Infants are capable of classical conditioning. If a baby’s mouth begins to make

sucking motions when a milk bottle is in view, then the sucking motions are conditioned

reflexes.

Second, as indicated above, classical conditioning is not limited to dogs and

animals. Although Pavlov used dogs as research subjects, the results of his research

can be generalized to human beings.

Third, conditioned reflexes are involuntary. They are outside of the conscious

control of the subject.

There are various behavioral patterns associated with classical conditioning.

Three of these are extinction, stimulus generalization, and discrimination.

Extinction takes place when the conditioned stimulus is presented a number of

times without the unconditioned stimulus. If a conditioned dog is presented with

a tone, it will salivate. However, if the tone is presented without food a sufficient

number of times, the tone will cease to elicit the conditioned reflex. The dog has,

In effect, unlearned the conditioned reflex. Extinction should not be confused with

forgetting. Extinction is an active process that is designed to eliminate a conditioned

reflex. The process of actively extinguishing a conditioned reflex is taken

advantage of in desensitization therapy.

Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus that is similar to an original

conditioned stimulus elicits a conditioned reflex. For example, let’s say that

a dog is trained to salivate to a pitch that is the equivalent of middle C on the

piano. If a pitch the equivalent of D, a note that is close to C, is sounded, the dog

will also salivate. As the pitch goes higher, there may be some salivation. If the

pitch gets high enough, salivation will stop. This is discrimination, the subject’s

ability to tell the difference between an original conditioned stimulus and other

stimuli.

In a classical experiment, Rosalie Raynor, an assistant to John B. Watson,

trained a child to be afraid of a white rat. In subsequent testing, the child, known

in the research literature as Little Albert, showed fear reactions (conditioned

reflexes) when he saw a different white rat, a Santa Claus mask (with white fur),

or a rolled-up white terrycloth dishtowel. This research provides an example of

stimulus generalization in a human being.

Trial-and-Error Learning: Taking a Rocky Road

It is instructive to note that one of the most popular books on writing ever published

is called Trial and Error by the novelist Jack Woodford. It sold many copies

over a number of years, and communicated to would-be authors that the only

way to learn to write was by taking the rocky road of learning by making one’s

own mistakes.

The first kind of learning to be studied experimentally in the United States was

trial-and-error learning. Edward L. Thorndike (1874–1949) first studied maze

learning in baby chickens (with the assistance and approval ofWilliam James). Later

he studied the escape behavior of cats from puzzle boxes. The cats had to learn to

pull a string that released a latch connected to a door. The cats learned to pull the

string, but only very gradually. They showed no sudden burst of insight or comprehension. Thorndike concluded that the learning was a robotlike process controlled

primarily by its outcomes. If a specific behavior helped a cat to escape, that

behavior was retained by the cat. Thorndike called this process stamping in,

meaning that an action that is useful is impressed upon the nervous system.

What stamps in a response, according to Thorndike, is satisfaction. The cat

that escapes from a puzzle box is rewarded with food. Thorndike called the tendency

to retain what is learned because satisfactory results are obtained the law of

effect. Thorndike’s law of effect is the forerunner of what today is usually known

as the process of reinforcement.