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Classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US). Usually, the conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a tuning fork), the unconditioned stimulus is biologically potent (e.g., the taste of food) and the unconditioned response (UR) to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response (e.g., salivation).
In backward blocking, the subject is exposed to the compound stimulus (CS1 and CS2 together) first, and only later to CS1 alone. In some human and animal studies, subjects show a reduction in the association between CS2 and the US, though the effect is often weaker than the standard blocking effect, and vanishes under some conditions.
Central to operant conditioning is the use of a Three-Term Contingency (Discriminative Stimulus, Response, Reinforcing Stimulus) to describe functional relationships in the control of behavior. Discriminative stimulus (S D) is a cue or stimulus context that sets the occasion for a response. For example, food on a plate sets the occasion for eating.
The conditioned emotional response is usually measured through its effect in suppressing an ongoing response. For example, a rat first learns to press a lever through operant conditioning. Classical conditioning follows: in a series of trials the rat is exposed to a CS, often a light or a noise. Each CS is followed by the US, an electric shock.
One significant example of classical conditioning is Ivan Pavlov's experiment in which dogs showed a conditioned response to a bell the experimenters had purposely tried to associate with feeding time. After the dogs had been conditioned, the dogs no longer only salivated for the food, which was a biological need and therefore an unconditioned ...
Autoshaping (sometimes called sign tracking) is any of a variety of experimental procedures used to study classical conditioning. In autoshaping, in contrast to shaping, the reward comes irrespective of the behavior of the animal. In its simplest form, autoshaping is very similar to Pavlov's salivary conditioning procedure using dogs. In Pavlov ...
A simple example of this is conditioned food aversion, or the aversion developed to food that has previously resulted in sickness. Food aversions can also be conditioned using classical conditioning, so that an animal learns to avoid a stimulus previously neutral that has been associated with a negative outcome. [3]
In classical conditioning, when a conditioned stimulus is presented alone, so that it no longer predicts the coming of the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned responding gradually stops. For example, after Pavlov's dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a metronome, it eventually stopped salivating to the metronome after the metronome ...