Chapter 4 and 5 Discussion

I feel like right now the two things that this class makes me think of is my coaching and my pregnant sister. It is also humorous to me how the same subject can be applied to both.

In chapter 4 I found the section discussion classic conditioning to be fascinating, especially when I realized one of my athletes that I coach totally conditioned me! 

I generally stand in the same place when I coach. It is on the front right side of the pit so I can catch a lot of key points in the vault I need to see. There is a kid that I coach that always runs through (that is when you decide you aren’t going to jump and instead run onto the pit usually leaving your pole behind). Well, when he leaves his pole behind it always flies through the air and lands as the area that I stand. The noise it makes is the same noise this athlete always makes before take off, it is a loud clung sound when his pole goes into the box. Of course I flinch or duck of some sort. On Thursday I realized now I flinch even if he hasn’t bailed on his jump. I think it is super interesting because I don’t do it with anyone else. I have officially been classically conditioned by one of my athletes, hopefully on accident!

Classic Conditioning is defined as a form of learning that involves pairing a neural stimulus and a response originally produced by another. This is best decribed as ringing a bell for dinner and having a dog salivate. The reason it happens is because the trainer would ring the bell then feed dinner. Eventually the dinner didn’t need to come and if the bell was rung the dog would still salivate. I am the dog, Glen is the bell.