Learning: Classical Conditioning - General Psychology, CCSU, Dr. Conway |
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Classical Conditioning is when a stimulus aquires the ability to cause a response that was previously caused by another stimulus. This learning process essentially allows us to predict what is going to happen. Ivan Pavlov is credited with discovering classical conditioning processes with his famous dogs. He repeatedly rang a bell, a "neutral" stimulus that did not cause a response, and then presented the dogs with meat powder, which caused the response of salivation without any learning. Eventually the dogs began to respond (salivate) at the sound of the bell. In other words, the dogs had learned to predict that the sound of the bell would be followed by presentation of the meat powder. Click "Next" to see a photograph of Pavlov himself along with one of his dogs. |
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