Classical conditioning is a form of learning that occurs when an organism begins to associate two different stimuli. This type of associative learning was first introduced by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov and is now used in many different areas ranging from psychology to neurology (Ahmed, 2021). Classical conditioning can be broken down into four main components: Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS), Unconditioned Response (UCR), Conditioned Stimulus (CS), and Conditioned Response (CR).
The UCS is the original stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response without being paired with any other stimuli before it. An example of this would be food creating salivation in a dog. The UCR is the natural, reflexive reaction to the UCS, such as salivating. A CS is then presented along with the UCS and after enough repetitions, will become associated with the UCS so much so that once it has been conditioned, it alone can elicit a response similar to that which was previously only attainable through a pairing of both stimuli. An example of this would be if you rang a bell every time you gave your dog food; eventually hearing just the bell ringing could cause them to salivate even though there was no food present at all. Lastly there’s CR which stands for Conditioned Response and refers to how an organism responds after it has gone through classic conditioning process; In our previous example, this would mean that when your dog hears just the sound of a bell ringing they begin to salivate like they do when offered food even though no food was presented at all.
In addressing classical conditioning: Identify UCS, UCR, NS, CS, and CR, discuss any stimulus generalization that you observed, discuss any extinction and spontaneous that occurred.
Stimulus generalization occurs when an individual or animal develops responses or behaviors due to certain conditions or events and extends those same responses beyond what had originally been conditioned for them (Smith & Jones 2021). For instance lets say you have trained your pet dog by using classical conditioning techniques where each time he performs a certain behavior correctly he gets rewarded with his favorite treat; over time he learns that performing behind said behavior will result in him getting a treat every single time he does it correctly regardless of whether its done indoors or outdoors since thats what hes been conditioned for initially; however overtime based on stimulus generalization principles he starts responding positively whenever someone offers him treats even if hes not performed any particular behavior yet because hes come associate receiving treats with positive outcomes as well as good feelings overall as opposed o simply performing specific task beforehand like before prior conditioning took place.
Extinction refers to weakening of learned behaviors due to lack of reinforcement while spontaneous recovery refers to reappearance of already extinguished behavior after some delay following extinction (Ahmed et al., 2021). For instance imagine if you stopped offering rewards every single time your pet did something correct but instead began rewarding him only intermittently so although some desired behaviors still are reinforced occasionally their strength decreases over time compared too how strongly they were initially ingrained until eventually these behaviors were almost nonexistant; however despite going away for some amount of time these behaviors may suddenly return outta nowhere again later on even without undergoing further reinforcement sessions indicative off spontaneous recovery having occurred here