Classical Conditioning

learning_notes

Last updated: 8/16/2025

Behavioral psychology: focused on observable behaviors, not mental processes

Association/Acquisition

  • Before: US -> UR, NS -> no UR;
  • US = unconditioned stimulus (meat), UR = unconditioned response (salivation), NS = neutral stimulus (bell)
  • Pairing: NS + US = UR
  • Paired/Acquired: CS -> CR
  • CS = conditioned stimulus (bell), CR = conditioned response (salivation)
  • Ivan Pavlov: dog salivation, classical conditioning
  • Generalization: respond to similar things to CS (after learning to fear rat, also fear other animals)
  • Discrimination: learns to differentiate similar things (learn to only respond to red circle, not to red squares)
  • Higher-order Learning: conditioning upon acquired conditiong (use acquired bell (CS) to let dogs learn to salivate to music)
  • Extinction: CS repeatedly presented without US, CR no longer happens (unpaired)
  • Spontaneous Recovery: after extinction, sometimes NS makes UR appear again (for no reason)

Counterconditioning: a behavioral therapy that replaces existing associations with new ones

Aversive Conditioning: learn to disgust a stimulus (classical) or reinforcer (operant)

  • Taste Aversion: learning to disgust a taste
  • Biological Preparedness: some conditioning are easier to occur because of biological preparedness, e.g. Garcia Effect illustrates the biological preparedness for taste aversion

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