Classical Conditioning VS Operant Conditioning
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are very popular behavioural psychology theories that are used in learning situations to help enhancing the learning patterns of subjects, either animals or human beings. To compare and contrast the two theories, we will first have to learn each separately and then compare them later.
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning can be defined as a learning process through which we can learn to associate stimuli with specific events enabling us to anticipate those events whenever we are exposed to such stimuli in the future. This is the basic definition of the theory of classical conditioning. However, to further understand what the theory entails and its practical applications, we first need to learn about a renowned behavioural scientist by the name of Pavlov who lived between the years 1849 and 1936.
Who is Ivan Pavlov and how is he associated with the classical conditioning theory?
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist who is famous for his classical conditioning theory experiments. However, he was not researching behavioural behaviour when he began the experiments. He accidentally or unexpectedly stumbled on the classical learning process while conducting experiments on dogs to learn about their digestive systems.
Pavlov was a Physiologist studying the digestive system and was using food on dogs to measure the amount of saliva they produced when they were presented with different foods. However, after long periods on the experiments, he began to notice some behavioural patterns on the dogs. They started producing saliva even when they had not taken any food, just by the sight of the food. They also began salivating by the sight of an empty bowl and even on hearing the assistant’s footsteps. The assistant was the one who fed the dogs, and, the dogs had begun to associate the assistant’s presence with food. These interesting observations led to Ivan Pavlov’s unexpected discovery of the classical conditioning learning theory.
Learning Classical Conditioning from Pavlov’s experiments
From the experiments, Pavlov learnt the following things:
- The dogs would salivate each time they were presented with meat powder. In this case, the meat powder was the stimulus. In terms of classical conditioning studies, it is referred to as unconditioned stimulus (UCS). A UCS is a stimulus that results in a reflexive response from a living organism.
- The dog’s salivation is the unconditioned response (UCR) to the given stimuli, in this case, the meat powder. The Unconditioned Stimulus naturally leads to the Unconditioned Response.
- With classical conditioning processes, you have to introduce a neutral stimulus that elicits no response to the animal/human being. In Pavlov’s experiments, ringing of a bell was one of the stimuli. Pavlov noticed, after a while of using a bell to alert the dogs of the meat powder to feed, the bell itself began causing a response to the dogs. They started salivating even without any meat powder on hearing the bell.
- Initially, the bell (neutral stimulus) did not elicit any response. However, after it was paired severally with the unconditioned stimuli, it also began to elicit a response by itself, hence it became a conditioned stimuli.
- The pairing process, of a unconditioned stimuli with a neutral stimuli is the classical conditioning process.
Classical conditioning Examples
- You have a Cat named Moderna and you keep his food on a drawer. The food is bought and stored in special aluminium bags and you need a special electric opener to cut through the aluminium bags. Whenever you want to feed Moderna, you open the cabinet, take the food out and open the bags using the electric opener. The electric opener has a special sound when it is turned on. Every time you go the cabinet to get the food, Moderna follows you there to get the food. After a while, Moderna starts coming by whenever you he hears the sound of the electric opener even when you are using it to open other bags. In this case, Moderna has experienced classic conditioning and the electric opener is the conditioned stimuli in this case.
- Using the same example: Let’s say the drawer from where you get the food is squeaky and whenever you go to get the food from the drawer, it squeaks. After a while, Moderna begins coming over whenever she hears the drawer squeaking even when you are only getting something else out of the drawer. In this second case, the squeaking of the drawer is the conditioned stimuli. Whenever the squeaking was accompanied with the food serving, the cat became conditioned to know that food was always following the squeaking sound.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is another type of associative learning. With this type of learning, an animal/organism is taught to associate certain behaviour with consequences. With time, an organism will learn that a pleasant behaviour elicits good consequence and unpleasant behaviour results in bad consequences. Therefore, the good behaviour is more likely to be repeated and bad behaviour avoided after the consequences.
Operant conditioning examples
Some of the real world examples of operant conditioning include:
- In an animal park, a dolphin doing a flip is rewarded with a piece of meat or fish. With time, the dolphin learns that whenever it does a flip after hearing a whistle from the trainer, it will be rewarded with a fish or a piece of meat.
- A dog trainer will also use operant conditioning to train dogs under his care. A dog will learn that whenever it sits quietly before a meal, it gets rewarded with a piece of meat. However, if it becomes rowdy during meal time, the piece of meat is not given. It will learn that calming down before a meal will be rewarded with food.
Similarities between Classical and Operant Conditioning
These two associative learning theories are similar in the following regard:
- They are both used in learning and training purposes.
- They both involve organism behaviour
Differences between Classical and Operant Conditioning
- Classical conditioning is associated with involuntary behaviour to a stimulus while operant learning is associated with voluntary behaviour to a stimulus.
- In operant learning, the learner is rewarded using incentives. With classic conditioning, however, no incentives are used.
- With operant learning, the learner first shows a behaviour in which the trainers will decide whether it should be punished or rewarded. Thereafter, the learning process begins. In classical conditioning, an already naturally occurring events is associated with a given stimuli.
Classical Conditioning VS Operant Conditioning Examples
Classical conditioning examples include
- You have a Cat named Moderna and you keep his food on a drawer. The food is bought and stored in special aluminium bags and you need a special electric opener to cut through the aluminium bags. Whenever you want to feed Moderna, you open the cabinet, take the food out and open the bags using the electric opener. The electric opener has a special sound when it is turned on. Every time you go the cabinet to get the food, Moderna follows you there to get the food. After a while, Moderna starts coming by whenever you he hears the sound of the electric opener even when you are using it to open other bags. In this case, Moderna has experienced classic conditioning and the electric opener is the conditioned stimuli in this case.
- Using the same example: Let’s say the drawer from where you get the food is squeaky and whenever you go to get the food from the drawer, it squeaks. After a while, Moderna begins coming over whenever she hears the drawer squeaking even when you are only getting something else out of the drawer. In this second case, the squeaking of the drawer is the conditioned stimuli. Whenever the squeaking was accompanied with the food serving, the cat became conditioned to know that food was always following the squeaking sound.
Some of the real world examples of operant conditioning include:
- In an animal park, a dolphin doing a flip is rewarded with a piece of meat or fish. With time, the dolphin learns that whenever it does a flip after hearing a whistle from the trainer, it will be rewarded with a fish or a piece of meat.
- A dog trainer will also use operant conditioning to train dogs under his care. A dog will learn that whenever it sits quietly before a meal, it gets rewarded with a piece of meat. However, if it becomes rowdy during meal time, the piece of meat is not given. It will learn that calming down before a meal will be rewarded with food.
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