Psychology: Conditioned Responses

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by LionHearted, Dec 15, 2002.

  1. LionHearted Registered Senior Member

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    I have been reading about learning and conditioning and I have a question about conditioned responses. Can Pavlov's conditioned response theory be used on oneself? For example, what if every time you got hungry, you stared at a red cloth while you were hungry, then stopped when you ate. A lack of food is the UCS and hunger is the UCR. You do this for a long time and the color red becomes the CS and hunger becomes the CR. Should you be able to make yourself hungry by looking at the color red? If this were performed on some other animal, then they would expect hunger to follow the color red, but when you do this on yourself, you know that the color red is being used to stimulate hunger in yourself. Would the fact that you know this have an effect on the relation between the CS and CR?
     
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  3. Neville Registered Senior Member

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    It could be said that its possible however training ones-self is different to training another. Surely there is an element of self-control and will power in training ones-self i.e. allowing the suffering of the self (denying food when hungry) would not be as easy as allowing another to suffer.
     
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  5. LionHearted Registered Senior Member

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    After you condition yourself, should you be able to make yourself hungry by looking at the color red even though you know that you are not really hungry and are only trying to cause hunger? Would the fact that you know this make the CS less effective or is it more subconcious than that?
     
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  7. LionHearted Registered Senior Member

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    Here is a better example. I pick a certain song and I get in my car and turn the heater on high. I play the song repeatedly. I do this regularly and the song becomes associated with the sensation of heat. I go outside and it is 40 degrees fahrenheit outside and I know this. I play the song. Would the fact that I know the true temperature make me feel less of a warm sensation? Is the relation between the CS (the song) and the CR (a warm sensation) more subconcious so that I would feel warmth?
     
  8. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    I think you overlook a small detail here, the story is a bit more complex.
    With Pavlov's experiments, it was the response that was conditioned, not a sensation. Soliva was made by dogs as a conditioned response to a lamp or bell.
    That does not mean that the dog starts to feel hungry when he sees a lamp or hears a bell.

    One could condition oneself to get an apitite at certain CS's, but not to get hungry. This is what happenes when somebody always smokes during a coffee break. When the person quits smoking, the start of the coffe break will trigger an apetite for smoking.

    Note that this is readily explained by the functioning of the brains. Our brains are mainly buisy with pattern recognition. If the pattern is that a US is accompanied with a CS, the brain will pick up the pattern and react accordingly -i.e. by preparing the nicotinerge receptors in the coffe break example.

    Now apitite is a very strange thing. Our bodies fysiologically prepare for something, e.g. for food, and that preparation is interpreted to become a sensation.
    Here is another example. One can condition persons to become sexually aroused to certain objects that are not necessarily erotic (e.g. to high heeled shoes). The physiological reaction of hightened blood pressure, dilation of the undeep blood vessels, the blood flow towards genitals,etc. are interpreted as feeling horny. Behold the cause of fetishism.

    I hope this has cleared things up for you.
     
  9. LionHearted Registered Senior Member

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    What if Pavlov's dogs somehow knew that no food was coming when the bell rang? Would they still salivate to the sound of a bell even though they knew that the UCS was not coming?
     
  10. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    most probably, yes they would.
     
  11. Neville Registered Senior Member

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    Yes they did lionhearted. After some time of ringing the bell and not presenting food, the dogs ceased to salivate.
     
  12. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    Neville, the problem is that one can not know at what point the dogs "knew" there would not be any food after the bell.
     
  13. Neville Registered Senior Member

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    After tens or hundreds of trials. It doesnt really matter about the exact point but the fact is that they salivate at the ring of a bell when they get presented with food afterwards and then they dont later on when no food is presented.
     
  14. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    the question was: " Would they still salivate to the sound of a bell even though they knew that the UCS was not coming?"
     
  15. LionHearted Registered Senior Member

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    I am mostly trying to find out whether the relationship between the CS and CR is more concious or subconcious. If the dogs knew for a fact that no food was coming and they still salivate to the sound of a bell, then it would be more subconcious.
     
  16. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    I would not use the term subconscious here.
    Subconscious is a psychoanalytical term (Freud, Jung, Künkel, etc). In fact you will have a hard time looking for a psychologist who serious about the subconscious.
    But I guess you are noit interested in that story.

    The realationship between CS and CR is just as that between the US and UR an automatic/subliminal/unconscious (not that the subject has been hit on the head or otherwise is asleep...) coupling.

    oh argh... why do people always bring up that term ?

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  17. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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  18. LionHearted Registered Senior Member

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    Are you saying that the sensation does not occur or that we cannot detect the sensation? I saw an example of Pavlovian conditioning where the sound of a dentist's drill is played and some pain is felt although nothing is actually happening to you. Is the sensation of heat different somehow?
     
  19. Merlijn curious cat Registered Senior Member

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    I can imagine the sound triggereing fear, but not pain!
    Where did you see/read that?
    When it comes to psychology, scrutinize your resources! There is much fake psychology around, only adding up to the confusion and misunderstanding among the people.

    NO, sensations can not be directly measured.
     
  20. adj Registered Senior Member

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    instead of dogs, why not consider humans, yourselves for example. I will contend that virtually everything you do/like etc is a "conditioned response" from your past experiences. Nah, you've got choice right? Free will and all that . . . . Try this; think now about something you do in the (for example) morning, like brush your teeth first, which shoe do you put on first, which side of the bed do you get out of (yes, you do it the same way every day (unless some unusual circumstance interferes). Now, display your free will by deciding the night before that you will do it differently the folllowing morning. Be honest, you can only cheat yourself! We like it "comfortable" so we typically repeat today from past experiences that "worked" - were successful, satisfying etc.
    just a thought for the day

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