Key Concepts Of Classical Conditioning

Discuss classical conditioning and explain its key concepts, giving examples of how it works in phobia treatment.

Classical conditioning is a learning behaviour where an organism learns to associate a conditioned stimuli (CS) with the appearance of an unconditioned stimuli (US) creating a conditioned response (CR) (Pavlov, 1927). For example, when a person sees somebody peeling a lemon (CS) they will start salivating (CR) as they prepare for the sour taste. Classical conditioning has further been associated with the development of fear and anxiety. It has been shown that fear can be learned through the process of associating danger with a specific object or situation after several trials or in more extreme cases after only one trial (Öhman,

tone, light) is connected to an adverse stimulation (e.g. electric shock, loud noise) eliciting biological responses that have been evolutionarily successful for that species in a threatening situation (Öhman et al., 1976). The unconditioned stimulus is the naturally occurring stimulus that elicits an innate response (unconditioned response - UR) without learning. The CS is the signal associated with the US and it elicits a conditioned response which is similar, but not quite the same as the UR (Pavlov, 1927). Therefore, in an experiment where a specific tone signals the following electric shock the tone is the CS while the adverse stimulus is the US that elicits the CR in Pavlovian conditioning. Fear learning can also happen with only one experience or trial, when a person encounters a dangerous situation and in reaction their body physically prepares for danger (Richard, Davies, & Faure, 2000). For example, falling off a ladder once can create a fear of heights or ladders, although this might have been a one-time event never to be repeated. Furthermore, this implicates the use of stimulus generalization, meaning any other stimuli that resembles the initial CS will elicit the same CR (Pavlov, 1927). Fear learning was further studied in the research by Öhman et al. (1976). This laboratory experiment was conducted with the aim to examine the validity of the equipotentiality premise in

Namely the creation of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) which aims to get similar results as the traditional exposure therapy without using any real objects or animals, but creating them in the computer. Psychologists can use various technology to conduct the exposure therapy. A study by Krijn, Emmelkamp, Biemond, de Ligny, Schuemie, & van der Mast (2004) researched the effectiveness of virtual exposure therapy and the differences between computer automatic virtual environment and a head-mounted display. Participants were people suffering from acrophobia. They found no difference in effectiveness between the two designs and that virtual exposure participants had less anxiety than patients with no treatment. Furthermore, these results were maintained in the follow-up after 6 months. Also, a meta-analysis was conducted by Morina et al. (2015) which researched several studies and their results with the aim to see how effective VRET can be compared to usual exposure therapy. They studied 14 clinical studies and found that patients did significantly better after the VRET than before and this applied for their follow-ups as well. In addition, results of behavioural assessment showed no significant differences between exposure in vivo and VRET. These findings support the application of VRET when treating specific