Classical conditioning

Classical conditioning is learning in which a previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response after repeated pairing with a stimulus that already elicits it.

Unconditioned stimulus: A stimulus that elicits a response without prior learning. It elicits the initial response that makes a pairing with a neutral stimulus possible.
Pavlov's dogs: Dogs in Ivan Pavlov's experiments that learned to salivate in response to signals paired with food. Their salivation experiments made stimulus pairing a clear, measurable example.
Associative learning: Learning that two events or stimuli are related through repeated experience. Classical conditioning is one form of learning relations between events.
Ivan Pavlov: A Russian physiologist whose research on digestion led to systematic studies of conditioned reflexes. His laboratory established the experimental methods associated with classical conditioning.
Exposure therapy: A psychological treatment that reduces fear by repeatedly confronting feared cues without the expected harm. It uses repeated cue exposure to weaken learned fear responses.
Conditioned stimulus: A formerly neutral stimulus that elicits a learned response after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus. It is the formerly neutral cue whose predictive relation to the unconditioned stimulus is learned.
Little Albert experiment: A 1920 study in which John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned fear in an infant using a loud noise. The study applied conditioning to an emotional response rather than salivation.
Operant conditioning: Learning in which behavior changes according to its consequences, such as rewards or punishments. It centers on consequences of actions, unlike conditioning between stimuli.
John B. Watson: An American psychologist who helped establish behaviorism and studied learned emotional responses. He brought conditioning into behaviorist accounts of human behavior.
Systematic desensitization: A behavioral treatment that pairs gradual exposure to feared stimuli with relaxation training. It applies competing responses and graded exposure to conditioned anxiety.

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