How we behave and what we think is based on what we learned. Learning is essential for our lives, and without the ability to learn, life would be effectless and meaningless. Conditioning, the ability to change one’s behavior depends on the environment, is one type of learning, and classical conditioning is one of the types of conditioning. Classical conditioning is learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with the unconditioned stimulus that causes a natural response. This condition has demonstrated by Pavlov’s experiment. In this experiment, the experimenter fed the dog after ringing the bell. After a few days, the dog drooled when he heard the bell ringing. The dog made an association between the bell ringing and food and caused him to salivate. The sound of the bell was a neutral stimulus and became a conditioned stimulus.
The classical conditioning has characteristics of acquisition, extinction, generalization, and discrimination. The neutral stimulus (NS) must be associated with an unconditioned stimulus (US), and the NS must come before the US. The conditioned response is not always permanent. It diminishes as the US does not follow the CS, but it could reappear after a break, which is called spontaneous recovery. When an organism learns something by classical conditioning, a similar stimulus can cause a similar response. On the other hand, the conditioned organism can distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli.
My sister hates to go to the hospital because of the disinfectant smell at the hospital. When she was a baby, she did not like to go to the hospital because of the injection, and this caused her to dislike the smell of disinfectant at the hospital. When she went to the hospital to get a shot, she smelled the distinctive odor, and she made an associated between the smell and getting a shot. In this case, getting a shot is the unconditioned stimulus and the unconditioned response is rejection to the hospital. Then the neutral stimulus, the smell of the disinfectant, became conditioned stimulus, and the rejection of the hospital became the conditioned response.
Hello! I enjoyed reading your post about classical conditioning. The example really helped to solidify the ideas presented. I also experienced many forms of classical conditioning growing up. My family has always had an electric fence to keep our horses in the pasture. Every time I climbed through the fence and a part of me touched the electric wire, I would get shocked. After having this happen a few times, I would naturally be very careful around the fence. I would start to get tense and nervous about accidently touching the fence. Whenever I would go to another horse farm or another place with an electric fence, I would immediately get nervous about going through the fence. I started to really dislike fences because there was always a chance I could get shocked. Even when I knew the electric fence was off, I would still recoil at the idea of going through the fence. I was conditioned, just like the horses, that the fence was painful and should not be touched. The unconditioned stimulus is the shock from the electric fence, the unconditioned response is flinching away and getting tense. The conditioned stimulus is seeing the fence up close and the conditioned response is getting tense and nervous.