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The Little Albert experiment was an unethical study that mid-20th century psychologists interpret as evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study is also claimed to be an example of stimulus generalization although reading the research report demonstrates that fear did not generalize by color or tactile qualities. [ 1 ]
Classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US). Usually, the conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a tuning fork), the unconditioned stimulus is biologically potent (e.g., the taste of food) and the unconditioned response (UR) to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response (e.g., salivation).
In 1920 John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner demonstrated such fear conditioning in the Little Albert experiment.They started with a 9-month boy called "Albert", who was unemotional but was made to cry by the loud noise (unconditioned stimulus) of a hammer striking a steel bar.
The unconditioned stimulus is the dog's food that would naturally cause salivation, which is an unconditioned response. Pavlov then trained the dog by ringing the bell every time before food. The conditioned stimulus is the ringing bell after training, which causes salivation as a conditioned response.
It has become immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks as the Little Albert experiment. The goal of the experiment was to show how principles of, at the time recently discovered, classical conditioning could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into "Little Albert", a 9-month-old boy. Watson and Rayner conditioned "Little Albert ...
Spontaneous recovery is associated with classical conditioning, a learning process in which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that produces an unconditioned response. As a result, the previously neutral stimulus comes to produce its own response, which is usually similar to that produced by the unconditioned ...
While attending a speech by leading behavioral psychologist, John B. Watson, Cover Jones became interested in his most famous study, the "Little Albert experiment". In this experiment, an infant was classically conditioned to express a fearful response when a white rat was presented along with a loud noise that shocked the child. Cover Jones ...
In Kamin's blocking effect [1] the conditioning of an association between two stimuli, a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) is impaired if, during the conditioning process, the CS is presented together with a second CS that has already been associated with the unconditioned stimulus. For example, an agent (such as a ...