Classical conditioning is a phenomenon that was accidentally discovered by the scientist Ivan Pavlov. He would ring a bell and feed his dogs right after he rang it and over time when he just rang the bell, the dogs would salivate even though food is not presented. This is because the dogs have paired up the ringing of the bell to food correlation. There are four components in classical conditioning; unconditioned stimulus(US), unconditioned response(UR), conditioned stimulus (CS) and conditioned response (CR). Presenting food to the dogs in Pavlov’s example is a US and is followed by the dogs salivating which is a UR. This stimulus and response are natural dog behaviors. Ringing the bell is a CS, and it is then followed by the US, and then followed by UR. Over time, with this exact pattern, the CS will lead to a CR without US in between. In Pavlov’s example, ringing the bell is the CS followed by salivating directly after which becomes a CR.
This CR is not permanent however; if a CS was followed by no US repeatedly, then the CR will eventually go away, or extinction. The interesting thing is, if the CR went away due to the lack of US and the US came back again, CS will also come back instantaneously, this phenomenon is called spontaneous recovery.
I do have a cat that is classically conditioned; when I opened the pantry door, he would sit by his food bowl and wait for me to take the foot out of the pantry. I realized many pets do so, and I also realized that I am classically conditioned in many aspects. When I am cooking, sometimes the hot oil will pop and slash on my skin which leads to slight burning pain. A few times after the oil pops and splash on my arm and I flinch after, I developed a CR. Every time the oil pops, I would flinch even though the oil didn’t hit me. The US was the hot oil and the UR was me flinching, and the CR was the popping sound and CS was me flinching. When the oil pops and did not hit me for a couple of times, I would stop flinching when the oil pops. When the oil suddenly hits me again, my CR comes back immediately after that one time of oil drop hitting me.
Rehman, I. (2019, June 18). Classical Conditioning. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470326/.