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