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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).
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.
The US preceded the CS, rather than the other way around. In the backward conditioning control procedure popular with Pavlov, his dogs did not salivate to the presentation of the CS, in contrast to those that received forward conditioning. However, the dogs did learn something - the presentation of the metronome predicted the absence of the food.
The reward system (the mesocorticolimbic circuit) is a group of neural structures responsible for incentive salience (i.e., "wanting"; desire or craving for a reward and motivation), associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and classical conditioning), and positively-valenced emotions, particularly ones involving pleasure as a core component (e.g., joy, euphoria and ecstasy).
The Little Albert experiment was an unethical study that mid-20th century psychologists interpret as evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study is also claimed to be an example of stimulus generalization although reading the research report demonstrates that fear did not generalize by color or tactile qualities. [1]
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.
Eyeblink conditioning (EBC) is a form of classical conditioning that has been used extensively to study neural structures and mechanisms that underlie learning and memory. The procedure is relatively simple and usually consists of pairing an auditory or visual stimulus (the conditioned stimulus (CS)) with an eyeblink -eliciting unconditioned ...
Van Hamme and Wasserman have extended the original Rescorla–Wagner (RW) model and introduced a new factor in their revised RW model in 1994: [3] They suggested that not only conditioned stimuli physically present on a given trial can undergo changes in their associative strength, the associative value of a CS can also be altered by a within-compound-association with a CS present on that trial.