Monday, June 24, 2019

Experimental Neurosis

Experimental Neurosis was tested by Pavlov and colleague, Shenger-Krestonvika. This experiment provided Pavlov with evidence that showed when animals are paired with an event that is not common to them, they might act in unpredictable and crazy ways. His experiment included a dog. When a circle was present, that circle meant that there was food. But when the ellipse was present, that meant that there was no food available. Throughout the duration of his experiment, the dog eventually learned the theory of when food was or was not present. Since the dog was now used to a circle for food, and an ellipse for no food, pavlov and his team began changing the picture of the ellipse to a more circular image, leaving the dog unsure of when food was present. Since this event was not common to the dog, the dog started to become neurotic and squealing and biting during the experiment.

Reference:
Symbaluk, D. G., Honey, P. L., & Powell, R. A. (2017). Introduction to learning and behavior. Boston: Wadsworth.


3 comments:

  1. Ashley,
    I found your post to be very interesting! I must say it does not surprise me that Pavlov was included in this experiment as he is known for his experiments with canines. This experiment however is fascinating in the way that they first conditioned the dog to understand that a circle meant food and an eclipse meant that there was no food. Once that was learned they then decided to turn the eclipse into a more round shape just to confuse the dog. I wonder what they hypothesized would happen as I would assume messing with an animal and its eating schedule would only cause it to be as mean as this dog turned out to be.

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  2. This was rather interesting! I wonder how this experiment came about. But then again, it happens to humans a lot. Take for instance a math classroom. When talking about calculus, the teacher will first talk about limits to start off. Then they will progress to eventually talk about derivatives. But then everything will change and the teacher will talk about integrals which is essentially the opposite of a derivative. So then the students are pretty much back to square one being confused again haha.

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  3. When one thinks of Pavlov and his dogs, I feel as though this experiment is often forgotten about (usually the one that we think about is with the metronome and the salivating). This type of behavior can honestly be associated to a freshman in college for the first time. Having to adjust to the dorm life, being away from home, etc. causes a lot of new and different behaviors! Super interesting post.

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