Classical conditioning

• What is Classical Conditioning?


  • learning through association
• Pavlov’s experiment

  1. food (UCS) presented to dog who has UCR (salivating)
  2. bell (NS) presented to dog who has no response
  3. bell (NS) presented with food (UCS) and dog salivates
  4. bell now (CS) presented to dog who produces CR (salivating)
• neutral stimulus (NS) 


  an event that does not produce a response
• unconditioned stimulus (UCS)


  an event that produces an innate, unlearned reflex response
• unconditioned response (UCR)


  an innate, unlearned reflex behaviour that is produced when exposed to an unconditioned stimulus
• conditioned stimulus (CS)


  an event that produces a learned response
• conditioned response (CR)


  a learned behaviour that is produced when exposed to a conditioned stimulus
• key feature of classical conditioning: timing


  If NS cannot be used to predict the UCS, then conditioning does not take place (if time between the two is too great, there’s no response)
• Key feature of classical conditioning: extinction 


  • CR does not become permanently established as a response
  • after few presentations of just CS, it loses it’s ability to produce CR
• Key feature of classical conditioning: stimulus generalisation 


  • once an animal has been conditioned, they will also respond to other stimuli that are similar to CS
• Key feature of classical conditioning: spontaneous recovery


  if CS and UCS are then paired together again, the link between them is made much faster