Classical conditioning refers to a simple, basic form of learning in which the learner comes to associate two things (“Stimulus 1”, and “Stimulus 2”) together simply because they have occurred together in time. The learner then reacts to the second in a similar way as the first stimulus. For example, your romantic partner always uses the same shampoo. Soon, the smell of that shampoo makes you feel happy. The door to your house squeaks loudly when you open it. Soon, your dog begins wagging its tail when the door squeaks. The classic study on classical conditioning was done by the Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov. He had not set out to study learning. For several years he had been studying salivary glands, work for which he received the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. During his study of salivary glands he noted that dogs produced saliva when meat was put in front of them. If a bell was rung just before the meat was presented, the dogs formed an association between the sound of the bell and the meat, and then began to salivate at the sound of the bell. That demonstrates basic classical conditioning (also called Pavlovian conditioning). The dog salivated to the meat naturally, with no learning involved. So Pavlov called the meat the “unconditioned stimulus” which caused the dog to salivate in response. He called the production of saliva the “unconditioned response” as no learning was required for this response to occur. But when the dog salivated to the sound of the bell, it was the result of learning, as it only started to happen as the dog came to associate the bell with the meat. We have learned many things through classical conditioning, although it is a simple type of learning. Earthworms have been conditioned to squiggle away from rose oil after the rose oil has been associated with butanol.

Discuss your experience with Classical Conditioning. Do you do anything that would require conditioning as a learning experience?