Pavlov and Watson

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist that at first was studying the digestive system. He was studying digestive enzymes when he developed his theory.  Dogs where brought food to measure the salivation. Dogs salivated before the food arrived because the dog was associating the noise as the food was brought in with the actual food. The condition stimulus was the bell, the unconditioned stimulus was the food and finally the unconditioned response was the salivation that the dog created. Extinction means a gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the CR tendency. Extinction occurs from the multiple presentations of CS without the U.S. Stimulus Generalization means a response to a specific stimulus becomes associated to other stimuli and now occurs to those other similar stimuli. Stimulus Discrimination means learning to respond to one stimulus and not another. Some limitations of this experiment where that he only tested 2 different dogs and he had to reroute the dog’s salivary glands. Pavlov theorized in his experiments that we learn by association.

Source: http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/misc_topics/pavlov.html

John B. Watson

John B. Watson was a behaviorist. He conducted the experiment called “little Albert”. A little kid that was barely some months old was exposed to rat and other furry objects and didn’t react worried or cried he stayed calmed. Then they presented the same objects that they showed the first time but this time adding a strange sound made by hitting a metal pipe with the hammer causing little Albert to cry. After rapidly paring the rat and other fury objects with the loud noise Albert now had feared for them and immediately cried when he saw the harry animals and objects. The unconditioned stimulus was the loud noise, the conditioned stimulus was the white rat and the conditioned response was the fear. Some limitations of this study where that he only used one child and it is unethical meaning that it can’t be replicated. The law of frequency stressed the importance of repetition. The law of recency is the response that has most recently occurred after a particular stimulus is the response most likely to be associated with that stimulus. Watson believed that psychology was the study of human behavior. He believed that he could change who he wanted to only if they changed their behavior.

Source: http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/little-albert-experiment.htm

http://teachnet.edb.utexas.edu/~Lynda_abbot/Behaviorism.html  

Article #3 High School Students With A Delayed School Start Time Sleep Longer, Report Less Daytime Sleepiness

This study was conducted by Zaw W.Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital’s Sleep Disorder Center in Norwalk,Conn. They focused on 259 high school students who completed the School Sleep Habits Questionnaire. Prior to the delay, students reported sleeping a mean of 422 minutes per school night, with a mean bedtime of 10:52 p.m. and a mean wake-up as 6:12. The results of this experiment where that total sleep on school nights increased 33 minutes due to a later rise time. Student’s bedtime on school nights was very late, and weekend night sleep time decreased a little. The majority of students reported no problem with sleepiness after the schedule change. The report demonstrated that students given the opportunity to sleep longer would definitely do it rather than extend their wake activities on school nights. This research demonstrated that students really like to sleep during school nights and prefer to stay on bed rather than make activates. It was interesting because it cleared my idea that I had about this same research and could clarify my doubts. 

Source: http://news.discovery.com/human/accent-race-children.html

Article #2 Performing Under Sleep Deprivation: Its In Your Genes

The study was made in the New York, which is a multidisciplinary research team consisting of biological scientists and psychologists. They compared how individuals possessing only the longer gene variant and those possessing only the shorter one coped with being kept awake for 2 days, including night. The researchers found out that although some participants had problems to stay awake, others experienced no problems in staying awake. The result of the research were pronounced during the early hours of the morning, during which individuals with the longer variant of the gene performed very poorly on test fro attention and working memory. The findings where that the effects of this gene on the performance may be mediated by its effects on sleep. I think this article was very interesting because we found out how a gene could drastically affect sleeping and your ability to work when they have had a small amount of sleep.  

Source:http://www.wect.com/Global/category.asp?C=179817