A primary idea in Behaviorism, pioneered by Ivan Pavlov. The key idea: pairing a neutral conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits a response eventually causes the conditioned stimulus to elicit a response. It’s a kind of learning by association.
Conditioned behaviors can be weakened through “{extinction}”: i.e. repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus.
This theory, which relies on the simple association of stimuli, fails to explain how people learn more complex behaviors, which led B. F. Skinner to develop Operant conditioning, which describes how behaviors develop in response to their consequences.
The conditioned stimulus must be informative for learning to take place. It’s not just co-occurrence: there has to be contingency (i.e. the food doesn’t come when the tone doesn’t sound). This also means timing is important: presenting the neutral stimulus after the unconditioned stimulus doesn’t work very well. The best arrangement is “delayed conditioning,” in which the neutral stimulus is presented slightly before the unconditioned stimulus.
The contingency requirement also means that classical conditioning can fail when another stimulus is present which already predicts an outcome (blocking). e.g. Kamin 1969: If you condition the association between tone and food, then you pair a light and tone with food, the light won’t become a conditioned stimulus for salivation.
A related effect is latent inhibition: a familiar stimulus is harder to condition than a novel stimulus. If you expose a dog to a bell many times, that makes it much harder to condition the bell to produce salivation with food.
Sometimes the conditioned response isn’t the same as the unconditioned response. For instance, when rats are shocked, they jump, but when a tone is conditioned with shock, their conditioned response to the tone is to freeze. Preparatory-response theory suggests that the elicited conditioned response is meant to prepare the organism for the unconditioned stimulus.
Sometimes there’s a compensatory response in a direction opposite to the effect of the expected stimulus. Heroine decreases blood pressure, so the conditioned response when a neutral stimulus is conditioned with heroine is to produce increased blood pressure (to compensate). Overdoses are more common in unfamiliar environments (many celebrities in hotel rooms!) because your body may be compensating in an environment filled with familiar cues.
Q. What’s the response elicited by classical condition called?
A. A respondent behavior.
Q. How do the requirements of classical conditioning differ from simple co-occurrence?
A. Association between neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus must be contingent: not just if-then but if-and-only-if.
Q. What is “blocking” in classical conditioning?
A. Conditioning is less effective when another conditioned stimulus is already present
Q. What’s an example of “blocking” in classical conditioning?
A. If you condition the association between tone and food, then you pair a light and tone with food, the light won’t become a conditioned stimulus for salivation.
Q. What is “latent inhibition” in classical conditioning?
A. A familiar stimulus is harder to condition than a novel stimulus.
Q. What’s an example of “latent inhibition” in classical conditioning?
A. If you expose a dog to a bell many times, that makes it much harder to condition the bell to produce salivation with food.