Watch the below video, or alternatively, read the transcript, then move on to Consolidation Exercise 1.
Some forms of human behaviour happen automatically. Have you ever touched a surface and felt a static shock? Or accidentally touched a something hot. We tend to immediately recoil without thinking. These types of responses are not learned. These naturally aversive stimuli are known as unconditioned stimuli and our reactions to them are unconditioned responses.
Some more examples of unconditioned responses include:
Blinking when sometimes approaches your eyes
Jumping when you hear a loud noise
Salivating in response to seeing food
Twitching your leg in response to a doctor tapping your knee during a medical exam
These unconditioned responses are sometimes called reflexes.
Respondent conditioning ? sometimes ? called classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus. The neutral stimulus transforms over time into a conditioned stimulus which evokes a conditioned response.
The principle of respondent conditioning was first identified by Ivan Pavlov. You?ve probably heard about Pavlov and his dog.
Pavlov discovered that dogs would salivate at the sound of a bell, footsteps in the hall, the presence of a laboratory assistant or the sound of footsteps in the hallway, when those stimuli had previously been paired with the presence of meat powder.
This meant that automatic responses (like salivation) that originally only occurred in the presence of unconditioned stimuli (in this case food) could ? after pairing – come to occur in response to a conditioned stimulus. When the original behaviour reliably occurs in the presence of the conditioned stimulus, that behaviour is now known as a conditioned response.
Let?s break that down:
- Before pairing begins, salivation occurs in response to food but not to the sound of the bell
- The sound of the bell is followed by the presentation of food (i.e. the two stimuli are paired)
- The sound of the bell comes to elicit salivation (even when food is not present).
After this process, we could ? if we wanted ? pair the bell with a new neutral stimulus (for example, a green light). This would then lead to salivation occurring in response to the light.
Through respondent conditioning, responses that originally occurred following unconditioned stimuli, can come to occur in response to previously neutral stimuli.
Let?s look at how respondent conditioning can be applied in ABA:
Pairing: In ABA, we seek to build rapport with our clients. One way that we do this, especially when working with children, is through the use of pairing.
For example, before ever trying to teach a child, we might pair ourselves with multiple preferred stimuli (unconditioned and conditioned). You give the child preferred toys (E.g. trampoline, piano toy) which they could not otherwise access. After some time, the child will associate you with good things and they will enjoy your presence.
Similarly, if a client did not like a particular location that they needed to go to (for example, a doctor?s waiting room), you could also pair that location with preferred items and activities. You could bring highly preferred toys, foods or activities to that location and provide them at higher levels that they would get elsewhere. Over time, the location will become associated with fun activities.
Counter-conditioning: A phobia is an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Where phobias emerge following respondent conditioning we can effectively reverse them through systematic desensitisation.
Firstly, the client and therapist work together to develop a fear hierarchy, where they rank the phobic situation from least to most terrifying. For example, if somebody developed a phobia related to bees, you would get them to rank different situations where a bee was present from most to least terrifying. Seeing a bee on television might be the least terrifying while a bee landing on the client?s skin might be the most terrifying.
Next, the therapist and client would work on developing coping mechanisms ? for example, breathing exercises. They would then seek to connect that new coping response with the feared stimulus. For example, they might practice the breathing exercise while looking at a picture of a bee on television. When the client was comfortable practicing the skill in the least terrifying situation, they might gradually move towards more terrifying situations. Over time, the entire fear hierarchy is unlearned/counter-condtioned so that the conditioned stimulus (the sight of a bee) no longer produces the fear response.