Author: abg6099

Classical conditioning is a type of learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a behavior. In other words it’s when an organism subconsciously learns to associate the stimuli. This could look like a dog associating his dinner time to a dinner bell or a baby associating a bottle to food. In order to obtain successful classical conditioning the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) must be repeatedly paired together. Also, the CS must come before the US, otherwise the organism will be unable to develop an association otherwise known as acquisition. 

If done correctly, classical conditioning can be an effective tool in influencing feelings and behaviors without the organism realizing they are being conditioned. For example, I have been classically conditioned to fear a certain phrase when in a sports setting. In nearly all sports, conditioning (excessive running or other exercise) is done not only as a form of training but also as a punishment. A famous line that coaches love to use when it’s time for conditioning is “on the line”. As an athlete who’s been playing sports from a young age I quickly learned to hate those three words. In fact, I hated conditioning so much that whenever I heard that phrase an intense feeling of fear and dread would seize my body. The repetition of hearing this phrase and then having to condition is what led to my negative associations to the words, a prime example of acquisition. This reaction to the words would occur regardless of the sport or coach that used them. However, as I grew up the phrase did not always lead to conditioning, sometimes it really meant to just stand on the line, but the damage had already been done. These negative feelings will probably always be linked to the phrase. 

Classical conditioning takes time to unlearn and in most cases the conditioned response can never truly be forgotten. Perhaps with time my reaction could be reduced through a process called extinction, but this is unlikely while I am still actively playing and being coached. The only action I could try to take against my negative associations is to recondition myself into associating positive feelings with the phrase. This would be extremely hard and something that would take a lot of focus to accomplish. Thus showing how influencing and important classical conditioning can be. 

Have you ever learned something and not remembered how you learned it? What about when it was taught to you? These are the questions I stumbled on last week when trying to help my niece with her homework. My niece is 6 years old and is just beginning to recognize and remember letter sounds and names. While trying to help her put the sounds together I began to think back to when I learned to read, except I couldn’t. I was hoping to find some memory of my parents, teachers, or a sibling who gave me lessons but I drew a blank. I had no recollection of learning to read, sounding out letters, or even the time frame to when I truly became literate. 

This inability to remember when and how I learned to read is because of a phenomenon called source amnesia. Source Amnesia is the inability to recall the source of information. It could be information we have experienced, seen, heard, or read that we regard as facts in our head even though we cannot remember where or when we found them. This can lead people to forget whether certain information is true or false. It could also lead to the misinformation effect, where we incorporate misleading facts into our memories of an event. This is our brain’s way of filling in the gaps we think make sense.

At some point in my youth, someone (most likely multiple people), helped teach me about letters. I have no doubt that I spent lots of time learning the skill and memorizing the ABC’s. However, without my parents’ help I will never know the exact time frame of when I began reading. This is all because of source amnesia. Perhaps if I had put my attention on the task or had the event celebrated I would have more of a memory, but since I did not all I am left with is the learned skill without the how or when.