive because in the end the Conditioned Stimulus predicts the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus, when is negative, the Unconditioned Stimulus it`s not presented. These concepts can be called: Excitatory (Positive) or inhibitory (Negative) contingencies. Before I emit a reading behavior I didn´t know about their meaning. About the other concepts and experiments I was familiarized with, so I just emit a reviewing behavior.
In this chapter I will remember better the order of the CS and US presentations, because when in the past I emitted a studying behavior about the Classical Conditioning I never totally understand the “image” witch explain the trace conditioning, and I think now I will be able to emit a correct answer if I will be examined about these thematic.
3.4)
After emit a reading behavior of this chapter I knew that Watson did the experiment with “little Albert” and the results of this experiment and about the behaviorist manifesto.
The information that I didn´t know about Watson, was about his personal life and his change to the advertisement field. I just had a knowledge behavior about his contribution in Psychology.
3.3
After emitting a reading behavior of Section 3.3 I learned that Pavlov’s research was expanded upon by Robert Recorla. I was also conditioned to learn about excitatory versus inhibitory contingencies. Even though this is not a new stimulus, it is however reinforcing previously learned ideas that are praised differently showing correlation between conditioning. I was also learned about taste aversion….something I knew about but had never had the context shown to me in such a way. Honestly the thing I will remember most from this section is something simple but was reinforced in a different way (or maybe it was just phrased differently) and that is “to discriminate means to tell two things apart”. Sounds simple enough, but when you usually hear the word discriminate you think about it in a different context altogether.
3.4
Prior to emitting a reading behavior to elicit knowledge of Watson, the only thing I could cognitively recall was the little Albert study. After said behavior of reading the chapter though, I appreciate what Watson did with humans and animals due to the fact we could not do such things now because of ethical standards. What I thought was very interesting was the division of Watson’s time psychology (structuralists and functionalists). If I recall this was when, in history, structuralism was dying and functionalism was evolving in the early 18th century. It could be debated that functionalists were influenced by Darwin yet were refined by Lamarck and Malthus. All in all though I found the section interesting and reinforcing to the thought processes of behavior modification.
1) After emitting a reading behavior, I was more knowledgeable about the different aspects of classical conditioning. One thing I did not know before emitting a reading behavior was the different between positive contingencies and negative contingencies. Positive contingencies happen when a behavior increases the likelihood that the unconditioned stimulus will occur. For example, when you see lighting and then hear thunder you will be experiencing a positive contingency. Negative contingencies are the opposite. This means that the likelihood of the unconditioned stimulus will decrease. Another thing I learned from this chapter was that a lot of different classical conditioning methods are experimented on animals. Although I am happy that we can learn from these experiments, I am not sure I like all of the methods that are being used. I feel like it puts the animal in an aversive situation. For example, rats are exposed to shocks while in operant chambers. This is referred to conditioned emotional response. Another concept I learned from this chapter was the definition of simultaneous conditioning. This explains that one type of conditioning occurs when the “onset and offset of both the CS and the US occur at the same times” (Dr .MacLin, Chapter 3, section 3.3). This is important because It is beneficial to know which type of conditioning is being used to elicit a certain behavior. The one thing I will remember the most about this section is that conditioning can occur even after one trial. The example given in the text was about taste aversion. I know personally how this is. After getting sick after eating lasagna, I emitted a throwing up behavior and therefore I am not able to eat lasagna without feeling nauseous. I will most likely remember this because it has a big impact on my life because I use to love eating lasagna.
2) I knew that Watson was a behaviorist. He believed that behavior was taught. I knew he emitted the behavior of doing research on a little boy names Little Albert. He used an aversive stimulus to get a response from Little Albert. Ultimately he created a conditioned emotional response by using a loud noise which elicited a scared reaction. I also knew that Watson was let go at a college because he had an affair with his assistant. This led him to another career besides psychology. Some knowledge I will remember about Watson after reading the chapter is that one of Watsons students, Mary Cover Jones, did a study on a boy and found out that through several techniques he was desensitized to the stimulus that was normally causing an aversive reaction from the boy. I also learned that Watson believed in a functional view. He agreed with Darwin that traits and behaviors are emitted as a result to survival.
Section 3.3
After emitting a behavior of reading section 3.3 I discovered a few new terms about classical conditioning. The first term I will elicit from my memory is positive contingences which are when the conditioned stimulus predicts or signals the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus. In my own terms this is when something signals a warning such as the example in the reading where seeing lightning refers to the sound of thunder following after. The second term I learned from the section is that the positive contingences can then be used to emit a behavior of a response or foretelling and in some cases it only takes one time to elicit that response. The third term I will emit a behavior of remembering from the reading is discrimination training which is when you use two different stimuli to signal different contingencies. In the reading Pavlov emitting this behavior of discrimination training on the dogs to keep them guessing from his classical conditioning experiment which made them either cower or go berserk. I will emit a behavior of remembering the taste aversion the most because I can relate to how when you taste something so bad even the sight of an object can make you nauseous which is just amazing on what the mind can influence on a aversive behavior.
Section 3.4
Before emitting a behavior of reading the section I honestly don’t think I remember Watson, but I figured he did more tests with animals and came up with a few new terms to add to behavior modifications. After emitting a behavior of reading about Watson I quickly remembered that he was the fellow who conducted the Little Albert study where he did research with a baby and bunnies to elicit a fear response associated loud noises with the bunnies and rats. I also learned that Watson emitted a behavior of stating that there is no line between testing on animals to humans as our behaviors are the same.
3.3
I emitted the behavior of further developing my understanding of classical conditioning by reading chapter 3.3. From this chapter I learned the difference between positive and negative contingencies. Positive contingencies are what happen when we know to expect an unconditioned stimulus after a cue from a conditioned stimulus. I also learned further in detail how Pavlov conditioned a dog to discriminate between different shapes. The final thing I learned from this chapter was trace conditioning. Trace conditioning is when the conditioned stimulus is presented slightly after the unconditioned stimulus. This is the most common type of conditioning, and the one I find to be most useful. That is why I think I’ll remember trace conditioning most out of this chapter because it is one that I will emit the most often.
3.4
Prior to this chapter I knew that Watson was famous for emitting the experiment with Little Albert, and his famous affair with one of his students. I learned the Little Albert was initially chosen because he didn’t fear much. He was testing him in the aspect of fear to see if fear is conditioned. He conditioned Little Albert to be afraid of fluffy animals after it being paired with loud noises. However, Little Albert was always plagued with the fear of fluffy animals, and this research was unethical even though it was a huge breakthrough in psychology. It proved that behavior can be learned, which is something that wasn’t previously thought of.
3.3
After emiting a behavior of reading chapter 3.3. I learned new information on classical conditioning. This chapter elicited a learning behavior in me when I came across the idea that classical conditioning comes for the strength of the association rather than just the number of times it the unconditioned stimulus occurs. I previously had thought that it merely had to be repeated over and over again to become a conditioned stimulus. This led me to the next information that I did not know; taste is a conditioned stimulus. Taste is a good example of how the strength of the stimulus can be a deciding factor on whether or not it becomes conditioned. This is very true in my life. If I eat something for the first time and really thoroughly enjoy it, I want to eat it over and over until I’m satiated. The third thing I did not know was that there are different time lines for classical conditioning. I just find this interesting because everything in psychology is so broken down and technical, I’m not sure if the timing of these matter if the outcome is the same.
The one thing I will remember from this chapter is experimental neurosis. This is quite scary to me and the fact that this can last for years at a time is extremely scary. However you do see this in day to day life, maybe not to this extreme though. If something isn’t going your way like the door that is supposed to open is not opening and you have tried everything in your power to open it, the conditioned stimuli is no longer there and you may go insane for a short period of time.
3.4 I knew of the study that Watson did with the child and scaring them but I did not know how the person was that did this study. So I am familiar with the subject of the study but now about the specifics and what effect it had on psychology.
After reading this chapter, I learned more about what early psychologists thought. The difference between functionalism and structuralism is one thing I had not heard of. These differ in their approaches because structuralism is more based on theories like scientists and functionalism believes our behaviors stem from our need to survive. I really enjoyed the part about systematic desensitization. I was not aware of this before but I can certainly understand where it comes in during clinical psychology. In today’s world we have so many irrational fears that have come up through classical conditioning by our societies. Systematic desensitization surely helps eliminate some of these fears.
3.3
I found that there are such things as contingences, which has to do with associations where the conditioned stimulus predicts the unconditioned stimulus. Rescorla’s contingency theory was something new to me. The theory says a conditioned stimulus must be a predictor of the unconditioned stimulus, and that the unconditioned stimulus should not happen if the controlled stimulus is not present. There is also discrimination training in which conditioned stimulus is delivered under one specific conditioned and not the other. I think the one thing I will most remember from the chapter is taste aversion. I think I’ll remember this because the example that comes to mind for me is having a hangover from a night out. I feel that this will be memorable because it will a useful phrase to describe my roommates on Sunday mornings.
3.4
Prior to reading this section I knew John Watson as the father of behaviorism. I also knew that he conducted the little Albert experiment, which was scrutinized for unethical proceedings. I also knew that he had an affair with Rosalie Rayner. From the reading I added some new information on Watson. I found that he believed only three basic emotions existed in humans: fear, love and rage. I also learned he had a view of people known as “tabla rosa,” a view that believes everyone is a blank slate. I also learned he wrote a behaviorist manifesto, which stated that humans and animals behaviors are the same. He also believes that science should be objective.
3.3
After reading the email/assignment eliciting the reading of this section, I learned a few new things about classical conditioning that I did not know before.
(1) The correlational relationship called positive contingency. Only after emitting the behavior of reading did I learned that a positive contingency is where the conditioned stimulus (CS) predicts the US or unconditioned stimulus. I feel that the weather prediction example was very helpful as well; the weather channels in this area are AWFUL in my opinion which aided in embedding positive contingency in my long term memory.
(2) The second thing that I will take away from this section is the fact that there is a CER, or conditioned emotional response. After taking many psychology classes, I knew that an emotion can be provoked given the proper antecedent, but I was unaware of this term for that behavior.
(3) After emitting the behavior of filling out the text, I also learned that there are different types of conditioning within the umbrella of classical conditioning. I had assumed that the CS always preceded the US by a small margin. The diagram in the text showed me that there are different patterns in presenting the stimuli.
At the end of this section, I think that I will remember positive contingency/negative contingency the most. I say this because of the examples that were given were extremely helpful; the examples elicited the behavior of relating the term to “real life” and that was perfect.
3.4
Prior to emitting the behavior of reading this section, I knew of Watson’s “Little Albert” study, and his view on psychology. I learned this behavior through prior classes and independent studies. I knew that Watson was a behaviorist (he felt that explanations of the psyche are shown through behavior) and that he was most famous for his study concerning fear and Albert.
The consequence of reading this section was that I learned Watson’s original research dissertation had nothing to do with Little Albert. He focused on the myelin sheaths on axons in rats and how that correlated with intelligence.
3.3
After emitting a reading behavior, emitted a learning and remembering behavior of 3 things.
1) Robert Rescorla emitting a behavior of expanding of Pavlov's theories about classic conditioning. His theories included the Contingency Theory which states that conditioning results, not because an unconditioned stimulus (US) and a conditioned stimulus (CS) are paired as certain number of times, but because the CS was a good predictor of the US.
2) Excitatory vs. Inhibitory Conditioning - Excitatory conditions another word for postitive contingencies (CS signals increase in likelihood that US will appear), and inhibitory conditioning is another word for negative contingencies (CS signals a decrease in likelihood that US will appear).
3) Discrimination training is the procedure of using two different stimuli to signal different contingencies. Pavlov used this in his conditioning research.
I will emit a behavior of remembering the different conditioning methods, such as rabbit restraints, operant chambers, and conditioned emotional responses, because most of the chapter focused on these. These methods elicited interest in me.
3.4
Before emitting a behavior of reading this chapter, I knew very little about Watson except that he was known for his Little Albert study, in which he conditioned a 9 month old boy to be afraid of white rats and anything related to them by making a loud, startling noise every time a white rat was near him. After emitting the behavior of reading, I emitted a learning behavior of Watson's behavioral manifesto in which I learned that Watson believed that what was learned from animal research could be applied to humans and that he believed psychology should be objective rather than subjective. I was surprised to learn that, because of an affair he had with his research assistant, Watson resigned from his position at John Hopkins, and position in the world of psychology as well. I also learned that Mary Cover Jones was able to reverse fear conditioning that was used by Watson by using systematic desensitization.
3.3
This section was very informational and interesting to read! Prior to reading this section, I was not very knowledgeable on the topic of classical conditioning. Thanks to the section, I now know what a positive contingency is. A positive contingency occurs when a conditioned stimulus predicts the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus. For example, when the slot machine starts to flash and make a lot of noise, money or chips drop out. The neutral stimulus (flashing and noise from machine) becomes a conditioned stimulus and elicits the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus which is money. I also learned that a positive contingency is also known as excitatory conditioning. I also did not know what a negative contingency is. A contingency is negative when it elicits that the unconditioned response will not occur. A negative contingency is also called inhibitory conditioning. The one thing I will especially remember is the conditioned taste aversion. This occurs when we associate a certain taste with something toxic and extremely aversive. I will remember this concept because we discussed it in my abnormal psych class today. Our professor was explaining that there is a pill called antabuse that makes a person throw up whenever taken with alcohol. Alcoholics experience a conditioned taste aversion whenever they mix this pill with alcohol. I am glad that the concepts we learn in this class can help explain real life scenarios.
3.4
Prior to reading this chapter, I knew that Watson was a famous psychologist that conducted the “Little Albert Study”. Watson used a baby to study the effects of classical conditioning on humans. The baby was introduced to different animals. At first, the baby was not fearful of the animals. Watson then struck something to make a loud noise whenever the animals were present. The noise scared the baby, and eventually the baby associated the animals with the loud, scary noise. This experiment demonstrated classical conditioning. I did not know that Watson was one of the first behaviorist psychologists. I also was unaware that Watson attempted to discover a relationship between myelinization and learning ability by experimenting with rats.
3.3
This section provided a lot of new information that I had not previously known about classical conditioning. It seemed odd to me that I knew so little because I have taken a TON of psychology courses. The first thing I learned was the concept of positive contingencies. A positive contingency is when the CS predicts or signals that the US will occur. A good example the section gave was of thunder and lightning. Lightning comes before thunder and signals that thunder will occur. They have a positive contingency. This leads to Contingency Theory, which states that the number of pairings of the CS and US is not what is vital for conditioning; rather it is how good of a predictor the CS is of the US. The section did a good example of weather prediction. In sum, if the weather guy is not a good predictor of rain, then he does not become a CS for us to grab an umbrella.
Another thing I learned was the difference between excitatory versus inhibitory contingencies. The positive contingencies that I discussed above are excitatory contingencies, while a negative contingency signals the likelihood that the US will occur is decreased. This is an inhibitory contingency. This is connected with Pavlov’s example of discrimination. While I learned the difference, the concept of inhibitory contingency was a little confusing to me. While I understand that Pavlov’s use of a circle would signal the US is going to occur, I do not see how using the ellipse signals that the US will not occur. Isn’t that just the absence of the US; therefore anything but the circle would be an inhibitory contingency? Maybe it wasn’t explained well enough, but I don’t quite grasp inhibitory contingencies.
A third thing I learned was the concept of conditioned emotional response. This is when a neutral stimulus is followed by an aversive US, such as a shock. The typical UR is a tendency to freeze up. Using CER, you can elicit a CR of freezing up by presenting a CS such as a tone.
There are a couple things that I will remember well. The concept of trace conditioning and temporal relationships is the first. It is not enough that the NS is presented with the US, it matters when they are presented and in what order. Trace conditioning occurs when the CS is presented then the CS is terminated directly followed by the US presented and the US terminated. This is the most effective and thus the most widely used. Simultaneous conditioning occurs when the onset and termination of the CS is presented at the same time as the US. Short-delayed conditioning occurs when the onset of the CS is presented and the onset of the US is presented directly after and before the termination of the CS followed by the termination of the US. Long-delayed conditioning occurs when the onset of the CS is presented and there is a short time before the onset of the US is presented, but it still occurs before the termination of the CS followed by the termination of the US. Lastly, backward conditioning occurs when the onset and termination of the CS is presented after the onset and termination of the US. This is simply the reverse of trace conditioning. Very little conditioning occurs with backward conditioning. I did not realize there were so many types of conditioning, which is one reason why I will remember it.
I also found taste aversion interesting and will emit remembering that. Taste aversion is elicited when a certain taste is associated with something toxic enough to make us sick. The food/taste doesn’t even have to cause our sickness, but simply be associated with it. The book gives a good example of a taste aversion to certain kinds of liquor. If you get too drunk and emit something that makes you sick, you will probably have a taste aversion to the liquor you were drinking before you got sick. Even the smell of that liquor can make you ill. I have definitely had taste aversion happen to me, which elicits me to remember this concept much more.
3.4
Prior to reading this section, I think I knew quite a bit about Watson since I’ve had a lot of psychology courses, including history and systems, the problem is that I didn’t remember THAT much about him. I knew that he was an important behaviorist and I think he was the first president of the APA. I also knew that he wrote the Behaviorist Manifesto and conducted the “Little Albert” study, although I couldn’t remember what that study was. I also knew that he did not think that introspection had any place in behaviorism. I also knew that he believed we were born tabula rasa, “blank slate”. Although I did not realize there was a distinction between the animals that different psychologists used, I knew he used white rats.
I didn’t know that he originally studied myelinization in rats. I think this is very cool. My dad has MS so I have studied myelinization quite a bit and am familiar with the concept. I know that isn’t very important to the real concepts, but thought it was interesting.
I was not aware that he felt there was no dividing line between brutes and humans. I think this concept is intriguing if you really think about it. This led the way with much research on behavior as we study on animals and apply it to humans because there is a belief that we exist along a continuum with animals.
Although I had heard of Little Albert before, I never really knew what the study was about. As I watched the YouTube clip about it, I found that I was kind of repulsed since conditioning a child to be scared of furry things could have profound implications later in life. I do have a problem with this as he said that we are not innately afraid of anything, but said the loud noise was a US to fear. He is either saying that the baby was innately afraid of the loud noise, or the loud noise would not be a US and would in fact be a CS to produce the crying and such associated with fear.
I also was not aware that his study led to the creation of systematic desensitization. I have been familiar with this term for quite a while and have always been intrigued by it, so it was interesting to learn that Watson’s work led to this.
I enjoyed this section a lot since I have always found Watson interesting. I realized that there was quite a bit I did not know about Watson and I’m sure there is still a ton that we did not discover in this reading. I wouldn’t mind learning more about him later on.
3.3
After eliciting the behavior of reading section 3.3 I found several things that I did not know about classical conditioning. Three specific things that I learned are as follows:
1. I learned what a positive contingency is. Positive contingencies are when a conditioned stimulus predicts the unconditioned stimulus which increases the likelihood of the unconditioned response. That is to say that if a weather station emits the behavior of accurately predicting rain; I may elicit the response of wearing a rain coat or bringing an umbrella when the station says it’s going to rain. The rain example elicited my understanding of positive contingencies.
2. I also emitted the behavior of learning through the elicited information pertaining to John Garcia. Garcia emitted the behavior of determining that in some trials only one occurrence was needed for a learning behavior to be emitted. Simply, a one-time trial is a form of conditioning contrary to popular belief; conditioning does not require repeated trail participation.
3. The third concept that I elicited a memory of seemed to be the most popular item throughout the other bloggers post, taste aversion. I did not have any prior knowledge of this concept and it was most intriguing to me! This concept is the idea of eliciting an association between food and the emitted effects of something toxic. For example, if someone were sick with the stomach flu and smelled beef stew which caused them to elicit a throw up response. In the future, when someone smells beef stew they become ill and throw up even when they are not sick. This could commonly relate to drinking as well. If someone were to get drunk on vodka and then throw up, the smell or taste of vodka could elicit a throw up behavior in the future.
I will elicit a memory for the various experimental methods used on animals and humans such as: putting a hand in ice or electric shock. I will elicit this memory because I not only found it radical, but also interesting. I was “shocked” (punny) to discover these methods’ use on humans. Aversive methods were used on more than just animals.
3.4
Prior to eliciting the behavior of reading this section, 3.4, I knew nothing about Watson. When I thought of Watson I thought of the famous saying, “it’s elementary my dear Watson.” I knew that I had heard something about his work with children, so I thought, but I still did not know who he was for certain.
After emitting the behavior of reading 3.4 it was easy to add information to the nothing that I previously knew about Watson. The easiest and most interesting thing that I will elicit a memory of is his rat maze experiment. I found it humorous and interesting. I also enjoyed the little Albert Study. I did not realize that it was one of Watson’s research projects, however I had emitted the behavior of learning about this study prior to this reading on Watson. I enjoyed Watson’s take on the ability to manipulate children.
I also liked how the section divided psychology into the two sections of structuralism and functionalism. It made psychology seem to be more science based-specifically in the structuralism aspect. Functionalism also related to Darwin and survival which could be argued as another aspect of science.
I enjoyed most Watson’s reinforcement of biological reasoning. I also liked his emphasis on environmental stimuli. I found this section on Watson very interesting and enjoyable.
After emitting the behavior of reading section 3.3 and being elicited to answer the questions for our blog, these are my answers. I did not realize that there were so many different kinds of conditioning. I also did not know that they still use electric shock on humans, I figured they stopped that because it might be inhumane or something. Lastly, I did not know that the order of presentation mattered in classical conditioning. I will remember mostly the several different kinds of conditioning because of the exercises in the book.
Prior to the reading of this chapter I had very little knowledge of John Watson. I knew that he had done some work experimenting with the Myelin Sheath of the brain and that he was a figure in Psychology but that is pretty much it. I found quite a bit of information that added to what I already knew about Watson seeing as I knew so little. Some of the information I learned was that he was mainly a participant of Introspection while also taking influence from Structuralism and Functionalism. He used the Method of Introspection which involved mainly observing one’s own behaviors and documenting them as they happen. Introspection fell out of focus rather quickly and I think that is why I am not as familiar with Watson.
3.3
After emitting the behavior of reading this section, I learned things about classical conditioning that I did not previously know.(1) One thing that I have learned Excitatory Conditioning vs Inhinitory Conditioning (also known as positive and negative contingencies) these signal whether the UR will occur or not. (2) Another thing that I have learned was about discrimination training. This is getting an organism to discriminate between different conditioned stimuli and Pavlov would gradually make the conditioned stimulis harder to discriminate against, which led to confusion on how to behave. (3) Another thing that I have learned was conditioned emotional response, which was trained by a stimulus followed by a shock and ultimaltely teh stimulus (such as a tone) takes place as a shock. This is the thing I believe I will remember most because I found it very interesting and electric shocks seemed to be used quite frequently in conditioning.
3.4
Prior to emitting the behavior of reading this section I knew quite a bit about Watson from many of my other classes. I knew that Watson a behavioralist and had done the study about little Albert (Conditioning a little boy to fear a rat by getting him to associate the rat with loud noises). One thing I added to my knowledge about this was Mary Cover Jones. I knew that little Albert had never been desentisized, but I never knew about this study that had been done to desensetize against a conditioned stimulus. I found it very interesting that she thought of food and that it actually worked. I knew about systematic desensitization before reading this section, however I had never heard of how it was first studied and found it very interesting.
3.3
After emitting a reading behavior on section 3.3 I learned a few new things about classic conditioning. The first was the concept of positive versus negative contingencies. Positive contingencies occur when the controlled stimulus predicts or signals the arrival of the uncontrolled stimulus. Positive contingencies are also known as excitatory conditioning. In contrast, negative contingencies signals the likelihood that the uncontrolled stimulus will occur is decreased and are also known as inhibitory conditioning. Through the example of the weather person and the umbrella I was better able to emit a learning behavior on these terms. The second thing that was new to my knowledge of classic conditioning was conditioned emotional response and the many different types of conditioning. Conditioned emotional response elicited a sense of confusion in me because I couldn’t discriminate it from standard conditioning. I will continue to emit a reading behavior on this portion of the chapter to gain a better grasp on the term. Trace, backwards, short-delayed, and long-delayed were also new terms that expanded on classic conditioning. Lastly, Garcia and his discovery of taste aversion were new information to me. In taste aversion, only one trial is necessary to learn the association. The example of drinking too much liquor and causing them to vomit hit home for me. Scientists found this hard to believe and for some time, wouldn’t take Garcia seriously. I found that this section of 3.3 elicited the most interest in me and is something I will enjoy leaning more about.
I will emit a behavior of remembering mostly is experimental neurosis, or Pavlov’s work with discriminative training. This elicited a feeling of familiarity from when we covered it in our class discussion about Pavlov’s discrimination training with the circles and the dogs. Emitting a reading behavior on the subject forced me to become even more familiar with it. The terms excitatory and inhibitory will also be something that I’ll emit a behavior of remembering on, again due to class lecture and discussion because I believe it helps me emit a better understanding of behavioral concepts.
3.4
Prior to emitting a reading behavior on section 3.4 I had taken History and Systems in which we covered John Watson pretty intensely so most of the information here elicited a sense of review. I knew Watson came from the behavioral school and knew that he didn’t really believe in introspection. Of course, Watson is most famously known for the Little Albert Study which most of us in the psychology world have emitted some type of learning behavior on. Some of the things I find most interesting about Watson was his social image and life; that of falling in love with Roaslie Raynor his research assistant and his work in the advertising world. Thinking of Watson in the advertising world elicits the image of the television show ‘Mad Men.’ On a sadder note, if I am emitting a remembering behavior correctly, I believe Watson had a few sons that committed suicide and Watson later became somewhat of a recluse after Rosalie passed away.
3.3
After emitting a reading behavior of 3.3 I realized that I really didnt know much about Pavlov. I learned what positive and negative contingencies. Positive contingency signals an increased likelihood that the Unconditioned stimulus will occur while negative contingency decreases it.
I also emitted a learning behavior about aversive conditioning which is when a neutral stimulus is followed by an aversive unconditioned stimulus.
I also emitted a learning behavior about taste aversion. Thats when a taste is associated with something toxic enough to make us ill.
The part of the section that I will elicit a remembering behavior from me the most is discrimination training. This may be due to the fact that its been discussed before. Thats when the researcher uses a circle versus an ellipse with dogs to ellicit a different response with each.
3.4
Before reading this section, I didnt know a whole lot about Watson. I knew he was one of the first functionalists and he was very outspoken. He also had an affair which was made very public so his reputation was tarnished.
After reading this section, I emitting a learning behavior i learned that he never had a chance to desensitize Little Albert of his fear of furry animals because his mother removed him from the experiment. I also learned that he claimed that he could mold any child into any profession of his choosing, through his techniques. Thirdly, I learned that he came up with systematic desensitization which is still used today to help people get rid of their phobias.
3.3 Classical conditioning
There were more than three things that I didn’t know about classical conditioning. I didn’t know what positive and negative contingencies were. I know now that positive contingency is paired with a response or a reward and a negative contingency is paired with nothing. I like the example he used in the book with the circles. Another thing I didn’t know about classical conditioning was excitatory and inhibitory. Excitatory is when a subject being conditioned emits behaviors that are not responses to the stimulus. They would emit all kinds of behaviors. They would go “berserk”. Inhibitory is when a subject being conditioned would just emit a behavior of helplessness. This behavior is elicited and emitted when the task in the classical conditioning becomes impossible. The last thing I learned was what CER means. It means that conditioned emotional response. This involves a neutral stimulus followed by and aversive uncontrolled stimulus. When the conditioning is done over a period of time the neutral stimulus will become a conditioned stimulus. The neutral stimulus will elicit a reflex stimulus. The one thing I think I will remember most about this chapter is how Pavlov used a circle and an ellipse to simulate whether food would be delivered to a dog or not. I think it’s crazy that a dog can distinguish the two shapes. I think that we use discrimination training for many things. We use it when someone is in a bathroom stall the door lock turns red, we use it when we use sound like on the oven it makes one noise when the oven is preheat ready and it makes another noise when the timer goes off. We use it with our cell phones. We have different sounds for different things.
3.4 John B Watson
Before reading the chapter I knew nothing about Watson. I just knew that he had to do something with psychology. After reading the chapter I learned that Watson’s choice of lab animal was the white rat for his experiments. Watson was best known for his behavioral manifesto, his Little Albert Study, and his contributions to advertising. In Watsons talking about his Behavioral Manifesto, he talked about how man is no different than any other animal when it comes to behavior modifications. He believed that humans and animals are all part of a continuum. Watson fit into his own category of psychology during his time. He didn’t fit into structuralism or functionalism. Watson believed that what we learned from animals we could apply to humans. In the Little Albert study, Watson took a nine month infant named Albert who was not afraid of much. Watson wanted to show with this experiment that all behaviors are learned. When Watson did the experiment Albert was not afraid of much except loud noises so Watson took things that Albert was not afraid of and paired them with loud noises. Albert then became afraid of many more things. Watson wanted to desensitize Albert but Albert’s mom pulled him from the experiment. Watson got his chance to show desensitization of fears and behaviors with a boy named Peter. Peter was three years old. Peter was easily upset so his fears were paired with food that was a uncontrolled stimulus. This process became known as systematic desensitization. This helps people deal with phobias.