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.

Pavlov's dogs

The most famous example of conditioning involves the development of conditional salivary responses in Pavlov's dogs. If a tone was reliably sounded before the dogs were fed, the dogs would eventually start salivating when they heard the tone, even if no food was present. The dog's responses (salivation) to the tone are said to be conditional upon the dogs' experience with the pairings of the tone and food. Dogs that have not experienced this condition do not salivate when they hear tones. Pavlov's dogs are therefore said to have been conditioned. Their reactions to the tone have been changed through experience.

Related Topics:
Saliva - Dog

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