Classical Conditioning: Basic Concepts

Learning

The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors

Habituates

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation; as infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus

Associative learning

Learning that certain events occur together; the events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequence (as in operant conditioning)

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response

Respondent behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus

Operant behaviors

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing a consequence

Cognitive learning

The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language

Classical conditioning

A type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli; as a result, to illustrate with Pavlov’s classic experiment, the first stimulus (a tone) comes to elicit behavior (drooling) in anticipation of the second stimulus (food)

Behaviorism

The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes; most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2)

Neutral stimulus (NS)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning

Unconditioned response (UCR)

In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) (such as food in the mouth)

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally — naturally and automatically — triggers an unconditioned response (UCR)

Conditioned response

In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS)

Conditioned stimulus

In classical conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR)

Acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response; in operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response

Higher-order conditioning

A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus; for example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone (also called second-order conditioning)

Extinction

In classical conditioning, the diminishing of a conditioned response when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus (in operant conditioning, when a response is no longer reinforced)

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance, after a pause, of a weakened conditioned response

Stimulus generalization

In classical conditioning, the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses (in operant conditioning, when responses learned in one situation occur in other, similar situations)

Discrimination

(1) in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been associated with a conditioned stimulus (in operant conditioning, the ability to distinguish responses that are reinforced from similar responses that are not reinforced) (2) in social psychology, unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members

Preparedness

A biological predisposition to learn associations, such as between taste and nausea, that have survival value