Conditioning

:This article is about the psychological term. Conditioning is also an engineering term for putting something (for example, a communications link) into a particular condition. It is also a math term; the conditioning of a matrix is expressed by its condition number. Conditioning is also a term used in athletics for exercises designed to improve one's general fitness.

Classical conditioning

See also: Classical conditioning

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Classical conditioning--also called "Pavlovian conditioning" or "respondent conditioning"--involves learning about the association of two or more (usually external) stimuli. Classical conditioning is generally associated with Ivan Pavlov. When two things generally occur together, encountering one can bring the other to mind (c.f., Aristotle's law of contiguity). Thus, when Pavlov's dog hears the tone, salivation and other food-related responses occur because the tone and food commonly occurred together. These terms were chosen to reflect that no experience or conditions were needed for this stimulus-response relationship to occur. The food and salivation were part of an unconditional reflex.

Related Topics:
Pavlov - Respondent conditioning - Stimuli - Aristotle - Stimulus-response - Unconditional reflex

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:The tone, however, initially elicited no food-related responses, and was therefore termed a neutral stimulus (abbreviated NS). After the dog experienced the pairings of the tone and food, however, the effects of the tone were changed. The previously neutral tone began to elicit salivation. The newly conditioned tone, therefore, was called a conditional stimulus (abbreviated CS) because its effects on food-related responses were conditional upon the dog's experiences. The salivation elicited by the tone, also conditional upon the dog's experience, was called a conditioned (or conditional) response (abbreviated CR). After conditioning, the tone and salivation were part of a conditional reflex.

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:Extinction of a conditional reflex occurs when the conditional stimulus is repeatedly presented in the absence of the unconditional stimulus. Food-related responses to conditional stimulus generally cease over the course of extinction.

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:Classical conditioning is involved in a number of important phenomena, like taste aversions, phobias, sexual fetishes, immune function, drug tolerance, and drug overdose.

Related Topics:
Taste aversion - Phobia - Sexual fetish - Immune function - Drug tolerance - Overdose

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