1. Learning Notes 8-2 (obj.6-9)

2. 1.) Cognitive Processes
a.) Early behaviorists believed that learned behaviors of various animals could be reduced to mindless mechanisms.
b.) However, later behaviorists suggested that animals learn the predictability of a stimulus, meaning they learn expectancy or awareness of a stimulus (Rescorla, 1988).
OBJECTIVE 6| Discuss the importance of cognitive processes in classical conditioning.

3. 2.) Biological Predispositions
a.) Pavlov and Watson believed that laws of learning were similar for all animals. Therefore, a pigeon and a person do not differ in their learning.
b.) However, behaviorists later suggested that learning is constrained by an animal’s biology.
OBJECTIVE 7| Describe some of the ways that biological predisposition can affect learning by classical conditioning.

4. ***Biological Predispositions
c.) Garcia showed that the duration between the CS and the US may be long (hours), but yet result in conditioning. A biologically adaptive CS (taste) led to conditioning and not to others (light or sound).
Courtesy of John Garcia
John Garcia

5. ****Biological Predispositions
****Even humans can develop classically to conditioned nausea.

6. ****Applications of Classical Conditioning
****Watson used classical conditioning procedures to develop advertising campaigns for a number of organizations, including Maxwell House, making the “coffee break” an American custom.
OBJECTIVE 9| Describe some uses of classical conditioning to improve human health and well-being.
Brown Brothers
John B. Watson

7. 3.) Applications of Classical Conditioning
a.) Alcoholics may be conditioned (aversively) by reversing their positive-associations with alcohol.
b.) Through classical conditioning, a drug (plus its taste) that affects the immune response may cause the taste of the drug to invoke the immune response. (awesome)***