Michael Smith wrote: I think this is incorrect. The original question was "why any classically conditioned stimulus could not be viewed as a placebo". The original question was not about the mechanism of placebos (Michael Burman's response) or some of the other issues raised by Rick and Claudia, interesting though they may be."
Fair enough. If the question is whether all classical conditioning should be viewed as identical to the placebo effect, then the answer is no. Classical conditioning is too broad. If the question is whether the placebo effect can be viewed as a special case of classical conditioning, then I think the answer is clearly yes. To the extent that one stimulus (a US; drug) coincides with and is predicted by another (the CS; stimulus properties of a pill) we see a novel response being learned. This has the requisite properties of classical conditioning (contiguity and contingency between two stimuli). By the way, I think your example needs some clarification. In the eyeblink paradigm, a tone is paired with a puff of air to the eye. The tone then produces a blink on it's own. Thus, the tone is the stimulus comparable to the placebo pill in a drug situation. Moreover, blinking to a tone that predicts an insult to the eye is clearly a beneficial response in any sense. Mike Burman --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=7652 or send a blank email to leave-7652-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
